Series / Spellbinder

Spellbinder is an Australian-Polish sci-fi TV drama for older children (quite possibly the only show in existence to qualify for that exact description) ^note well, okay, Mission Top Secret had an episode or two shot in Poland by the same Australian crew and directors, but it was for younger audience.. It is created and written by Mark Shirrefs and John Thomson (The Girl from Tomorrow), and directed by Noel Price.

The series deals with parallel worlds, with a group of modern-day Australians accidentally crossing over. The sequel, Spellbinder: Land of the Dragon Lord, was an Australian-Polish-Chinese collaboration which featured a new cast and several new parallel worlds, but kept the villain from the previous series.

Spellbinder (1995)

Australian teenager Paul Reynolds, while trying to pull off a prank on a school camping trick, falls through a rift caused by electrical signals in 'our' Australia coinciding with those happening in the same place but in an Another Dimension. When he finds himself in a primitive feudal world, he initially assumes he's been a victim of Time Travel to medieval Europe, but then it turns out that the feudal overlords, known as Spellbinders, have flying ships and electrical 'magic'...

An interesting aspect is that all the Polish actors were used to represent people in the Spellbinders' world, meaning the difference in accent strongly identified people from one world rather than the other.

The first season covered Paul trying to get home while his friends back in Australia learned the truth and tried to convince his scientist father. While the latter plot arc was fairly formulaic (Adults Are Useless) the former was notable for its twists and turns in which one was never quite certain for a long time which of the Spellbinders Paul encountered was 'on his side' or out for their own gains.

Paul returned at the end of the first season, but brought Riana, a peasant girl from the other world who had helped him, with him and she soon became lost in modern Sydney in a Fish out of Water scenario. Meanwhile, the antagonist Spellbinder Ashka was able to follow them...

Spellbinder: Land of the Dragon Lord (1997)

The sequel series Spellbinder 2 featured a new cast and several new parallel worlds, in which only Ashka and her Dragon Gryvon reprised their roles.

The Morgan family Carl and Vicky with their children Kathy and Josh are on a camping trip when Kathy accidentally stows away in travelling scientist Mek's trans-dimensional "boat". Kathy's random dialing takes them to the Spellbinders' world, from which they escape with Ashka from a labour camp (where she was put after Series 1) back to Mek's world and home country: the China-styled Land of the Dragon Lord, ruled over by Sun, eponymous Dragon Lord and spoilt boy, supported by the Oracle, a computer-like device which among other things keeps the empire and its borders safe. From there on it deals with the families attempts to find each other and get home safe, Ashka's plots, a barbarian invasion, and stints in several other worlds while everyone tries to outwit and evade each other while fighting for control of the boat, the empire, and the Oracle.

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Reccuring tropes in both series:

