In Episode 5, “Charmed Circle,” Hendrick decides to insist on Margaret and Sandra coming to dinner to welcome them into his “happy family.” Adam, already disturbed because Dai’s body has mysteriously disappeared, is worried about them and asks them to stop by to see him and Matt after their visit to the manor house. Dinner turns out to be a very weird affair – the dining room is decorated in Druidic temple style – and afterward there are two fewer Normals in Milbury.
Episode 6 is “Squaring the Circle,” in which Adam and Matt discover the Smythes have been body-snatched into Happy Ones. They decide to leave Milbury at once but before they do, Matt breaks into the village’s locked and unconsecrated church, unable to restrain his curiosity. He finds walls of computer banks in the cellar but Hendrick catches him before he can discover much more. As the Brakes try to drive out of town, something comes over them both; they regain consciousness locked in Hendrick’s manor house. With an amazing leap of logic, Adam decides that the village is trapped out of time with the rest of the world.
In the final episode, “Full Circle,” Adam and Matt are determined to escape from Hendrick’s clutches. They confront him with their hypotheses at their own conversion dinner and are able to trick him enough to escape, wreaking havoc on all he has wrought on the villagers. When the Brakes finally drive clear of the stone circle, the time trap resets itself.
The DVD extras are slim: interviews with actor Gareth Thomas and director/producer Peter Graham Scott, looking back at Children of the Stones twenty-five years later; production notes; series trivia; and a behind-the-scenes photo gallery.
Although created as a half-hour episodic children’s television series, Children of the Stones is far too dated for today’s children; the clothes and hairstyles, so hip in 1976, will not appeal to youth weaned on Hannah Montana and the Jonas Brothers. For adult fans of Doctor Who and other classic, campy sci-fi shows, however, Children of the Stones is a fun and freaky treat. The DVD releases for the first time in North America on January 20, 2009.
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