During his element-collecting, one day Itch comes into possession of a mysterious rock. With the help of his cousin Jack, his crush Lucy, and new boy at school Tim, Itch must go to great lengths to stop the rock from ending up in the hands of those with sinister plans for this new discovery.
Series one premiered on ABC Me on January 15 2020, and series two on September 17 2021.
This show provides examples of:
- Action Girl: Jack is the local Taekwondo champion, which often comes in handy.
- Adaptational Badass: Jack now does Taekwondo (and is quite good!)
- Adaptational Dye-Job: In the books the Lofte family are described as all being blonde, but in the show only Chloe has blonde hair, whereas her parents, Itch, and Jack all have dark hair.
- Adaptational Location Change: The original book is set in Cornwall, but the show is set in Western Australia.
- Adaptational Name Change: Lucy Cooke is named Lucy Cavendish in the book.
- Adapted Out: In the book, Itch has an older brother Gabriel, who is not in the show.
- Air-Vent Passageway: In series two, Tim escapes by doing this, although he would have been caught if Dr Flowerdew wasn’t distracted.
- Betrayal by Offspring: Bella is horrified when she realises what her Dad is really up to, and helps Itch and his friends by deliberately misleading him about their location.
- Bully Turned Buddy: In series one, Darcy (and Quinn) do their best to make Itch’s life miserable, but by series two they are all good friends.
- Canon Foreigner: Tim and Quinn do not appear in the original book.
- Collector of the Strange: Itch is a collector of elements from the periodic table.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: Mr Lannister
- Dark Action Girl: Bomber JoJo
- Disappeared Dad: Tim’s Dad is never mentioned.
- Dreadful Musician: Itch implies Chloe is this on the drums, but at the concert she actually plays well. When she later picks up the tuba, though…
- Eating Lunch Alone: Itch in the first episode.
- Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Mr Lannister cares about Bella, and tries to keep her away from the potential nuclear explosion.
- Evil Teacher: Dr Flowerdew, who gets one of his students sent to hospital, and later kidnaps them.
- Fingerprinting Air: Subverted. Lucy collects a partial fingerprint off a mug, but it isn’t good enough.
- Heel–Face Turn: After being one of the main antagonists in series one, Roshanna reluctantly helps out Itch and his friends once Greencorp has thrown her under the bus.
- Heroic Sacrifice: Itch plans to do this at the end of series two, but instead Dr Flowerdew is the one to sacrifice himself.
- Hero Stole My Bike: Darcy steals a golf cart to chase Mr Lannister.
- MacGuffin: Element 126
- Mad Scientist: Dr Flowerdew. He can’t even be bothered to do all the safety checks, and it doesn’t end well.
- New Transfer Student: Tim is new to the school in the second episode.
- Protagonist Title: Named after the main character Itch.
- Readings Are Off the Scale: Dr Flowerdew remarks on this in regards to the Geiger counter readings from the rock.
- Redemption Equals Death: This is what everyone thinks happened to Tim. Turned out he wasn’t so dead after all…
- Science Hero: Itch, who usually gets out of trouble by putting together some kind of chemical reaction. Also Lucy, especially in series two.
- Sequel Hook: The end of series one shows that Tim and Dr Flowerdew have survived. Series two ends with someone watching Itch through the security cameras.
- Sickly Green Glow: The radioactive rock usually just looks like a normal rock, but in the dark it glows green. It seems even brighter in series two.
- Sinister Surveillance: The final shot of series two shows that someone is watching Itch through the security cameras in the park.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Cake dies of radiation poisoning in the book, but has a miraculous recovery in the show instead.
- Unconventional Vehicle Chase: In series two, Darcy chases after Mr Lannister in a golf cart chase. He takes a shortcut by going the wrong way across the golf course and manages to cut him off.
- Vomit Chain Reaction: After Itch accidentally causes arsine gas to be released at school in the greenhouse, the whole class gets sick and all throw up.
- When You Coming Home, Dad?: Itch’s dad Nick isn’t around a lot at the start of series one, which Itch isn’t happy about although he turns up at the end of the when Itch needs his help. By series two he’s absent again, but this time no one even mentions him.