• Accent Upon The Wrong Syllable: The German dub used this to distinguish the Spellbinder-world people in place of an accent.
• Action Survivor: Paul in Series 1, and pretty much everyone in Series 2.
• After the End:
  • It's eventually learned that Spellbinder Land was the victim of a nuclear war in the past, destroying most of it. It also altered the topography and weather patterns of the Australian continent. While much of the continent's interior in our world is desert, the Spellbinders' land is lush, green and much cooler. (see Poland Doubling below)
  • Also shows up in the Land of the Immortals and the world with the Molochs in the second series.
• Aliens Speaking English: Well, not aliens, but all worlds visited use English as their own language, no matter how different they are. It's extra strange since the writing by contrast is very different from our Latin alphabet. May be partially justified with at least some of the worlds, where the divergence from our history didn't happen that far in the past, and the people could be descended from English-speaking settlers from prior to the apocalyptic events that made the worlds what they are. Yet that raises the question of why the English wouldn't have turned into very different dialects. Residents of Land of the Dragon Lord claim their civilization is 400 years old, and Ashka claims the Spellbinders go back even further (think how different present-day English is from Shakespeare's), though we don't know how accurate this is.
• Another Dimension: Our own world and the Spellbinders' feudal world in Series 1; several new ones in Series 2: mainly the Land of the Dragon Lord, but also the Immortals' world and the Moloch-world, and a close parallel to Kathy's World.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: This is pretty much the modus operandi of the Spellbinders: they enslave the whole population by acting as powerful wizards, helped by pieces of technology they do not understand. Ashka's mastery of this technique is the reason why she blends in better (see below).
• Butt-Monkey: Gryvon. Played for Laughs in season one, but when Ashka abandons him in season two, it's not funny at all.
• Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Ashka, big time. Since all she cares is herself, she switches sides whenever she finds it profitable for her and is not above pulling Enemy Mine or supporting someone she was planning to overthrown mere hour ago. This is especially prominent in the second series.
• Cliffhanger: Almost all episodes end with one.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Paul in the first series was a prankster teenager who didn't get along with his father and had a Missing Mom. Most of the time he was acting calmly and all he wanted was to get back home, with a somewhat careless attitude toward Riana when she's trapped in his world. One of the subplots was his Character Development into a responsible person. Kathy is a teenage girl with loving parents, while she herself highly values family ties. She's much more impulsive and irrational than Paul, often relying on Indy Ploys. She's also much more resourceful than Paul. Her goal is to be with her parents and brother, but she also cares about all the people around her much more than Paul does. Both of them use their wits and knowledge to survive and their actions are instrumental into thwarting the Big Bad's plan.
• Custom Uniform of Sexy: Downplayed, but Ashka appears to be the only Spellbinder who wears her tunic belted.
• Description Cut:
  • Katrina decides to tell Paul's father that she thinks Paul has been transported to a parallel world, claiming that as a scientist, he will be open-minded and understanding. Cut to Paul's father, dismissing Katrina's story as nonsense.
  • Subverted in the second series, where Dr Elvo quickly realises Kathy's story, even if crazy by itself, must be true, since there is no logical explanation for her presence. And he already lives in a land populated by immortals, served by complex automatons, so trans-dimensional travel doesn't sound that weird to him.
• Devil in Plain Sight: Ashka, of whose not-good intentions the protagonists often try to convince the people in charge.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • Lots of examples: the main characters' courses of action are usually logical from their own points of view, but the audience, seeing the big picture, can tell that they are in fact counter-productive.
  • For example, in early Series 2, Kathy and Mek, having just arrived in the Spellbinders' Land, are led to a labor camp by a Spellbinder; they naturally try to escape with the help of a woman from the camp. The kicker? They were going to be brought before Correon, who had in Series 1 been established as a definite good guy, while Ashka, the woman who helped them escape, was actually a villain.
• Evil Chancellor: Whenever there is a ruler at hand, Ashka routinely works and plots herself up into such a position.
• Expendable Alternate Universe: Ashka treats every dimension as expendable, even her own (she sees people as expendable, as well). After she learns in the second season about the infinite number of different worlds, you can almost see gears working in her head.
• Faux Affably Evil: Ashka is good at putting on a warm and friendly demeanor, but that doesn't make her any less self-centered villain.
• Fiery Redhead: Ashka, to a T.
• Fish out of Water: A natural byproduct of cross-universe travelling.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck!: It's a young teen-oriented show after all.
• Hope Spot: In both series, by the 11th episode, with very similar patterns:
  • In the first series, Ashka's scheming is exposed. In a last ditch effort she calls a duel with Correon, as a form of Trial by Combat. After a while it's made very clear that she's no match for him and he openly talks with Paul about sending him back home no time after the duel. Too bad Gryvon tempered with Correon's suit...
  • In the second series. the Morgan family is finally reunited, Sun came back, Ashka's scheme is exposed and she lost a wax mask allowing her to use the Prime Oracle. To avoid capture, she ripped the Interface out of it's port, rendering the Oracle system inoperable...
• How Do I Shot Web?:
  • Paul and Riana decided to escape the Spellbinders' Castle via flying ship. They know it requires a power suit and... Paul ends up frantically trying every control he can get, falsely assuming from watching it earlier the ships are easy to operate.
  • In the second series, Alt!Josh ends up in possession of the power suit, but quickly reveals he has no clue how to use it. Fortunately, Josh is quick enough to explain.
• Infinite Flashlight: Enforced with the video camera in series 1 (which also seems to be waterproof), averted with the car in series 2 (though they only have to fill up once).
• It's All About Me: The main motivation of Ashka. Whenever she can profit on it, she will scheme, switch sides, betray everyone on spot, abandon her friends and go so far as destroying a whole civilisation for her own, often petty, gains.
