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In Review: The Tripods: All For Nothing? by Chris Jones

By downthetubes Guests on October 3, 2024

Review by Andrew Pixley

The Book: From scripting to storyboards, casting to costumes and visual effects, this beautifully produced publication, 20 years in development, is a love letter to a golden age of British television production. Even the most passionate of Tripods fans will be surprised as extraordinary behind the scenes stories, facts and imagery that’s never been seen before are revealed…

In Review: The Tripods: All For Nothing? by Chris Jones (Graphetti, 2024)

Review by Andrew Pixley

Every so often, a book about a TV show comes along that’s a real delight because its heart is so in the right place.

This is such a volume.

I mean, it’s a treat. As in “an item that is out of the ordinary and gives great pleasure”. Chris Jones’ The Tripods: All For Nothing? is just that. It’s lavish – but not over-tooled. It’s extremely specialist and priced accordingly, so it’s not a casual purchase like a check-out afterthought. As such, two counts as “out of the ordinary”. And it certainly bestows “great pleasure”.

Broadcast in 1984 and 1985, The Tripods was a rather ill-fated BBC co-production venture – a proposed three serial narrative aimed at a family audience, adapted from the 1960s dystopian trilogy of what would now be seen as ‘Young Adult” novels written by Sam Youd under his SF-orientated pen-name, John Christopher. Set in a future where humanity has reverted to a middle ages style existence, Earth is now dominated by vast mechanical tripod machines that stride the countryside and ensure that teenagers entering adulthood are “capped” – given cranial implants that affect their creativity and free will.

The White Mountains was first published by Macmillan in 1967, followed the same year by The City of Gold and Lead. The final part of the trilogy of novels, The Pool of Fire, followed in 1968. More recently, Aladdin Paperbacks released a box set of the series in 2014, still readily available, which includes the prequel story, published in 1988, When the Tripods Came.

The original "Tripods" trilogy, as published in 1967 and 1968 — *The original “Tripods” trilogy, as published in 1967 and 1968*

The novels commence when two English youngers – Will and Henry – determine that they will not be capped and set off an odyssey across Europe to find a group known as ‘the Free Men’. The second volume sees the Free Men organising a method of infiltrating one of the vast, technically advanced cities in which dwell the aliens that control the tripods. The third tome then saw them using this knowledge to retake the Earth.

Unfortunately, the BBC’s interest in the adaptations waned after two-third of the adventure.

*A Tripods location outtake: a scene from Series 1, episode 7. Saltwood Castle, Kent. Appearing as Le Chateau Ricordeau, France*

The Tripods: All For Nothing? is beautiful – a quick glance tells you that. It’s presented in a very visual manner with bold big photographic images, a wide range of illustrative material embracing everything from storyboards to continuity polaroids, and some extremely effective graphs that use data to tell a story clearly and concisely in a vastly superior manner to a lumpen set of wordy paragraphs.

But it’s not overdone. It’s allowing itself space to breathe – but it’s clearly selective. It wanted to show the series – and all the people associated with it – at their very best. While the author has clearly spent many, many years of their life transcribing interviews, visiting archives, travelling to locations and tracking down creatives, they themselves take a back seat and simply use their skill with words and images to keep the concept and those who developed it in different media centre-stage. While there’s a lot of shots of designs and book covers and memos and props and merchandise – it’s all packaged in a clear, clean, uncluttered yet engaging presentation.

For somebody who likes to understand how a television series is made, the hard information is all there. There’s pages of script revealing narrative and dialogue deleted from the finished programmes, and also conveying differences in adapter’s perception. The production dates at all the different locations are clearly delineated, recapturing the mood of the various locales visited by Will, Henry and their acquaintances Beanpole and Fritz.

But it’s the oral history that delivers so massively. The author has clearly gone to great efforts to speak to or access interviews with dozens of people involved in the series and the books from so many different angles. And their words are presented in a transparent manner – as if the subjects are speaking directly to the reader.

What makes the recollections particularly enjoyable is that many of those involved were comparatively young at the time that they were engaged on the show – fresh out of drama school or on their first jobs in the industry. As such, they themselves were young adults, still working out who they wanted to be and what they were about in life, while their senses were at their peak, drinking in all the new and exciting challenges of TV production, burning them into their memories, and now four decades later recalling them vividly and evocatively with the reader.

