Bring Back Epic!
Why children need mythic quests, dramatic scale and boundless worlds...
I’ll be honest. I’m a bit of a romantic when it comes to 80s kids’ TV. ThunderCats. He-Man. Transformers. Mysterious Cities of Gold. These shows didn’t just entertain me -they shaped me. I have no doubt they’re part of why I do what I do today.
But here’s the rub. I’ve watched them back with my kids. And honestly? They looked at me like I’d escaped from somewhere. A lot of walking and talking. Looped animation. Morality that hasn’t aged well.
The nostalgia is real. The quality? Less so.
And yet, right now, children’s TV in the 7–12-year-old space seems to be reaching backwards rather than forwards. Sequels. Prequels. Remakes. Repeats. Safe, familiar, small. Not daring. Not fresh. Not epic.
The glory days maybe weren’t so glorious. But is today any better?
Back in the day, shows like Dungeons & Dragons, Ulysses 31 and The Mysterious Cities of Gold felt thrilling because they were genuinely new. Ambitious. Big. They invited you into worlds that stretched across space and time.
Today, we have the technical tools to do extraordinary things on similar budgets. Visually, we’re in a different league. So why does the storytelling often feel smaller? Where are the mythic quests? The character arcs that actually go somewhere? The sense of scale that makes a child lean forward and think: wow.
As a parent of two who’ve just aged out of this bracket, I can say with all honesty: there wasn’t much for them to get genuinely lost in. And I hear the same from other parents. Instead of “Did you see last night’s episode?”, it’s endless doom scrolling.
Kids didn’t lower their standards. TV did.
I was at the Children’s Media Summit recently when research from the NSPCC landed with a thud: kids are bored. Bored on YouTube. Frustrated by difficult discovery. Annoyed by ads.
So why are they still there?
I asked my daughter’s boyfriend - yep, I’m at that stage now - and he put it simply: “I have more chance of finding what I actually want.”
This is a kid who loves Jurassic Park and Avatar: The Last Airbender.
Not disposable content. Not fast food. Big, immersive stories. Stakes. Lore and….a final Payoff.
Kids don’t want snacks. They want a feast.
They want stories with a beginning, middle and end. They want immersion. Scale. The freedom to imagine. When broadcast and streaming TV fails to offer that, the algorithm wins - not because it’s better, but because somewhere buried inside it might offer exactly what they’re looking for.
Gamerant recently ranked kids shows that used mature themes - highlighting that there are some out there!
We’re at a pitchfork moment. And that’s a good thing!
Something else stuck with me at the summit: the industry may be approaching a genuine reckoning. Scientists, governments and - most importantly - parents are waking up to what children are missing out on. This isn’t just a screen time conversation. It’s a depth conversation.
Crucially, the research backs this up. A 2024 Cambridge University study found that it isn’t TV or gaming that poses the greatest risk to children’s concentration and mental health - it’s social media. And make no mistake: however YouTube chooses to position itself, it is social media.
The day after the summit, I was at the Big Creative UK Investment Summit, presenting 80s-inspired epic IPs to people outside the sector. The response was immediate and warm. Because when you talk to parents, they feel exactly the same as I do. They remember what it felt like to be truly transported by a story. And they want that for their kids.
The next chapter starts here...
The answer isn’t to ban platforms or blame algorithms. That’s a distraction. The answer is to make the alternative genuinely unmissable.
That means:
- Writing the mythic quests. Stories with real stakes, real arcs and real worlds worth getting lost in.
- Drawing the impossible landscapes. Using the extraordinary tools now available to us to create the scale those 80s shows could only gesture at.
- Giving kids stories worth stopping the scroll for. Then inspiring them to create their own.
Epic stories don’t just entertain. They fire the imagination.
And imagination isn’t a nostalgic luxury.
It’s fuel.