• Letting Her Hair Down:
  • Riana, when reaching her home village and being free from work.
  • Inverted with Ashka. Her usual hairstyle is very loose. Beware when she wears a tight ponytail.
• Mage in Manhattan
• Magic from Technology: The peasants believe the Spellbinders have magic powers, but in reality they are simply the only people to understand electricity and radio — and even then their knowledge has decayed from an earlier period. The S2 Oracle also is some form of technology, but the non-tech people also view it as magical. Demonstrating this trope was arguably the point of the show.
• Missing Child:
  • Since by all accounts Paul went missing in the wilderness, there are few search actions and eventually missing posters organised by his father, who gets more and more erratic as the time goes. Once back to his world, Paul decides to play along and tells a story how he was lost in the bush.
  • In second series, both Kathy and Josh are constantly missing, at times driving Vicky to the brink of depression.
• The Multiverse: More relevant in the second series where there is our world, the Land of the Dragon Lord, Land of the Immortals, Molochs' world, the Spellbinders' world and a world very similar to ours.
• Near-Villain Victory:
  • In the first series, Ashka woos Paul's father, gets the upgraded power suit and then manages to get back the control unit required to unlock the true potential of said suit. All she needs to do now is go back to the Spellbinders' world and take it over... only to be stopped with a giant electromagnet from the cargo bay.
  • The second series manages to be much more subtle about it, since the barbarian horde wins pretty early and take over the country. By the final two episodes it's Race Against the Clock to deliver the Interface, reboot the Oracle and prevent Sharak from marrying Aya, because after that happens, the Oracle, even if restarted, will recognise him as the Dragon Lord. By that point, Sharak managed to outwit Ashka, get the power suit, forced Carl to teach him how to drive and completely dropped Villain Ball. If it was really Aya behind the veil, he would have won.
  • Also, in the second series, Dr Elvo manages to outrun Kathy and Mek to the trans-dimensional boat and before Mek can stop him, starts to smash the controls with a hammer. Then other Immortals show up and it appears Kathy will be trapped with them, even if the boat will manage to work. If not for Guin's decision to let her go and Lem standing for his wife, things would get really ugly.
• Non-Lethal Warfare: All over the place, with a lot of stunning and other non-lethal weapons used.
• Normal Fish in a Tiny Pond: Whenever someone with knowledge in any given field enters the dimension that lacks that piece of science, they end up as overpowered. This is especially obvious in Season 1, where Paul pretty much survives the whole season thanks to his - mind you - high-school education. It should be also noted that it doesn't mean those characters become unbeatable or can see through manipulations.
• No Water Proofing In The Future:
  • The Spellbinders' power-suits short out when wet, which is exploited several times by knocking a suit-wearer into water or emptying a bucketful on them. Also, the robot servants in the Immortals' world short out when immersed in water.
  • Subverted towards the end of the series 1 right after telling Paul's father about the Spellbinder world. Ashka overhears and realizes the jig is up and begins threatening them with her new, improved power suit. Paul and Riana throw water on her, only to have his father say he'd water-proofed it.
• Paper-Thin Disguise:
  • It took only a power suit and Paul was able to pass as a Spellbinder. No-one even thought about doubting "a powerful Spellbinder". ^note Since the Spellbinders are the only ones who have access to this technology, it's not unreasonable for the people to assume he was one, even if his young age did rise some suspicion.
  • In Series 2, Josh simply took clothes from one of the barbarians and acted like he belonged to omit capture. Never mind that he's white teenager in a camp full of Asians. Later on, when the Morgans have already gained notoriety, even when costumed, Carl keeps his face covered with a scarf, while Josh always makes sure to not show his face.
• Science Is Bad: Invoked, discussed, and subverted. The whole point of rather Anvilicious Season 1 is to show that science by itself is not bad or good, but can be used to achieve both good and utterly horrific things. Season 2 toned the preaching down, but the message still remains, since all the events are set into motion by poorly-conducted scientific experiment.
• Schizo Tech: Often in form of Ancient Artifacts.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Aside from opening fast-paced tune all the other tracks are made almost entirely from single electronic cues, ambient sounds and drones of dread. It fits as may situations as it doesn't. This gets especially jarring in Season 2, which is much more action-packed and could really benefit from more fitting soundtrack.
• Spoiler Opening: In both series, many important events are part of the opening sequence. In Series 1 viewers know from the start that Ashka will visit Paul's world and meet Paul's dad before she even has her debut in the series, while in Series 2 has shown us whole Morgan family in the Land of the Dragon Lord, Ashka allied with Sharak and Moloch in action.
• Star-Crossed Lovers:
  • Played straight by the end of the first series with Paul and Riana.
  • Subverted in the second - Sun decides to keep the trans-dimensional boat to make regular visits to Kathy's world, making sure that Josh and Jasmine can meet at least from time to time, while the Morgans are always welcome in the land of the Dragon Lord.
• Static Stun Gun: The Power Suits primary offensive function, though they can cause second-degree burns at close range.
• Techno Babble:
  • When Paul manages to contact Katrina and Alex, he's aware Ashka is probably listening to the radio too. He starts using overly-complicated technical terms (and Alex follows suit) when discussing rescue plan and re-opening of the portal, leaving Ashka utterly confused what they are even talking about.
  • Carl is purposefully using it when he's pretending that the jeep is broken.
• Trapped in Another World: Often, with people both from "ours" to others and vice versa.
• Trrrilling Rrrs: Ashka does it whenever she does her "I'm a powerful magician" act.
• Villains Blend in Better: Two hours after arriving to our Earth, Ashka already owns a car and is able to kidnap scientists. Having no scruples and a shitload of stolen money helps immensely, with people either fearfully submitting to help her or throwing their helpful services at her feet with dollar signs in their eyes.
• Xanatos Speed Chess: What makes Ashka such a compelling villain is that she knows how to fold'em and quickly adapt her strategy whenever something goes wrong; the heroes can only hope to keep up with what she's doing.

