In Collection
#187
Seen It:
Yes
Fantasy, Science Fiction
USA / English
A group of teenagers go to a school camp in the Blue Mountains in Australia. While at the camp, Paul Reynolds accidentally moves through a doorway between our universe and a parallel universe. This other world is inhabited by a more hierarchic and technologically different society, ruled by a group of people known as Spellbinders. Paul meets a girl there named Riana, and they become friends.
The Spellbinders have discovered the power to create and manipulate static electricity. They fly in gigantic copper-coloured machines that utilise large rotating orange crystals, presumably creating some form of magnetic levitation. The Spellbinders often use their power for good, but some abuse this power and use their discoveries for malevolence. One such malevolent Spellbinder is Ashka, but she often gets away without her true nature being discovered. Common people are often "banished" for their misdeeds, and sometimes spellbinders are banished, also, if they are proven to have done wrong.
There is tension from Paul's forays into the land of the Spellbinders and his attempts to return to his own universe, and also from conversations Paul has with his friends across the barrier between the two universes. Paul's and Riana's escapes also add tension, as do the interactions between Spellbinders. Paul is eventually able to travel back to our universe, but he is forced to take Riana with him in order to save her. Later, when Paul is able to take Riana back to her universe, the Spellbinder Ashka follows Paul into our universe as he later returns home. Ashka seeks the unwitting help of Paul's father in making her a new 'flying suit' to replace her Spellbinder suit, which had been taken from her before she entered into our universe and after Paul had successfully removed a stolen power suit from her on her last visit.
However, in the end Paul manages to expose her scheme and defeat Ashka, who is returned as an outcast to the Spellbinder world, while Riana becomes the new apprentice to Correon. In order to keep the Spellbinder world safe from the more advanced people from our world, the gateway between the two universes is closed permanently.
| Region |
Region 2 |
| Release Date |
1995 |
| No. of Disks/Tapes |
1 |
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Spellbinder (Polish: Dwa swiaty (Two worlds)) is a sci-fi television series, produced by Film Australia & Telewizja Polska in association with the Australian Children's Television Foundation.
The series is a 1995 serial of 26 episodes, co-produced between Australia and Poland.
An interesting note is that the people from Riana's world speak in an Eastern European accent, with their names sounding like names from that geographical area. This is because most of the scenes from the alternate universe were in fact filmed on location in Poland and featured Polish actors.
Spellbinder is followed by a sequel television series, Spellbinder 2: Land of the Dragon Lord, in which Heather Mitchell reprises her role as "Ashka".