Slim John

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Slim John was a 1969 BBC series of scifi adventure of twenty-six episodes in black and white. It involved android robots from outer space planning to take over the Earth, starting with London. They worked following the directions of an authority called Control. Slim John (Simon Williams) himself is a rebel robot who befriended a human couple, Stevie and Richard.

This series was an educational tool use to provide English lessons. It was supported by books and records as an English teaching method. The series was broadcast for years all over the world, at least in Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Cyprus. Hungary and Poland were the only Eastern Bloc countries to show this series, with enormous response, in the 1970's. Given its purpose, the series is of course much better known out of the United Kingdom. The involvement of screenwriters having a Doctor Who background, John Wiles and Brian Hayles, provided anyway a solid and entertaining story line.

Slim John, as a robot, had extraordinary strength, in a The Six Million Dollar Man way. The intrigue always revolved around the other robots trying to eliminate him and also on the fact that Slim John and the other robots have a limited amount of power available and regularly need to recharge themselves.