Series 1 contains examples of:

• Action Girl: Riana, which is often contrasted with Paul.
• Adults Are Useless: None of the adults in Paul's world believe he has been transported to another world, so it's up to teenagers Alex and Katrina to save him.
• All Just a Dream: For a while, Paul was hoping that all the bizarre things happening around him are part of a dream. This Is Reality instead.
• Apocalypse How: The world of Spellbinders was hit by Class 2. When the old Spellbinders conducted some unspecified experiment, it ended up with nuclear winter and turned almost all of the planet into toxic wasteland. What remains under the Spellbinders control is probably the only enclave of humanity and arable land.
• Arson Murder And Life Saving: By the end of the series, Correon starts to chew Riana out for all the problems she caused and her constant, sickening curiosity combined with fiercely independent nature. For which she is offered the chance of be his Apprentice.
• Awesome, but Impractical: The eyestones is the only radio device in Spellbinders' world, giving them a huge advantage over people without long-distance communication. But it can't be turned down and they are all tuned on the same frequency, meaning that no real radio silence is possible. This is often used for both humorous and dramatic effects.
• Becoming the Mask: Alex and Katrina are forced to pretend that they are in love for their numerous schemes. After a while they start to develop real feelings toward each other.
• Bittersweet Ending: While the show ends up with thwarting of Ashka's plan, peace between the Spellbinders and the Marauders and with bright future ahead of their world, on a personal level Paul and Riana end up as Star-Crossed Lovers and the ending plays it up considerably. Also, Paul decides to never again open the portal, thus Correon will never be able to gain access to Dr Reynolds' research on power suits.
• "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: Averted. While the first series was very formulaic and blackmailing is constantly used, the line is never spoken.
• Book Dumb: While Alex is obviously smart on his own, books and school knowledge are not his strong sides.
• Call-Back: When Riana met with Correon for the first time, he get angry about her stubbornness, on which she replied that he should met her mother. When Correon ends up in Clayhill, he instantly chews Maran out for being such bad example for Riana. Luckily for everyone, it's Played for Laughs.
• Catchphrase: "The law is the law" for the Regents.
• The Chains of Commanding: Ashka is constantly trying to break free from them.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: The video camera. You think it has served its purpose when it's used to show Paul's world to Riana and Correon, but then it's used again to show the Spellbinders' world (and Ashka) to Paul's father in the penultimate episode.
• Chekhov's Skill: Paul's knowledge of the gun powder formula from school.
• City Mouse: Paul whines a lot for the few first episodes when trapped in the rustic world of the Spellbinders.
• Colour-Coded for Your Convenience: Spellbinders wear red shirts, Apprentices wear grey, Servants garb is dull grey-purple and Guards wear black leather.
• Contrived Coincidence: The amount of things and decision made for the events in final episode to happen at all is just astronomical. Most of it would never happen if the control unit was smashed as soon as possible, or resolved by Ashka with quick use of suit's magnetic powers. It's especially obvious when everyone starts running around just to get the plot to the cargo bay.
• Convenient Eclipse: One happens right in the second episode. Since Riana is convinced Paul is responsible, he quickly uses it as a bargain chip and asks to be untied. Notably, rather than use the trick as a God Guise or anything similar, he starts to explain what an eclipse is right after being released. Also, in the exact same time an eclipse happens in Paul's world, being the only event in the series that happens in two different parallels at the same time.
• Cool Old Guy: Correon, but only after considerable character development and eating a Humble Pie.
• Cool Old Lady: The nun who gave Katrina and Alex a lift to the camp. Not only is she helpful and delighted to hear their story, but apparently is also One of Us.
• Country Mouse: Riana lands in Paul's world for half of the series. Hilarity Ensues.
• CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Paul saved Riana's brother when the latter drowned. He use the now obsolete technique of 30 pushes and two breaths. While he prepared the boy's body in proper way, the pushes are obviously faked and done incorrectly. The procedure is of course successful and the boy throw up some water during the pushes, sparing Riana from tasting it.
• Cute Bookworm: Katrina, who doubles as The Smart Guy for the team.
• Determinator/Agent Mulder: Katrina. She just knows that Paul is in a parallel world, and she won't give up trying to bring him back.
• Establishing Character Moment: Gryvon throwing away a piece of cake after getting information from Jal, Riana's brother. The boy almost drowned trying to get it back.
• "Eureka!" Moment: After spotting the Southern Cross Paul realised he can't be in Europe - this must be either a dream or some parallel world! And since he's not dreaming...
• Evil Laugh: Ashka has a truly glorious one after obtaining the control unit and making her suit fly.
• Fate Worse than Death: While banishment is suppose to end with the outcast's death, it's also needlessly cruel. Convicted prisoners are dumped in the middle of barren wasteland, with no supplies and just left there for themselves. Not only they have a slow and painful death out of dehydration or starvation, but also they die alone.
• Gender Is No Object: While non-Spellbinders are frowned upon, the Spellbinders don't seem to care much about gender: women can be Spellbinders, even Regents, and that's no big deal. Ashka even get to challenge Correon (and win) without it causing much fuss.
• Gone Horribly Wrong:
  • The old Spellbinders decided to increase their powers. They did so. And destroyed the world with it.
  • Paul and Alex wanted to pull a simple prank to scare girls from their class. Paul's disappearance scared all his family and friends for real.
• Grumpy Old Man: Correon, at first.
• Henpecked Husband: Bron, Riana's father. He is visibly tired of this, but calmly endures his wife's antics.
• Inherent in the System: Spellbinders are by no means evil or bad, but they are the top-dogs in a semi-feudal system, where the only thing keeping them in charge is making sure everyone else is down. They are also seriously out of touch with reality of the commoners. Lampshaded with Correon's Character Development, when he first had to live among villagers and then is banished - if not those events, he would remain completely unaware of the situation at the bottom.
• Internal Reformist: Correon's eventual role. Judging from the second series, things are slowly, but surely getting better.
• Jerkass: Gryvon, who abuse his position as mere Apprentice to no end, while being smug about it.
• Kangaroo Court: The trial held by the Regents over Paul looks like this. It's implied that they don't bother about holding the court and banish everyone, just to get each case over with as soon as possible.
• Line-of-Sight Alias: When Ashka is in our universe, she uses the alias "Mrs. Harley" after the Harley-Davidson motorcycle she stole. Later she changes it to "Anna Harley", after meeting a woman named Anna and realizing that in this universe people have "two names".
• Loophole Abuse: Riana never walks between two signs of the Spellbinders. When Paul asks her if it's another superstition, she simply explains that it's forbidden to cross between, but not to walk around the signs.
• MacGyvering: Paul is relying on it constantly, using his "superior" knowledge as his only edge against people from the Spellbinders' world. After a while, Ashka get really sick of his attempts to double-cross her.
• Medieval European Fantasy: The Spellbinders' world. At first glance at least.
• Medieval Stasis: Enforced by the Spellbinders who imprison anyone who applies the use of any new inventions.
• Metaphorically True: When Gryvon told Riana's sister that he had "flown to the end of the world and looked over the edge", Paul instantly rebuked it as a lie - the world is a globe after all. Much later in the series, it's revealed that right outside the land under Spellbinders' control there is a seemingly endless wasteland, so this is possibly one of the few situations when Gryvon isn't telling a tall story.
• Missing Mom:
  • Paul's mother died about eighteen months prior to the beginning of the series. A lot of the early tension between Paul and Brian is due to grief for her.
  • While we see him frequently interact with his father, the village Summoner, Gryvon's mother is neither seen nor mentioned.
• Mundane Solution:
  • Riana simply destroyed their tracked eyestone when both Paul and Correon were too busy talking about the solution.
  • After thinking about all possibilities of reaching the camp and cave, Alex and Katrina just catch a train to save the day.
• Mundane Utility: Flying ships are regularly used as crop dusters.
• My Beloved Smother: Maran, Riana's mother. She goes as far as being Obliviously Evil with her actions.
• No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: Subverted. While Ashka destroyed both the original blueprints and Brian's research on power-suit, Katrina took a liberty to copy all the data before Ashka even showed up.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Correon just appears out of the blue in front of Gryvon in the final episode.
• Politically Correct History: (Well, not history so much as an alternate world, but) Averted—When Riana is trapped in Paul's world and is interviewed by a Chinese doctor, she asks what happened to her eyes...
• The Reveal:
  • The Marauders are simply banished people, trying to survive and using a hoax to help their agenda.
  • The old Spellbinders, not the Marauders, brought the Darkness upon their world.
• The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: The Marauders not only appear to be level-headed people eager to end the ongoing conflict, but even if they steal, they always target stockpiles for Spellbinders, instead of robbing commoners. And when they capture Correon, a Regent responsible for banishment of them all, they decide to show him mercy he never had.
• "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: The Marauders are talked up as being some kind of scary, humanoid monsters that attack villages at random, but they're actually just people in plant cloaks swinging bullroarers over their heads. The raiding parties are also just a small part of the whole communities of people who have been banished and outcast from society by the Spellbinders.
• Sequel Hook: The ending has two, with one of them eventually being used as a premise for the second series.
  Brian Reynolds: It seems a pity to close it. How many other parallel worlds might there be...?
• Start of Darkness: In the beginning Ashka is just a lowly Spellbinder. After meeting Paul, all her Fatal Flaws start to emerge, seeing the boy as her tool for power. Note that early on she wanted to use Paul's knowledge to simply repell the Marauders, not gain anything for herself directly.
• Those Two Guys: Alex and Katrina.
• Trial by Combat: Leading to the aftermentioned Wizard Duel.
• Unkempt Beauty: Riana.
• Visible Boom Mic: In so many outdoor scenes that you can lost count of them half-way of the whole series.
• Wizard Duel: Correon vs Ashka, but Ashka cheats and sabotages his power suit just to get him exiled
• Wrong Genre Savvy: At first Paul thinks he's travelled back in time to medieval Europe, until he sees a flying machine...

