Century Falls is a British science-fiction television serial for children broadcast in six twenty-five minute episodes on BBC One in early 1993. Written by Russell T. Davies, it tells the story of teenager Tess Hunter and her mother, who move to the seemingly idyllic rural village of Century Falls, only to find that it hides many powerful secrets. A broadcast of the long-running and popular British science-fiction series Doctor Who. ... Serial is a term, originating in literature, for a format by which a story is told in contiguous installments in sequential issues of a single periodical publication. ... BBC One (or BBC1 as it was formerly styled) is the oldest television station in the world. ... 1993 is a common year starting on Friday of the Gregorian calendar and marked the Beginning of the International Decade to Combat Racism and Racial Discrimination (1993-2003). ... Russell T. Davies, pictured in 2003. ...

Background

Russell T. Davies had worked in the BBC Children's Department for many years, writing the science-fiction serial Dark Season for the weekday afternoon Children's BBC strand in 1991. The following year, he had left the BBC to work for Granada Television, where he was producing and writing for their children's medical drama Children's Ward. Russell T. Davies, pictured in 2003. ... Dark Season is a British science-fiction television serial for children, screened on BBC ONE in the UK in late 1991. ... CBBC (a contraction of the previously-used name Childrens BBC) is the brand for the BBCs childrens television output aimed at children over six, across BBC ONE, BBC TWO and the CBBC Channel. ... 1991 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Granada TV logo, used from 1956 to 1968. ... Childrens Ward (briefly retitled The Ward in 1995) was a British childrens television drama series produced by Granada Television and broadcast on the ITV network as part of its Childrens ITV strand on weekday afternoons. ...

The director of Dark Season, Colin Cant, had been assigned to direct another children's serial for BBC One, but had little enthusiasm for the script. Instead, he wrote to Davies asking if he could provide something else. Davies quickly wrote the first episode of Century Falls for Cant to take to his superiors, who then fully commissioned the programme. Colin Cant is a British television producer and director, best known for his work in the childrens department of BBC Television. ... BBC One (or BBC1 as it was formerly styled) is the oldest television station in the world. ...

The production was shot entirely on location around Richmond, North Yorkshire, Muker and locations around the northern Yorkshire Dales. The town of Richmond as seen from the top of the keep of Richmond Castle Richmond is an attractive Georgian market town on the river Swale in North Yorkshire. ... Village View Muker is a hamlet in Swaledale, one of the Yorkshire Dales, England. ... A village in the Yorkshire Dales The Yorkshire Dales lie in an area of high ground in North and West Yorkshire, England. ...

The serial was broadcast as part of CBBC on BBC One on Wednesday afternoons at 5.10pm from February 17 to March 24 1993. Each episode was repeated on BBC Two the Sunday morning after transmission. CBBC (a contraction of the previously-used name Childrens BBC) is the brand for the BBCs childrens television output aimed at children over six, across BBC ONE, BBC TWO and the CBBC Channel. ... BBC One (or BBC1 as it was formerly styled) is the oldest television station in the world. ... February 17 is the 48th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... March 24 is the 83rd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (84th in Leap years). ... BBC Two (or BBC2 as it was formerly styled) was the second UK television station to be aired by the BBC. // History The channel was scheduled to begin at 7:20 pm on April 20, 1964 and show an evening of light entertainment, starting with the comedy show The Alberts...

Plot

When Tess Hunter and her mother arrive in Century Falls, they gradually find it to be a strange village haunted by a disaster which befell during the performance of an occult ceremony forty years previously.

Tess befriends the only other children in the village, brother and sister Ben and Carey Naismith, and finds that Ben has strange powers which he draws from the waterfall that gives the village its name, Century Falls.

The Naismiths' uncle Richard is working with his aged father Dr Josiah Naismith to complete the unfinished 1950s ceremony using Ben's powers, hoping to raise the spirit of a mysterious God-like being, Century. They are eventually stopped by Tess's actions, aided by the local Harkness sisters, who knew the original tragedy of the 1950s events.

