The Girl From Tomorrow

Australian series from the early 90s.

Alana is a girl living in the year 3000, whose guardian Tulista is sent on a Time Travel mission to the twenty-sixth century. After realising that Tulista may not even survive the mission, Alana breaks into the time travel facility place (which is never given a proper name), only to see Tulista leave. The Time Capsule returns almost immediately, with a new occupant, Silverthorn, who takes Alana hostage and goes back to the year 1990.

Alana, thinking Silverthorn dead, leaves the capsule and meets up with the Kelly family, who take her in. It doesn't take much convincing for them to realise that Alana is capable of doing some very odd things, and must be returned to the capsule before it automatically returns to the thirty-first century.

But, alas, Silverthorn is really Not Quite Dead, and has used the Capsule's computer to become incredibly dangerous...

The series was followed by Tomorrow's End, in which Alana takes the wounded Jenny Kelly back to the year 3000 to heal her. And then she discovers that she's created a whole new future, and is forced to return Jenny and Silverthorn to their respective centuries...only to discover that this was Silverthorn's plan all along.

This series contains examples of:

 * Apocalypse How: Class 5. The destruction of both Peace Platforms destroys the atmosphere of Earth, killing off all life.
 * Before the Nice Job Breaking It, Hero shown in Tomorrow's End, the original apocalypse only destroyed one of the Peace Platforms, devastating the Northern Hemisphere only. Perhaps a Class 0.5
 * After the End: The Year 2500.
 * A Little Something We Call "Rock and Roll": Irene Kelly tells Alana that maybe there are things that she can learn from 1990, in the scene after Jenny Kelly plays her some music on the radio which Alana and they both start dancing in the shop.
 * Applied Phlebotinum: The people of the thirty-first century use telepathically-controlled "Transducers" to do most things, from the elimination of manual labour to healing wounds to blowing things up.
 * Blasting It Out of Their Hands: A variant: instead of using a gun, a Transducer is used to heat the gun up, forcing Silverthorn to drop it.
 * Companion Cube: Alana's wrist computer, PJ.
 * Crystal Spires and Togas: The Year 3000, although minus the Crystal Spires.
 * Eternal English: Not even Just a Stupid Accent
 * Fish Out of Temporal Water: Alana, Silverthorn, Jenny
 * Played straight with Alana but subverted with Silverthorn. Though his future is more advanced, it is also resource scarce and largely corrupt. With the time machine's databanks, his own knowledge, and his ruthlessness, he takes to the early 90's like a pirahna in a goldfish bowl.
 * Meanwhile in the Future: The last minute of the sequel:
 * Only One Name: Everyone in the future.
 * Our Showers Are Different: Alana's time has a "shower" that consists of a band of light running up the body. It even removes 20th-century permanent hair dye because it is recognised as dirt.
 * Portal to the Past: Silverthorn steals one in Tomorrow's End.
 * Power Incontinence - What happens when emotionally unstable people use Transducers
 * The Quincy Punk: Spider, Mr Silverthorn's chauffeur/henchman.
 * Set Right What Once Went Wrong: The premise of the second season.
 * Timey-Wimey Ball: Where do we start?
 * To elaborate: Tulista goes to the year 2500, and returns with Silverthorn. Silverthorn takes Alana back to 1990, where he alters history with his own ruthlessness. Despite this, his own time remains unaltered. After a battle leaves Silverthorn and Jenny both injured, Alana's forced to take them both back to the year 3000 to heal. This simple act should have been impossible, as the 3000 from whence Alana hails should no longer exist. Nevertheless, it happens, setting up the temporal paradoxes to be resolved in the Sequel Series.
 * Unusual Euphemism: Alana's "Smog it", Silverthorn's "scragger".