Series 2 contains examples of:

• Actionised Sequel: Series 1 has two parallel worlds, has an Anvilicious message about science and freedom, and is relatively slow paced: it takes Paul 13 episodes to go back to his world. Series 2, on the other hand, tones down its preaching considerably (the message is still there, though), features six parallel worlds and has an average of one dimension shift every episode.
• Actually Pretty Funny: Roggar can't resist a chuckle at Ashka's witty comeback to Sharak, much to the latter's chagrin.
• Aerith and Bob: Jasmine really stands out when compared with all the other names from the Land of the Dragon Lord. Yet nobody sees anything strange about it.
• Affably Evil: Dr Elvo. He's just a Well-Intentioned Extremist who acts genuinely and polite, while trying to save his civilization. Even if he wants to set up People Farms using Kathy and Mek, he still manages to avoid Jumping Off the Slippery Slope.
• AI Is A Crap Shoot: Molochs were invented as a weapon to wage war, but soon turned on their creators and then they started to Kill All Humans.
• Alpha Bitch: Alternate Kathy is an obnoxious, spoiled brat.
• Alternate Universe: One of the parallel worlds is very similar to our own, but the fates of the protagonist's parallels have taken some different turns.
• And Now You Must Marry Me: After a successful invasion, Sharak promptly decides to marry Aya to cement his rule and take the throne of the Dragon Lord in fully legal way.
• Apple of Discord: Kathy for the Immortals - everyone wants her, for different purposes and reasons.
• Artifact Title:
  • Spellbinder: Land of the Dragon Lord is the full title for the second series. It's entirely possible to watch it without even knowing there was any other series, understand everything and be puzzled why such minor part of the setting like spellbinders is mentioned in the title.
  • In the Polish version, the second series is simply known as "W krainie Władcy Smoków" - "In the land of the Dragon Lord". This is somewhat of an inversion of the infamous Polish tradition of creating artifact titles for sequels.
• Artificial Stupidity: The mechanicals from the Land of the Immortals are very poor in decision making, having problems with pathfinding and generally mindlessly following their duties.
• Bad Liar: Justified. Kathy and Josh simply feel awful to abuse people they "know" when in Alt!Australia, so their lies aren't exactly convincing.
• Badass Bookworm: Mek keep on taking levels in badass through the series, standing out for himself and Kathy - which transfers to her entire family - against all odds. Did we mention he's perfectly capable of MacGyvering when needed or how he build a trans-dimensional device in his spare time?
• Badass Longcoat: Ashka gains a poncho while in Alt!Australia. Just imagine female The Man With No Name throwing lighting bolts.
• Big Brother Instinct: Mek towards Kathy.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Unlike the first series, adults are much more useful and often come to the rescue. This covers not only the Morgans, but also Alt!Carl and Guin.
  • Jez saved Kathy right before the Hunter was going to kill her.
  • Ashka saved everyone from Bain in Alt!Australia. However she instantly points out she did it only to get her power suit back.
• Big Heroic Run: The only way to cross the border guarded by the Great Warrior is to move really fast, so it will be unable to shoot at you (as it aims at where you are and not where you're going to be). The Morgans use their jeep for it, while moving on foot and on horseback is proven too slow.
• Big "NO!": Kathy, when almost turned into Immortal.
• Bigger on the Inside: Moloch. Being a APC (OT-64 SKOT) with bulldozer plow, its inside is almost twice as big as the vehicle itself.
• Bling of War: Sharak really likes to show off his new-gained wealth and position, wearing the most pompous clothes he can get and later even wearing the power suit.
• Blithe Spirit: Kathy for the Immortals society, but mostly in the bad sense. Till her arrival everything was boring, but at least peaceful. When she shows up, the Immortals start to fight and argue for her, since everyone wants to have "the only child in the world". Oh, and she introduces a few ideas about gender equality and feminism, shaking the decaying society even further.
• Break the Haughty: The whole season is one big breaking of Sun.
• Bride and Switch: In the end, Ashka wore the wedding dress, while Aya was frantically trying to reboot the Oracle. The trope is put on it's head, as not only it were the good guys who created the deception, but they sustained the masquerade till the very end.
• Briefcase Full of Money: Ashka gets one for the Interface in Alt!Australia.
• Butt-Monkey: Gobbo, who ends up in lots of trouble by sheer virtue of showing in the wrong place at the wrong time on regular basis.
• The Casanova: Alt!Carl is implied to be one. It could be one of the reasons why he and Alt!Vicky divorced.
• Cheshire Cat Grin: Kathy dons one when Alt!Kathy and Alt!Carl realise she's in their home and completely puzzled by her presence. It's brief, but genuinely creepy, further helped by the music in the background.
• Career-Ending Injury: Carl suffered one in the past and had to abandon his rugby team. Alt!Carl never had such injury, so he become a famous player and the winner of many trophies.
• Cassandra Truth: Every time someone is trying to explain the idea of parallel worlds and trans-dimensional travel, they are treated as crazy or bad liars. Averted with Dr Elvo, who almost instantly believed Kathy, being fully aware that there is no other way for her to be in his world.
• Chekhov's Armoury: Pretty much all important gadgets that the Morgans use later are introduced in the first episode, ranging from chocolate bars Kathy took from the can of biscuits to digital camera or snorkling gear.
• Complaining About Rescues They Don't Like: Right in the first episode. Kathy slides over a cliff and shouts for help. Mek is going for the rescue, but since he was chasing her for quite a while, she angrily tells that she doesn't need his help. Cue sliding a bit further down and accepting his hand.
• Continuity Nod: Josh, pretending to be a water spirit, promised Jasmine to make her into an entertainer instead of a farm-hand. By the end of the series she indeed is promoted and he jokingly reminds about his magic powers.
• Conversational Troping: Josh and Alt!Josh discuss the whole story so far, dropping tropes left and right. It helps they are both massive Geeks.
• Crapsack World: The more worlds are shown, the more this trope is apparent.
  • The Spellbinders' world is a Feudal Future set After the End, where small oligarchy is in power by forbidding any knowledge and using gadgets they don't understand themselves.
  • The Land of the Dragon Lord looks nice, but is quite oppressive technocracy, where a central computer decides about your fate and career automatically, based on current data and demand. If you are outsider, an automatic defense grid will attack you if you even get close to the border.
  • The Land of the Immortals gives us a society where everyone is immortal, rich and lives the live of nobility, regardless of pre-Plague society rank, but the world is also highly patriarchal, sexist and conservative. To top that, humanity lost any desire to progress, as they are sterile and don't feel that they have to care for future generations or create a better world for anyone.
  • Moloch's World was struck and struck hard by a Robot War and Kathy managed to find one of few, if not the last pocket of humanity. People from there have more than justified Luddite tendencies and while their pre-war world managed to create A.I., they are living now in pre-industrial agrarian society that most likely will stay like this forever.
  • The only exception could be Alt!Australia, where the world itself is just fine, but the slightly different turn of events made the Alt!Morgans into a highly dysfunctional family with Carl and Vicky's divorce having had a major effect on everyone.
