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Century Falls was a follow-up of sorts from the creative team behind 1991's
comic strip romp Dark Season (BBC, 1991). Writer Russell T. Davies was now at
Granada producing Children's Ward (ITV, 1989-2000), so provided the script
freelance as a last gasp replacement for a project that had fallen through.
Director Colin Cant had previously directed doom-laden supernatural serials like
Moondial (BBC, 1988) and Century Falls would be in this gothic style.
The story of an occult ceremony gone tragically wrong that has blighted a
remote village since 1953, Century Falls is an homage to the children's TV
fantasy of Davies' own fond childhood memories. Draft storylines featured
scientists researching a stone circle and leylines (a straight steal from the
1977 ITV serial Children of the Stones) but these central ideas evolved until a
waterfall became the core focus of psychic power.
Davies has openly admitted his sifting of what he refers to as archetypes,
the chief one here being "that dark, sinister English village," as he put it. "I
like taking those old, classic ideas, and reinventing them... it doesn't matter if
the story's original or not, it's how you tell it."
Davies slowly reveals events and motivations as the serial progresses so that
it genuinely builds, but what he really brings to the table are subtexts and
character notes perhaps missing from earlier examples in the genre. The fantasy
explores the frustrations of adolescence - the loneliness of the overweight and
friendless but witty Tess Hunter (Davies' portrait of his younger self?) and the
misdirected anger of latent psychic Ben Naismith.
Century Falls also warns against herd instincts and most of all is an essay
on the emptiness of not being able to have children and the pain of losing a
child. The depth of emotions explored in the serial and the complexity of the
plot strands made for an uncompromising but unpatronising story for older
children, although Davies would later reflect, "Maybe I went too adult. It could
have done with a bit more clarity and exposition."
Those struggling to keep up with the storyline could revel in Cant's
impressive visuals; flames in a waterfall, a beckoning ghost girl and 'Century'
herself, the golden masked woman who has cursed the village and appears in
visions.
Emotionally and visually powerful, this, above all of Davies' early work,
marked him out for TV greatness.
Alistair McGown
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