Cast and Crew

Russell T. Davies had already gained a good reputation as a writer of children's drama from his work on Dark Season and Children's Ward. He would go on to forge a career as one of Britain's top writers of adult television drama, although he did not write again for the BBC until he penned an episode of Linda Green, transmitted on BBC One in 2001. Russell T. Davies, pictured in 2003. ... Linda Green was a British television comedy-drama series that lasted for two seasons, screened in 2001 and 2002. ... BBC One (or BBC1 as it was formerly styled) is the oldest television station in the world. ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ...

Colin Cant had for many years been the Producer of the BBC's long-running school drama Grange Hill, and had gone on to direct several well-received children's serials before Century Falls, such as Moondial (1990) and Dark Season. Colin Cant is a British television producer and director, best known for his work in the childrens department of BBC Television. ... Grange Hill is a British childrens television drama series which is shown on BBC1. ... 1990 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Of the cast, the three teenage leads were unknown: Catherine Sanderson as Tess, Simon Fenton as Ben and Emma Jane Lavin as Carey. Simon Fenton has since gone on to appear in several well-known television dramas, such as ITV's police soap opera The Bill (in 2002) and Steven Spielberg's Band of Brothers (2001). Independent Television (ITV) is the name given to the original network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up to provide competition to the BBC. In England and Wales the channel was recently rebranded ITV1 by ITV plc who own the regional broadcasting licences for the regions. ... The current cast of The Bill The Bill is a long-running British police drama shown on ITV1. ... 2002 is a common year starting on Tuesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Steven Spielberg Steven Allan Spielberg KBE (born on December 18, 1946 in Cincinnati, Ohio but raised in the suburbs of Haddonfield, New Jersey and Scottsdale, Arizona), is a Jewish American film director and producer whose films range from science fiction to historical drama to horror. ... Poster for Band of Brothers. ... 2001: A Space Odyssey. ...

Many of the adult cast were already well-known character actors from a range of British television dramas. Bernard Kay (Richard Naismith) had appeared in episodes of many long-running British television dramas, such as Doctor Who, Crossroads, Dixon of Dock Green and Z-Cars, as well as films such as Carry On Sergeant (1958) and Doctor Zhivago (1965). Mary Wimbush (Esme Harkness) appeared in the BBC's famous adaptation of Poldark (1975) and several episodes of ITV's Jeeves and Wooster (1990-92). She is probably best known, however, as the voice of Julia Pargetter in BBC Radio 4's long-running rural soap opera The Archers. Main article: History of Doctor Who Doctor Who first appeared on BBC television on November 23, 1963. ... A crossroads (the word rarely appears in singular) is another word for road junction, where two or more roads meet (there are three or more arms). ... Dixon of Dock Green was a popular BBC television series, which ran from 1955 to 1976. ... Z-Cars (sometimes written as Z Cars, and always pronounced zed, never zee) was a British television drama series centred around the work of regular beat police officers in the fictional town of Newtown, near Liverpool, in the north-west of England. ... The Carry On films were a long-running series of British popular low-budget comedy films, directed by Gerald Thomas and produced by Peter Rogers. ... 1958 was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Doctor Zhivago (Доктор Живаго) is a novel by Boris Pasternak, which was also adapted by Robert Bolt into a 1965 epic film. ... 1965 was a common year starting on Friday (link goes to calendar). ... Poldark is a series of historical novels by Winston Graham, and a popular BBC television series of the 1970s based on the books. ... 1975 was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... Independent Television (ITV) is the name given to the original network of British commercial television broadcasters, set up to provide competition to the BBC. In England and Wales the channel was recently rebranded ITV1 by ITV plc who own the regional broadcasting licences for the regions. ... Hugh Laurie (left) and Stephen Fry portray Bertie Wooster and his valet Jeeves Jeeves and Wooster was a television series adapted from P. G. Wodehouses Jeeves stories by Clive Exton. ... 1990 is a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar. ... 1992 is a leap year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... BBC Radio 4 is a British domestic radio station which broadcasts a wide variety of chiefly spoken-word programmes including news, drama, comedy, science and history. ... The Archers is a British radio soap opera broadcast on the BBCs main national spoken-word radio channel, Radio 4. ...

External Links

• BBC Site - I Love Century Falls
• CenturyFalls.co.uk - Fan site detailing Dark Season and Century Falls