4 out of 5

Director: Marilyn Fox

Shot with the same kind of austere unflashiness as the classic The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe kids UK series – the kind of look and feel that definitely marks it as non-American – this early ’90s mini-series is also based on some kids books, but unlike the Wardrobe, leans more toward a feeling of dread than fantasy.  It’s made me purchase the book, whereas Wardrobe would’ve steered me away from doing so had they not been on my brother’s shelf with such nifty looking covers.

The show hovers just in a range of turning you away – our primary characters speak with a sort of wonder that verges on cheesiness, and the reverence the show has for its topic teeters just at the precipe of eye-rolling bombast… but that’s hovering is part of what makes this a unique experience, from the cold openings to the slam of the title card to the really open and creepy presentation of the subject matter…  Which is what, exactly?  And hence why the series loses a notch on its belt, because as interesting as these elements are, even over 5 short episodes it’s easy to lose track of what happened in episode one and two because we seem to shift gears pretty drastically, and there’s the sense that themes that are more easily strung together in the book (maybe?  we’ll find out?) suffer a bit in the struggle to present this all episodically.

Present what, exactly?  Two boys hear a drumming coming from a rock… and then moments later a drummer boy from ages past emerges.  He leaves behind a candle, the flame of which never goes out before disappearing… back to where?  And why does this flame now obsess one of the boys?  The first episode seems to find a nice groove of trying to get the drummer boy to adjust to this wild, modern world, but author William Mayne’s story is not content to stick with one thing for chuckles… there’s a greater agenda here of somehow bringing the story of King Arthur into modern times… but how that ties into giants and moving rocks is grandly disconnected as the show moves along.  Sound weird?  It totally is.  And it doesn’t try to hard to explain it, nor does it go for sweet moral kid lessons.  This is pretty heavy material that only seems aimed at youths in the sense that two boys are at the center of the story.

I can’t tell you if I gained anything upon viewing, but I can say that I was incredibly interested, if wondering what it was all about.  Shot well, acted well, and a good application of effects at the time to show some really large ideas, Earthfasts is a totally unique little relic.