Another element that leaves the reader in no doubt is the scale of production of this series. It was massively ambitious – and the young new talents were aiming to build things on a scale that had never been attempted by a TV show before and pushing new technology entering the industry to its limits. The series aimed very high.

Ultimately, although it’s the concepts in terms of the books and the television series that form the core of the work, what draws you and hold you is the wonderfully related oral history about people working together. I mean, it’s super having all the dates and places and ratings and lists and so on and so on, and learning how the TV version was originally placed with Southern Television and not the BBC at all… but it’s when you read about actors Barbara Wilshere and Paul Ridley and their story that you sort of go: “Ah! This is the sort of thing where the book’s heart and soul really lives.”

The work feels fresh. While the series and novels have had their wonderful supporters across the years, from the League of Freemen to the Tripodcast, this is the first notable work to bring together all the words and all the pictures in such a potent mix – setting it aside from volumes that simply repackage and re-edit. The result is a work that will always enhance our enjoyment of the series itself.

There’s no doubt at all that, as a television series, The Tripods was deeply unlucky to be cancelled with one third of its story untold. But it’s now extremely lucky to have its story celebrated by one the very best volumes ever devoted to a TV series.

Andrew Pixley

Andrew Pixley is a retired data developer. For the last 30 years he’s written about almost anything to do with television if people will pay him – and occasionally when they won’t. In addition to his work for various publishers, he is a regular contributor to CST Online

• The Tripods: All For Nothing? by Chris Jones, published by Graphetti | ISBN: 978-1909608528 | Available from a number of outlets, including AmazonUK (Affiliate Link); Bookshop.org (Affiliate Link); Browns Books; Shakespeare and Company; The Nile; and WH Smith

• Tripods: The Complete Series 1 & 2 DVD (Amazon UK Affiliate Link)

The Books

The Tripods Collection - Boxed Set by John Christopher (Aladdin, 2014)

• The Tripods Collection – Boxed Set by John Christopher (AmazonUK Affiliate Link)

The Tripods’ rule is complete: the classic alien trilogy and its prequel are now available in a collectible paperback boxed set.

In Will’s world, everything is controlled by the Tripods — huge, three-legged machines that descended upon Earth long ago.

Most people…

• The White Mountains – Book #1 of The Tripods
ISBN13: 978-1481414777

Will Parker never dreamed he would be the one to rebel against the Tripods. With the approach of his thirteenth birthday, he expected to attend his Capping ceremony as planned and to become connected to the Tripods—huge three-legged machines—that now control all of Earth. But after an encounter with a strange homeless man called Beanpole, Will sets out for the White Mountains, where people are said to be free from the control of the Tripods.

But even with the help of Beanpole and his friends, the journey is long and hard. And with the Tripods hunting for anyone who tries to break free, Will must reach the White Mountains fast. But the longer he’s away from his home, the more the Tripods look for him…and no one can hide from the monstrous machines forever.

• The City of Gold and Lead – Book #2 of The Tripods
ISBN13: 978-1481414753

When Will and his friends arrived at the White Mountains, they thought everything would be okay. They’d found a safe haven where the mechanical monsters called Tripods could not find them. But once there, they wonder about the world around them and how they are faring against the machines.

In order to save everyone else, Will and his friends want to take down the Tripods once and for all. That means journeying to the Tripod capital: the City of Gold and Lead.

Although the journey will be difficult, the real danger comes once Will is inside the city, where Tripods roam freely and humans are even more enslaved than they are on the outside. Without anyone to help him, Will must learn the secrets of the Tripods — and how to take them down — before they figure out that he’s a spy…and he can only pretend to be brainwashed for so long.

• The Pool of Fire – Book #3 of The Tripods
ISBN13: 978-1481414791

After being held captive in the City of Gold and Lead — the capital, where the creatures that control the mechanical, monstrous Tripods live — Will believes that he’s learned everything he needs to know to destroy them. He has discovered the source of their power, and with this new knowledge, Will and his friends plan to return to the City of Gold and Lead to take down the Masters once and for all.

Although Will and his friends have planned everything down to the minute, the Masters still have surprises in store. And with the Masters’ plan to destroy Earth completely, Will may have just started the war that will end it all.