The Sparticle Mystery is a returning British science fiction television series written and created by Alison Hume and produced by Sparticles Productions [1] for CBBC. The series follows a group of ten children within modern Britain, where an experiment at a Large Hadron Collider-like facility, named the Sparticle Project, goes wrong, sending all persons aged 15 and over into a parallel dimension at exactly 11:11am. The children travel to the Sparticle Project in attempt to bring back the adults and re-align the two dimensions. The series, which had a budget of £3 million, was filmed in and around Bristol,^[1] with the final episode filmed at the ISIS neutron source particle accelerators, near Didcot.

The programme, which stars Annette Badland as Doomsday Dora, has similar themes to both Lord of the Flies and the Gone series, and has many similarities to The Tribe.

A second series of The Sparticle Mystery was filmed in Yorkshire July- September 2012 for broadcast in 2013.^[2]

Synopsis

The Sparticle Mystery follows a group of ten children left to fend for themselves within modern day earth after a science experiment at 'The Sparticle Project' goes wrong, resulting in all those of age 15 and over disappearing into a parallel universe, at precisely 11:11am.

Initially, the world becomes their exciting playground. With adults' rules, law and order all removed, the youngsters have great fun fulfilling many wishes, including raiding sweetshops etc. However, as the world's resources start to dwindle and daily survival gets harder, the youngsters resolve to bring the adults back by venturing to the top secret 'Sparticle Project'. They are aided in their quest by a number of clues left before the disappearance by a woman named 'Doomsday' Dora, a scientist who worked on the Sparticle Project. Along the way they have many adventures and learn important life skills.

Early in episode one we discover that in this 'post-disappearance' world, opportunistic gangs soon come to inhabit the streets. This prompts the lead male character Sadiq to usher his newly-formed tribe to safety in the City Hotel. After discovering her Mum and older sister missing, a scientifically minded young girl called Kat takes charge of Liam, the small boy next door. They too try to gain entry to the City Hotel, but only Liam gets in, leaving Kat to initially fend for herself, before Sadiq caves in and allows her entry. One of the tribe, a young girl called Reese, soon starts to experience strange events, which eventually turn out to be the manifestation of her own latent psychic powers.

Kat and Reese quickly deduce that the Sparticle Project is behind the adults' disappearance. The 'Sparticles' tribe then split in two: the 'Ranchers', Tia and Jeffrey (who has Cerebral Palsy), who stay at City Hotel with the two younger kids, Liam and Frankie, and the 'Questers', (Sadiq, Kat, Jordan, Ami, Holly and Reese), who go in search of the Sparticle Project. Also featured is Callum, a tough streetwise young teen, whom at first appears to be the Sparticles' enemy.