• Cruel Mercy: In the end, Ashka is put into the trans-dimensional boat blind-folded and told to pick destination of her new home without seeing the dials. In his courtesy, Sun left her the power suit. Last time we saw her, something roared in the background.
• Crying Wolf:
  • One of many reasons why Josh's parents don't believe him about Kathy's disappearance is that he's a prankster. Not that saying things about aliens and disappearing boats are believable in the first place...
  • When Sharak's army is invading, Josh is trying to warn the villagers. Since last time they met he tricked them into thinking he's a water spirit, they don't believe a single word from him and are preparing to lynch him.
• Curiosity Is a Crapshoot: Both Mek and Kathy put themselves in lots of trouble because of curiosity, he because he's a scientist and she because she's a young teen.
• Daddy's Girl: Alt!Kathy picked Alt!Carl as her custodian after her parents divorced, while he spoiled her rotten.
• Deadpan Snarker: Vicky Morgan gets snarky as a way to cope with Kathy and Josh's constant disappearances. Oh, and she likes to taunt the villains.
• Deathless and Debauched: The Land of the Immortals is governed by this trope. Having been left unable to age as a result of an experimental plague cure, the inhabitants are now waited on by androids and have no need to work except on hobbies. As such, everyone in this society lives the life of pampered nobility, dressing in rich clothing, surrounding themselves in luxury, boasting to one another about their latest purchases in increasingly desperate attempts to assuage their overwhelming boredom. The first two immortals encountered are trying to teach their androids to play football, without much success.
• Defector from Decadence: Dr Elvo. He's fully aware that his civilization is stagnant and decaying into childish state. Meeting Kathy and Mek gave him an opportunity to change that.
• Defiant to the End: When the plan to scare off Sharak and his army fails, Aya decides to capture Ashka, just to depower her in eyes of Sharak. It borders on I Surrender, Suckers, since the invasion was already successful and Aya just wanted to show everyone who is the real ruler.
• Dirty Coward: The Diviner. He even Screams Like a Little Girl.
• Disguised in Drag: Sun is forced to disguise himself as a girl in later episodes. It's very conspicuous.
• Don't Call Me "Sir": When in hiding, Sun, the current Dragon Lord, ends up discovered by local village elder. Since the Dragon Lord is considered quasi-sacred, it's impossible for the elder to stop himself from constantly bowing down and address his ruler formally. It quickly breaks the disguise and Sun is forced to flee after being publicly exposed.
• Doom Magnet: Whenever Kathy shows up, serious problems arise, almost always completely unintentionally on her part.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Both Jez and Alt!Tony. The latter had it much worse, since for a while he was in the middle of the mess created by dating Kathy and being turned down by Alt!Kathy.
• Enemy Mine: While looking for the Interface in Alt!Australia, Kathy and Josh are forced to work with Ashka.
• Evil Army: Averted. The invading barbarians turn out to be just people escaping from a heavy drought, while Sharak seized the chance and appointed himself their general. After he's removed from the picture, they don't even try to fight and are more than happy to settle in Moloch's World, where free land is plentiful and all new people welcomed.
• Evil Overlord: Sharak, who controls an Evil Army of barbarians and time and again tries to conquer the Land of the Dragon Lord. He eventually succeeds.
• Exact Words: Aya's promise to Ashka was very specific about safe passage from this world. There was no part about preventing her from dropping Ashka in a randomly-dialled parallel.
• Exposition: Mek first gives Kathy one about harmonic dimensions and then another to Princess Aya about how the boat works, thus explaining to them and the audience the basic premise of the series.
• Fake Faint: Kathy constantly pretends to faint in the Land of the Immortals, since her dress gives her an easy way to sell it, and it's the fastest way to meet with Dr Elvo.
• False Innocence Trick: Ashka easily fools Kathy and Mek into believing she's an innocent, imprisoned by the tyrannical Spellbinders, led by the most evil of them all, Correon. She was the main villain of the first series, while Correon is most definitely a level-headed guy.
• Fantastically Indifferent: The peasant girl whom Carl was trying to convince he's a god to get her help. She had seen and heard enough of weird things that day to laugh at his claims, but helps him nonetheless.
• Fantasy Counterpart Culture:
  • The Land of the Dragon Lord to China.
  • The Land of the Immortals to early-Enlightenment Europe.
  • There is some tribe known as English, living in the Northern Hemisphere in the same world as the Land of the Dragon Lord. By their description they sound awful similar to the Picts.
• For Science!: Mek's desire to prove that his theory was right put all the events into the motion.
• Foreshadowing:
  • In the first episode, while discussing parallel worlds with Mek, Kathy jokingly asks him whether there is a world in which her parents "spoiled [her] rotten". She would later travel to one such world.
  • Kathy informs Ashka that Oracle's Interface looks like jade and would be very valuable in her world. About half of the whole show revolves around the Interface.
• Freudian Excuse: It's revealed that Ashka is an orphan, forced to fight for everything in her life from the get-go.
• Funny Foreigner: Josh hams up for all it's worth when pretending to be a Russian acrobat.
• Gadgeteer Genius: Mek, who while holding lower rank as a scholar is capable of making truly astonishing devices, starting with complex magnifying gear and ending with a machine capable of travelling between dimensions in a controllable way.
• The Ghost: Master Correon is only mentioned by other characters when Kathy and Mek end up in the Spellbinders' world.
• God Guise: Josh is mistaken for a water spirit because of wearing diving gear, so he decides to play along. It soon badly backfires for him - he's chained and forced to grant wishes, treated more like a slave than anything else. Then he's almost killed by the angry mob for tricking them.
• Great Escape: Escape from labour camp in the Spellbinders' world includes: use of confusion, stealing weapons and aerial chase.
• The Greatest Story Never Told: By the end of the series, when Kathy is talking with her school friends how each of them spent their summer break, she just meekly tells them she was camping with her family. Outside the Morgan family, only Tony knows what happened.
• Groupie Brigade: Tony got one.
• Happiness Is Mandatory:
  • When Sun "defeated" Sharak's invasion, he proclaimed a week-long mandatory holiday. Not only that, but he changed the callendar to include this holiday forever. Right in the middle of harvesting season.
  • When Sharak is marrying Aya, his dragon, Roggar, yells at gathered poeople that anyone not displaying happiness will be punished.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Somewhat averted with Ashka, who continually switches sides throughout the series, though most of the other characters catch on fairly quickly that she's only out for herself and not to be trusted.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: After watching Ashka doing it so many times, Josh assumed it's easy to operate the power suit. He not only didn't break the lock he was trying to hit, but the lighting bounced, hit him and knocked him cold for few hours.
• Horsing Around: The horse of a Spellbinder panicked and threw him out of saddle when Kathy and Mek crossed its path. If not that, they would have left Spellbinders' world without even meeting Ashka...
• Hyperspace Is a Scary Place: The travel between dimensions happens somewhere and it's a quite unpleasant experience. The vision is distorted, everything is contorting and time seems to flow slower, to the point that even sounds are stretched.
• I Am Not My Father: Sun is sick of everyone reminding him what would his father do in his place. At least some of his actions are made out of spite.
