History Series / ChildhoodsEnd

* ForcedPerspective: Karellen is big, and CreatorCharlesDance is not ''as'' big. Hence this is used in some shots like when Ricky is talking to Karellan in the barn. When Karellen is in a scene rarely do you see him interacting with the people around him.

* ApocalypseAnarchy: Given that Milo saw skeletons out in the open during his final time on Earth, it's likely that people didn't exactly take the message that they are doomed to extinction very well.

* MythologyGag: In the original short story and novel, Karellen dislikes the idea that human artists are depicting him as a centipede, preferring the equally-baseless theory that he's a robot. In the series, it's the other way around.

* MagicAntidote: Karellan gives one to Ricky to cure the debilitating illness that will eventually kill him. [[Spoiler: Ricky ends up using it not on himself, but to save Karellan's life after Peretta shoots him with a shotgun.]]

* MagicAntidote: Karellan gives one to Ricky to cure the debilitating illness that will eventually kill him. Ricky ends up using it not on himself, but to save Karellan's life after Peretta shoots him with a shotgun.

* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: For their first communication, the Overlords use projections of dead loved ones to explain their intentions.

* WatchTheWorldDie: Milo's final fate. Though Karellen is watching and listening to comfort him.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[CoversAlwaysLie Actually, Ricky never stands on his tractor with a gun.]]]]'''''Childhood's End''''' is three-episode series on Creator/SciFiChannel and based on [[Literature/ChildhoodsEnd the novel of the same name]] by Creator/ArthurCClarke, originally published in 1953 and based off of a 1950 short story of his. The plot concerns the BenevolentAlienInvasion of an alien race called the Overlords. After stopping war and establishing a world government, they start to maintain peace on Earth, but refuse to show any images of themselves. Humanity enters a golden age.

[[caption-width-right:350:[[CoversAlwaysLie Actually, Ricky never stands on his tractor with a gun.]]]] '''Childhood's End''' is three-episode series on Creator/SciFiChannel and based on [[Literature/ChildhoodsEnd the novel of the same name]] by Creator/ArthurCClarke, originally published in 1953 and based off of a 1950 short story of his. The plot concerns the BenevolentAlienInvasion of an alien race called the Overlords. After stopping war and establishing a world government, they start to maintain peace on Earth, but refuse to show any images of themselves. Humanity enters a golden age.

** As Ricky has phone trouble, a crop duster behind him slows and is lightly placed in the cornfield. We never see if the pilot (who was obviously dusting crops for Ricky) came over to Ricky or Ricky went over to him.

* MythologyGag: In the original short story and novel, Karellan dislikes the idea that human artists are depicting him as a centipede, preferring the equally-baseless theory that he's a robot. In the series, it's the other way around.

* AFormYouAreComfortableWith: For their first communication, the Overlords use projections of dead loved ones to explain their intentions.
* BatmanGambit: In order to neutralize the Freedom League, Karellen allows his ambassador to be captured by them while covertly recording him, knowing they'll expose their true intentions and kill any support they might have. It goes off without a hitch.

* DrivenToSuicide: Peretta says her mother was a devout Christian, but killed herself after the Overlords came (presumably as they provided the things which religion failed to). Wainwright is also found hanged in his office, apparently a suicide, when his Freedom League collapses.

* ForegoneConclusion / HowWeGotHere: The series begins with an older Milo Rodricks, the last living human on Earth, speaking with an Overlord probe just before he's about to die. The next six hours are a flashback to what led to the extinction of humanity.

* LaResistance: The Freedom League style themselves as this against the Overlords, distrusting their plans, but prove themselves quite ruthless and discredited after being recorded trying to kill Ricky. Shortly after the movement collapses.
* MagicAntidote: Karellan gives one to Ricky to cure the debilitating illness that will eventually kill him. Ricky ends up using it not on himself, but to save Karellan's life.
* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: It's made clear that with the coming of the Overlords, religion has faded away for most people, as all the things religions once sought to provide now have been (aside from immortality). Karellen doesn't actually demean it, saying Peretta's faith is "beautiful, like poetry", though telling her that not every religion can be right. The idea that it's wrong is too much for her, though, so like her mother she kills herself. Prior to this, we had seen her church already only drew a dozen or so people to mass on Sunday.

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: As Ricky has phone trouble, a crop duster behind him slows and is lightly placed in the cornfield. We never see if the pilot (who was obviously dusting crops for Ricky) came over to Ricky or Ricky went over to him.

* RemovedFromThePicture: When the Overlords use Milo's father, he disappears from the photograph.