The Tripods
The Tripods is an adaptation of John Christopher's The Tripods novel series for television. It was co-produced by the BBC in the UK and Seven Network in Australia. Ken Freeman composed the music soundtrack. The first series of The Tripods, which aired in 1984 and consisted of 13 half-hour episodes written by the renowned author of numerous radio plays, Alick Rowe, covers the first book, The White Mountains; the second series, which consists of 12 episodes, covers the second book, The City of Gold and Lead. Although a television script was developed for the third season, it was never produced. The first season of the series was published on VHS and DVD. Tripods - The Complete Series 1 & 2 was published on DVD by the BBC in March 2009. The series introduced several minor changes from the book, including the shape of the Masters and Tripods, which in the book have tentacles; the fact that the gravity inside the Golden City was artificially increased, which is not mentioned in the series; the introduction of "cognoscs," spiritual life-forms vastly superior to the Masters themselves; and the addition of additional main characters, including love interests for both Will and Beanpole. There are few female characters in the original texts. In an interview with Wordcandy, John Christopher was asked about this, and he said that, at the time he wrote the series, it was commonly understood that girls would read books with male protagonists, but not the other way around. In addition, he noted that he believed the addition of a whole family of female characters to the television series was slightly "excessive." The series is particularly famous for featuring non-humanoid aliens, a rarity at the time.
