Children of the Stones is a British cult favorite, a science fiction children’s television series filmed on location at Avebury, England, with its stone circle that predates Stonehenge. Combining ancient Druidic rites, brain-washing, the ouroboros, psychic phenomena, black holes, and time bubbles – not to mention a creepy soundtrack of moaning, wailing human voices - this little series is as eerie now as it was when it aired in the 1970s.
Episode 1, “Into Circle,” introduces us to Adam (Gareth Thomas) and Matthew Brake, astrophysicist father and his teenage son, who have come to the village of Milbury to research its megalithic standing stones. They quickly notice that something isn’t quite right with the villagers: everyone in Milbury is slightly strange, like very happy pod people. Everyone, that is, except the few other folk who are also new to the village, including Margaret Smythe, the curator of the village museum, and her daughter Sandra, who befriend the Brakes.
In episode 2, “Circle of Fear,” after touching one of the standing stones and getting a huge shock that knocks him unconscious, Adam is intrigued by what he thinks is “residual magnetism” in the stones. Margaret thinks the force is more psychic in nature, however, and shows Adam the research she’s done on the ley lines that intersect at Milbury. Meanwhile, Matt has met the resident nutter, a poacher named Dai, who tells him that no one leaves the circle – until they’re dead. Later that night, Matt sees all the villagers, the Happy Ones, chanting around the Hendrick manor house in the center of the stone circle.
In “Serpent in the Circle” (episode 3), Matt and Sandra debate being “normal” versus one of the Happy Ones after one of their formerly Normal classmates has a Happy breakthrough. Crazy Dai finds a stone amulet with a serpent on it, like the carvings on many of the standing stones. Adam learns that centuries ago, a resident of Milbury witnessed a supernova in the night sky.
“Narrowing Circle” (episode 4) starts with Adam, Matt, Margaret, Sandra and another father and son pair, the last of the Normals, being concerned about their decreasing numbers. Adam and Margaret each get an invitation to dinner at the manor house by its owner, the creepy Hendrick. Dai rolls the bones and gets a very bad omen. Later, the father and son show up brainwashed like the rest of the village, and Dai takes a deadly fall.
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