Episode List

Series 1:2011

#	Title	Written By	Original air date
1	"The Disappearance"	Alison Hume	14 February 2011 (2011-02-14)
When a group of children on a school visit to some caves return to the surface, every single person over 15 has disappeared. Opportunistic gangs roam the streets as Sadiq leads his newly-formed tribe to the safety of the City Hotel. After discovering her mum and sister missing, young scientist Kat takes charge of Liam, the boy next door. They too try to gain entry to the City Hotel, but only Liam gets in, leaving Kat to fend for herself. Debut: Kat, Sadiq, Reese, Ami, Jordan, Tia, Jeffrey, Callum, Frankie, Liam
2	"The Invasion"	Alison Hume	15 February 2011 (2011-02-15)
Callum has formed a biker gang and has designs on the City Hotel as the gang's new hang out. He befriends Kat as she might be useful to his success. However, Kat is on her own mission to find out what has caused the disappearance of all the adults and encounters Reese at the City Library. Reese insists she can see the adults and feels she has found an ally in Kat. Meanwhile, inside the hotel, Holly is left wondering where her parents are. Debut: Holly
3	"The Message"	Alison Hume	16 February 2011 (2011-02-16)
Having won her place in Sadiq's gang, Kat leads a team to the University to find food. Holly is taken hostage by what appears to be the only surviving adult. Reese discovers a message from Doomsday Dora, explaining her heart theory - which also explains the curious survival of the adult who is actually - at heart - a child. The need to generate new sources of fresh food leads Sadiq to free animals from a city farm. This goes very badly until Tia discovers that the cheap perfume she wears is a magnet for the nanny goat. Debut: Doomsday Dora, Anita
4	"The Quest"	Debbie Moon	17 February 2011 (2011-02-17)
Doomsday Dora's message has warned the children they must reunite the two parallel worlds quickly or adults and children will remain separated permanently. The ticking clock has started. The children decide to choose who goes on the road to the Sparticle Project and who stays behind to look after Liam and Frankie by an 'Apprentice'-style challenge to source power for the City Hotel.
5	"The Funfair"	Alison Hume	21 February 2011 (2011-02-21)
Jordan, Holly and Ami take being kids way too far, and nearly kill themselves on a runaway waltzer, until Muna, a child caught between the parallel worlds, comes to the rescue. The lack of grid power has led to the failure of the national water supply. Fresh water becomes the latest challenge for the Ranchers, and Frankie goes native in her attempts to find and save the precious resource.
6	"The Big Freeze"	Debbie Moon	22 February 2011 (2011-02-22)
A postcode given to Reese via Psychic Sarah at the fairground leads the Questers to a simulator where scientists were trained how to run the Sparticle Project. Ami, Jordan and Holly get trapped in the room with the prototype collider's super-cooling systems running, and the temperature is plummeting towards absolute zero. At the City Hotel, a fox has been at the chickens and the children decide to trap it. This is very tricky, but when they finally track down the animal and are set to destroy it, they decide on a better course of action.
7	"The Water Rats"	Alison Hume	23 February 2011 (2011-02-23)
While the team are on their way to the Sparticle Project, Ami is captured in the woods by the Water Rats - a group who love life messing around on the river. The Water Rats are at war with the Menaces - and the Questers, persuaded by Ami, decide to help. Will Ami swap the seriousness of the Quest for a kid's life of fun and games? Jeffrey is keen to help out more, but his wheelchair needs more power. Tia and Jeffrey discover a satellite communication system which allows them to send a message into the ether, asking anyone out there for the batteries Jeffrey needs. They arrive back at the hotel to a package - it's from Anita at the university and it comes with a message.
8	"The Unsuitables"	Alison Hume	24 February 2011 (2011-02-24)
The Questers are intrigued by Head Boy Jeremy and his posh boarding school. However, they are soon locked out and Jordan has left the tribe to become a true public school believer. Camped outside the school, ex-pupils Ernesto and his rebel gang recruit the Sparticles to overthrow Jeremy's regime and rescue the Unsuitables - the 'less-than-perfects' who do the dirty work for Jeremy and his cadets. The Ranchers at the City Hotel work out how to bypass the first door at the Sparticle Project. Working with Anita at the university, they come up with an ingenious solution, but now they need to get the key to the Questers out on the road.
9	"The Harvest"	Jonny Kurzman	28 February 2011 (2011-02-28)
Jeffrey is proud of his abundant garden, but when hungry waifs turn up at the hotel, he finds himself at war. The Questers on their way to the Sparticle Project discover a bucolic village run on communal principals. Reese 'sees' Muna again and with the help of Tamsin, one of the village kids, Kat figures out that the wormhole events are occurring at points where leylines intersect. Some of the Questers, however, have been caught red-handed stealing food and are made to stand trial in the children's court where the issue is whether stealing to survive is justified.
10	"The Fallout"	Jonny Kurzman	1 March 2011 (2011-03-01)
The Ranchers have invited a tribe of seriously idle girls into their hotel. As they take advantage, the Ranchers are forced to fight back - but who will be turfed out of their home? Holly is anxious when she realises the journey to the Sparticle Project is coming to its conclusion. She leaves her fellow Questers trapped in an underground nuclear bunker, but there is another force at work. A computer who thinks there has been a nuclear war competes against the ingenuity of the children in a battle of wits.
11	"The Hot Zone"	Jonny Kurzman	2 March 2011 (2011-03-02)
The Questers discover an alarming new threat. Without the adults, and the automatic cooling systems, the world's nuclear power plants are melting down and threaten to destroy the earth. The Questers have to get a message to the adults - but how? Callum arrives to collect the key to the Sparticle Project from the Ranchers, only to discover them homeless. Tia and Jeffrey don't trust Callum after past encounters. But the key has been lost and sold and Callum is the only hope to getting it back and to reuniting them with their friends.
12	"The Emergency"	Alison Hume	3 March 2011 (2011-03-03)
Ami lapses into a diabetic coma and the Questers rush him to hospital to find some insulin. Switching a generator on in the hospital may just have cost one baby his life. The kids running the hospital need fuel to run the generators to keep the babies alive. Aware of the ticking clock to get to the Project but desperate to put things right, the Questers undertake a dangerous mission as a solution. They have to distract a German shepherd dog who is guarding a yard full of petrol lorries. Meanwhile, it is Tia's fifteenth birthday. Will she be transported to join the adults in a parallel dimension? (Guest appearance - Eliot Otis Brown Walters as Jed)
13	"The Sparticle Project"	Alison Hume	6 March 2011 (2011-03-06)
The Questers and Ranchers are reunited at Black Tor Mine where the adults were separated from the children by the machine of the Sparticle Project. But another tribe - the Mystic Moles, who are the children of the scientists working there - won't let anyone through the doors. Callum arrives with the dictaphone. The Sparticles face a series of challenges before they get to their greatest obstacle. Although they are successful reuniting the worlds, before the reunification stabilises, Kat stops the beam to save Reese's life. This disrupts the realignment process and the two world split again. Doomsday Dora tells the Questers to travel to the Quantum Nexus (hinting a second series). Just before Kat's dad disappears, he gives her a code to shut down the world's nuclear power plants.

