Australia has always had an excellent reputation in children’s television drama. Unlike works from other countries, which often tend to be heavy handed in moralising to their audience, Australia has a history of producing programming which does not talk down to its audience.
Spellbinder is a prime example. Mixing drama, adventure, science fiction and fantasy, the series was initially a co-production between Film Australia and Telewizja Polska, filmed in Sydney and Poland. The series was created by Mark Shirrefs and John Thomson, who also wrote the earlier after-school hit series, The Girl From Tomorrow.
Whilst on a school camp at the Blue Mountains, an attempted prank leads to an electrical disruption that teleports student Paul Reynolds to a parallel universe. Paul is shown the world by Riana, a resourceful girl who explains her world – a place where technology is seen as magic, and forbidden outside of the hands of the Spellbinders, authoritarian rulers who prohibit the sharing of knowledge.
A second season, subtitled Land of the Dragon Lord, was co-produced by a third company, Shanghai Film Studio, and sees another student, Kathy, pursued by the Spellbinder Ashka to yet another parallel universe, the Land of the Dragon Lord, a world with even more advanced technology.
Spellbinder (1995)
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Spellbinder: Land of the Dragon Lord (1997)
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