• I Come in Peace: Carl always wanted to say that and is given an opportunity when "meeting" the Great Warrior. Since it's just a projection of the defensive grid, it doesn't react in any way.
• I Gave My Word:
  • Played for laughs in their last shared scene, when Sun reminds Kathy he promised her to bring her back home. It just took him the whole series.
  • Both Guin and the arbiter stated that if Kathy's story is proven true, she's free to go. They set her free when meeting Mek.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder: When Lem and Guin brings Kathy to Dr Elvo, he assumes they carried a mechanical to him and scoffs them off.
  Dr Elvo: I'm a doctor, not an engineer.
• Idiot Ball: Josh is holding one out for a while. When Ashka is running with the Interface, he got into her cart and instead of sneakily take it back, he just hanged on the back of the cart for the whole journey. He finally decide to act when Ashka was paying full attention toward him, being instantly blasted with a bolt from the power suit.
• Immortal Procreation Clause: Non-natural example: The Immortals are the survivors of a great plague, whose antidote turned them all immortal — and infertile.
• It's All My Fault: Mek is blaming himself more and more for all the mess created by his trans-dimensional boat.
• The Kid with the Remote Control: Sun, as the current Dragon Lord, has the remote of the Oracle.
• Kids Are Cruel: Sun is treating people like toys, be it his servants or advancing barbarian army.
• Kung-Foley: Present here and there, but out of all places, this trope is super-persistent in the Molochs' world, giving slapstick feel to the darkest of all shown dimensions.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: When the energy crystal powering the trans-dimensional boat is hit by bolt from the power suit, the boat ends up in the Land of the Immortals instead of Kathy's world.
• Limited Wardrobe: Justified - the Morgans are wearing the same clothes for most of the time, since they don't have any other with them. Kathy changes her attire mid-way through the series, when she was lucky enough to get back home for a while.
• Literal-Minded:
  • Sun, being both a child and a Fish out of Water, has hard time understanding Kathy.
  • Artemis from the Land of the Immortals, but she's just a robot.
• Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard: Dr Elvo couldn't probably foresee that Kathy and Mek would be able to figure out how to escape his basement with the use of a blanket and his own chemical supply.
• Logic Bomb: Mek and Kathy escape from a robot guard using one: the guard is ordered to lock them up without hurting them but Mek says that locking them up is hurtful.
• Low Culture, High Tech: The Land of the Dragon Lord is similar to Imperial China, but the Vast Bureaucracy is replaced with the computer-like Oracle, built by the first Dragon Lord. Common people think it's magical, while more scientific circles are fully aware it's a machine, but have no idea how it was built or even how it works. It's not entirely clear if they can build more terminals or not.
• Men Are Better Than Women: In the Land of the Immortals, females are treated as subpar to males, since their brains are smaller and thus they are less intelligent. Kathy instantly questions if that makes whales more intelligent than human beings, as their brains are even bigger.
• Miles Gloriosus: Sun. Since he claims all possible victories as his own and no-one ever dared to fight him seriously during his training, it's more than expected. When he's stranded in Australia, he keeps on making fearsome faces, while being constantly scared by pretty much anything.
• Mundane Luxury:
  • Early on, when Kathy ends stranded in the Land of the Dragon Lord, she's on the brink of depression. Aya offers her a bath and fancy gown to wear, so Kathy can relax. It works, at least for a while.
  • She's later more than happy when able to finally take a shower in Alt!Australia.
• Mythology Gag:
  • Ashka is unfazed with fireworks and yells at Sharak for being scared of toys, while in first series she was amazed by the same fireworks in action.
  • Alt!Josh asks if the power suit allows people to fly. Paul's father was able to create such a suit in first series.
  • In the first series, there were many oriental vibes about Spellbinders, like Regents' formal clothes. The second series revolves around a world very similar to pre-modern China.
  • One of the extras playing a Marauder back in the first series was hired again and recast as one of the Immortals, making Mek's theory about harmonic worlds even more accurate.
• Newer Than They Think: In-Universe. Everyone in the Land of the Dragon Lord keeps on repeating how old and ancient their civilization is... being 400 years old. Ashka laughs at this notion, saying that even Spellbinders have ruled her world for longer.
• No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup: The Oracle was built by the first Dragon Lord. He took the principles of how it works to his grave.
• Not Growing Up Sucks: Kathy is freaked out of her mind at the thought of being sixteen forever.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: While most residents of Land of the Dragon Lord speak with a Chinese accent, Mek speaks with an Australian accent and Sun with an American accent.
• Not What It Looks Like: When Alt!Vicky and the hotel owner both meet Josh in front of the building, they confront him about what he does here. It progressively starts to look like he was there with a prostitute.
• Of Corset Hurts: Since she's not used to wearing it, Kathy has problems with breathing while wearing her corseted dress and complains about it.
• Out-Gambitted: In the end, pretty much everyone is out-manoeuvred by a mere fence from Alt!Australia. Not even Ashka was immune. It took a considerable effort and Enemy Mine situation to finally bring him down.
• People Farms: Dr Elvo wants to set up one of those.
• Pimped-Out Dress:
  • Female attire from the Land of the Immortals falls either under this or Simple, yet Opulent.
  • Aya's royal robes can also qualify.
• Pride: The Immortals' main pasttime is to organize meetings where they brag about their newest posessions, trying to overshadow others.
• Punch-Clock Villain: An entire army of them. The barbarians are revealed to be just farmers hit by severe draught. Sharak seized the opportunity and styled himself as their leader.
• Puppet King: Ashka is made a general of the army of the Dragon Lord. Said army is nothing more than statues of soldiers. And she has to clean them.
• Racial Face Blindness: Invoked by Josh. When one of Sharak's men recognizes him as the guy who stole his clothes, Josh replies that he must be mistaken, since "all Australians look alike." It doesn't work.
• Real Women Don't Wear Dresses: Kathy is very uncomfortable while wearing the Pimped-Out Dress given to her by Guin.
• Reasonable Authority Figure:
  • Princess Aya - reasonable, intelligent and far-seeing. But it's her spoiled little brother who is the Dragon Lord when the story begins and later Ashka is trying her best to usurp her.
  • Currently residing arbiter of the Immortals, who proves to be one of few level-headed people out there.
  • Elin, the matriarch leading the people of Molochs' world. A kind, gentle, but no-nonsense Cool Old Lady.
• Really 700 Years Old: All the Immortals are about two hundred years old.
• Regal Ringlets: Kathy is forced to wear them with ribbons when living with Lem and Guin.
• Reluctant Retiree: Zenzo is unceremoniously removed from the position of the adviser, when Sun get bored with him.
• Replacement Goldfish: The people of the Land of the Immortals are all sterile, so they built doll-like robot children and babies to fill their need for children. When Kathy appears, everyone wants her, a 'real live child', instead, making her a replacement for the robot children.
• Rich Boredom: The Immortals are bored with their lives, having nothing new to do and no reason to continue living. And this will go on for the rest of eternity.
