The Slaves of Jedikiah

The Slaves of Jedikiah
Episode Information
Series	Original Series
Season #	1
Episode #	1
Number of Parts	5
Original Airdate(s)	30 April 1973 - 4 June 1973
Writer(s)	Roger Price, Brian Finch
Director	Paul Bernard
Next	"The Medusa Strain"

"The Slaves of Jedikiah" was the premiere episode of the British television series The Tomorrow People.

This episode introduced the concept of the Tomorrow People, a group of telepathic teens that represented Homo superior (the next stage of human evolution). The story dealt with the emerging telepathic powers of schoolboy Stephen Jameson, and his kidnapping by a mysterious figure known as Jedikiah.

Plot Summary

Part 1

Stephen, a new Tomorrow Person, is about to break out, but before the existing Tomorrow People can get to him to help him through the process, Stephen is taken to the hospital. Although Carol is able to reach the new member of Homo superior and explain to him what is happening to him, Stephen is soon abducted by Ginge and Lefty, a pair of scruffy bikers in the employ of Jedikiah.

Part 2

John, Carol and Kenny rescue Stephen and take him to The Lab, their headquarters located in an unused part of the London Underground. He is introduced to TIM, a sentient computer. But unknown to the others, Jedikiah still has control over Stephen, and makes him deactivate TIM and the Lab's defenses. Ginge, Lefty and Jedikiah enter The Lab.

Part 3

Jedikiah traps Carol and John in hyperspace.

Part 4

Kenny manages to reactivate TIM. Jedikiah begins to break into The Lab, so Kenny jaunts outside to try and stop him. Ginge stuns Kenny, while TIM brings John and Carol back. Jedikiah enters The Lab and stuns Stephen, Carol and John. Jedikiah, Ginge and Lefty depart, taking Kenny with them back to the house.

John and Carol remove the silencer band from Stephen, then the three of them use the link table to recover Stephen's recent memories.

Jedikiah places a time bomb in a special room of the house, then transports Ginge, Lefty and Kenny up to the Cyclops's spacecship. John, Carol and Stephen arrive shortly thereafter and search the house, finding it empty. They jaunt back to The Lab just as the bomb explodes.

Part 5

The Cyclops transmits the coordinates of his spaceship to the Tomorrow People, telling them to come if they want to see Kenny again. John, Carol and Stephen put on AE suits, but TIM only jaunts John and Stephen. They arrive on the ship but are trapped in a force field. TIM jaunts Carol to a different part of the ship; she encounters Jedikiah in his robot form and stuns him. Jedikiah falls into some machinery and causes the ship to malfunction; this allows John and Stephen to escape the force field. They meet up with Carol in a corridor while a damanged Jedikiah runs amok.

The three of them free Kenny, Ginge and Lefty, then enter the control room. They confront the Cyclops, who tells them that his crew of telepaths were killed while in hyperspace, leaving him with only the Jedikiah robot. Upon entering Earth's solar system, the ship was damaged by meteors. The Cyclops says that his ship can only be piloted by telepaths, which is why he had Stephen kidnapped.

Jedikiah's rampage causes the ships sytems to fail, and atmosphere to leak out of the control room. Stephen repairs the matter transmitter room and teleports Ginge, Lefty and Kenny back to Earth. John puts a matter transporter band onto the Cyclops, allowing TIM to jaunt the alien to safety on a passing starship. The Cyclops's ship exploded, stranding Jedikiah in space.

John, Carol and Stephen return to The Lab and are joined by a soaking wet Kenny, Ginge and Lefty, who had landed in a stagnant pond. The group shares a laugh over this.

Reviews

In a 2013 retrospective article for Digital Spy, Morgan Jeffery wrote: "[E]pisode one of 'Slaves of Jedikiah' suffers from a common pitfall of shows with a young cast - performances veering from the solid to the cringeworthy. Still, these flaws aside, The Tomorrow People's first installment actually holds up rather well - at barely 25 minutes in length, the episode rattles along and you find yourself drawn into the dangerous world of John, Carol, Kenny and Stephen."

Guest Cast

• Cyclops - Robert Bridges
• Mrs. Jameson - Patricia Denys
• Dr.Stewart - Neville Barber