Series 2:2013

A second series of The Sparticle Project was announced by the BBC and will be broadcast in 2013.
New characters have been announced with auditions still taking place.
Mystic Megan from the last episode of Series 1 will probably become a regular.
Episodes will be filmed from July 23rd to September 23rd. The 1st episode will continue from where Series 1 left off. Episodes will air early 2013.

Cast and crew

The main characters within The Sparticle Mystery are all children of different ages and ethnic groups, many of whom were new to acting. Included in the main cast are: 16 year old Megan Jones (from Sylvia Youngs) as Tia; 10 year old Oliver Bell as Liam; Wesley Nelson (who has cerebral palsy, and previously starred in the film 'Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll' as Ian Dury) as Jeffrey; Karim Zeroual (also from Sylvia Youngs, and who previously starred in the West End musical 'The Lion King' as Young Simba) as Sadiq.

Given the premise of the show, the adult cast was minimal, but notable are Annette Badland as 'Doomsday' Dora, and Larissa Wilson as Anita.

Actor	Character	Profile	State
Abigail Hardingham	Kat	Kat is the daughter of Professor Henry Barker, the leading scientist on The Sparticle Project. Holds a strong relationship with Callum	Quester
Karim Zeroual	Sadiq	Sadiq is the co leader (with Kat) of 'The Sparticles'.	Quester
Wesley Nelson	Jeffrey	Jeffrey has Cerebral Palsy and is the brother of Jordan. He is one of 'The Ranchers' and stays back at the City Hotel whilst 'The Sparticles' are on their quest. Holds a strong relationship with Tia	Rancher
Megan Jones	Tia	Tia is also one of 'The Ranchers' and stays behind at the City Hotel whilst 'The Sparticles' are on their quest, and she is the only Sparticle who is 15, making her the oldest. She holds a strong relationship with Jeffery.	Rancher
Jerome Holder	Callum	At first he was an enemy but in later episodes he helps both the Ranchers and Sparticles. Holds a strong relationship with Kat.	N/A
Zachary Middleton	Ami	Ami is diabetic and is a professional gymnast. He is one of 'The Sparticles'.	Quester
Grace Mandeville	Holly	Holly has a foreshortened arm and is found in one of the City Hotel rooms. She is one of 'The Sparticles'. She is a rival to Reese but befriends her in the last episode of season one.	Quester
Emily Sanderson	Reese	Reese is blonde and she has special powers. She and Holly disagree throughout most of the series.	Quester
Iestyn Darmanin	Jordan	Jordan is the brother of Jeffrey and is one of 'The Sparticles'. He worries about his brother.	Quester
Abbie Hayes	Frankie	Frankie is Sadiq's step-sister and is one of 'The Ranchers' who stays behind at the City Hotel whilst 'The Sparticles' are on their quest. Good friends with Liam	Rancher
Oliver Bell	Liam	Liam is one of 'The Ranchers' who stays behind at the City Hotel whilst 'The Sparticles' are on their quest. Good friends with Frankie	Rancher
Annette Badland	'Doomsday' Dora		N/A
Larissa Wilson	Anita	The only adult left. She has had the heart implant of a 14-year old boy.	N/A
Theo Cowan	Radio Rebel		N/A

References

*The Sparticle Mystery*
The Sparticle Mystery
	The Sparticle Mystery title card
Genre	Children's; Sci-Fi; Drama; Teen Drama
Starring	Abigail Hardingham; Karim Zeroual; Emily Sanderson; Zachary Middleton; Iestyn Darmanin; Megan Jones; Wesley Nelson; Grace Mandeville; Jerome Holder; Abbie Hayes; Oliver Bell; Annette Badland; Larissa Wilson
Composer	Sheridan Tongue
Country of origin	United Kingdom
Original language	English
No. of series	1
No. of episodes	13
Production
Running time	28 minutes
Original release
Network	CBBC; BBC HD
Release	14 February 2011 –; present

^ "'The Sparticle Mystery, CBBC'". broadcastnow.co.uk. 2011-02-17. Retrieved 2011-02-26.
^ http://screenterrier.blogspot.com/2012/02/cbbc-returning-series.html

External links

[1] "'The Sparticle Mystery, CBBC'". broadcastnow.co.uk. 2011-02-17. Retrieved 2011-02-26.

[2] ttp://screenterrier.blogspot.com/2012/02/cbbc-returning-series.html

[1]

[2]