• Richard Nixonthe Used Car Salesman: In-universe examples. While Tony from Kathy's world is a famous celebrity and a star of a TV series, Alt!Tony never took the critical audition and is still an apprentice plumber. Conversely, while Alt!Carl is a famous former rugby player and a host of a high-rated TV show, Carl suffered a Career-Ending Injury in his early days and is running a sports goods shop now.
• Right Under Their Noses:
  • Aya ends up hiding between commoners, who share their house with a family of the barbarians. Since they never saw her before, she can easily pass as a niece of the hosts.
  • Kathy managed to escape from Guin and Lem with a help of heavy make-up and clothes borrowed from Artemis. As long as she replicates the jerky movement of automatons, she is completely indistinguishable.
    • Later, knowing the trick Dr Elvo runs after Artemis... only to realise it's really the robot and he was tricked
• Robot War: Molochs' world was almost destroyed by one of those.
• Royal Brat: Sun is a thoroughly Spoiled Brat, which just might be the result of becoming a ruling quasi-sacred emperor with control over the almost all-powerful Oracle as a pre-teen.
• Running Gag:
  • Sun keeps on losing his bracelet, so the Oracle won't recognise him as the Dragon Lord.
  • The Morgan family trying to pass as gods.
  • After a while, Kathy gets really tired of explaining over and over that she's from another dimension.
• Secret Path: Right after the throne of the Dragon Lord there is a passage leading to the Prime Oracle. Whenever the Dragon Lord appears in the throne room, he or she arrives in flash of light, so no-one can see that the throne simply circles around. There is also a secret path inside the secret path.
• Self-Made Woman: Ashka, or at least so she claims. Then again, she's The Chessmaster.
• Shoot Out the Lock: Subverted. Josh tried to use the power suit for that. Not only it didn't work, but he ended up unconscious when the bolt bounced and hit him back.
• Shout-Out: The names of the Immortals are shout-outs to science-fiction writers: Lem, Guin, Hugo and Wells.
• Short Title: Long, Elaborate Subtitle: The full title of the Dragon Lord is broken into two episodes.
• Show Some Leg: Done by Ashka of all people to help get information from Alt!Carl. To drive the point home, it's done with the accompaniment of Sexophone.
• Single-Minded Twins: Not twins exactly, but Josh and Alt!Josh can easily qualify. They are so close to each other they tend to finish each other sentences.
• Slave Brand: Hugo brands Kathy with his signet ring to claim her as his property. Luckily for her, it was only ink and very soon the arbiter denounced the brand as illegal, since humans can't be claimed as objects.
• Space Whale Aesop: If a barbarian tribe ever invades your country, don't fight back. Instead you can always talk some sense into them and send them with your trans-dimensional boat to a parallel universe that badly needs more people and can offer the barbarians all the land they want. Which by itself borders on Broken Aesop of "send your problems to someone else".
• Spectacular Spinning: The Prime Oracle has a spinning pyramid on its top.
• Spoiled Brat: Sun is a spoiled Royal Brat before he is reformed, Alt!Kathy is a 'regular' one.
• Standard Female Grab Area: Gender-flipped - it's Ashka holding Josh in such way.
• Stop Copying Me: Sun was mocking Tony's workout to get his attention when he and Kathy needed Tony's help.
• Sufficiently Advanced Bamboo Technology: The Oracle is a mainframe-style computer build from stone, polished crystals and jade. No wonder common people treat it as magical.
• Surrounded by Idiots: Even though she never verbalizes it, Ashka is obviously thinking this every time Sharak is frightened by the Dragon Lord's displays of "magic".
• Suspiciously Small Army: Sharak's army is about fifty men strong, most likely for the budgetary reasons. They take over the Land of the Dragon Lord. It's made even more bizarre when the whole barbarian army with their families and possessions are put on a single ship and send to Molochs' world.
• Take That!:
  Mek: I've heard of the English. They are the primitive tribe living in the Northern Hemisphere. They paint themselves blue and then run around half naked, waving sticks.
  Kathy: That's the football supporters.
• Take That Me: When Elin is telling the story of the basilisk, she calls it the ugliest thing ever living, even uglier than her.
• Tap on the Head: Vicky managed to knock out one of the barbarians with a bamboo.
• Torture Always Works: Averted. When the Morgans are captured by Sharak's forces, they are denied any food or water until they will confess all they know about the Great Warrior and army of the Dragon Lord. Since they have no clue about what they were even asked, it obviously doesn't work.
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork:
  • Kathy and Sun, when they are both in Australia.
  • Ashka and the Morgan kids in Alt!Australia.
• Terminally Dependent Society: People from the Land of the Dragon Lord are so dependent on the Oracle system that their civilization almost collapses when it's turned off. Lampshaded in the fact that they never developed any form of administration, since the Oracle allowed direct rule of the Dragon Lord and they simply have no means to maintain their country.
• Trash Landing: Tony landed on the stack of cardboard boxes after pulling a stunt on the filming stage, so Kathy and Sun could use the distraction and escape in the boat.
• The Un-Favourite: Alt!Josh is a Geek and computer enthusiast, while his father wanted a sportsman. As a former rugby champion, he feels ashamed of his son's lack of interest in sports. That doesn't mean Alt!Carl doesn't love him, he just wished for a better son.
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee: Justified. Since Josh and Alt!Josh are almost the same person, they perfectly understand each other without even talking.
• Unwitting Pawn: Ashka tricks Josh into helping her to convince Sharak that she's a powerful magician. Which leads to barbarian invasion on the Land of the Dragon Lord.
• Villain Ball: Sharak, at least at first, is his own biggest enemy. When he suddenly drops the ball, things go south for everyone really quick.
• Villain in a White Suit: Bain the fence from Alt!Australia. Given his entire attire, he looks like Panama Hat.
• Von Neumann Machine: Moloch can assemble Hunter drones with ease.
• Wasn't That Fun?: Carl, in the very end of the series, when he and his family finally returned home after all their adventures. Bonus points for the kids whining in the first episode about how boring the family camping is going to be.
  Carl: Now was that a holiday, was that a holiday!
• Wasteland Elder: Elin from Moloch's world. She's the last person alive to know the world before Moloch and she was just a little child back then. Now she's the old matriarch leading her people.
• Weaksauce Weakness: Moloch's Hunter drones are wheeled, so a set of stairs is enough to stop them.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Aside from Aya, no-one in the Land of the Dragon Lord seems to be even interested in the fact that Mek was able to create a machine that allows trans-dimensional journeys - they just want a set of musical jewels.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: In the Land of the Immortals, those few who survived a terrible plague were turned immortal, but also infertile, by the antidote. Now everyone lives the life of nobility, being waited on by robot servants — but they get horribly bored after living so long and having tried every past-time, and they cannot have children to liven things up, the doll-like robot children being only a sad attempt at playing parents.
• Why Are You Looking at Me Like That?: Subverted. When trying to get inside a Moloch, Mek inspects inside of its Hunter and quickly realises he won't be able to fit in and neither would Jaz. He looks at Kathy, who instantly just sighs in resignation.
  Kathy: (deadpan) Great.
• Wolverine Publicity: Averted. Ashka is a vital part of the show and oscillates between being The Dragon and the Big Bad.
• Yes-Man: Pretty much everyone acts like this toward Sun during his reign. Oracle is Yes Computer for whoever is the Dragon Lord at the time.

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