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Aquila (TV series)

British children's television show

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
Arts and lettersInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMay 29, 2026
Entity authorityQ7663085
Source-derived summary

Aquila is a British children's television show adapted from the 1997 book Aquila by British author Andrew Norriss. It follows two boys, Tom Baxter and Geoff Reynolds, who find a spacecraft while digging in a field.

The programme aired on the BBC from 1997 to 1998. The first series was based on Norriss' 1997 book; the second series was novelised and published in 2010.

Synopsis

While digging on farmland, friends Tom and Geoff discover a cavern containing the skeleton of a Roman centurion and a craft named Aquila. The boys learn to fly Aquila, and have to find ways to hide it, prevent doing damage with it, and communicate with it.

Tom and Geoff eventually discover the source of Aquila – a massive abandoned spaceship orbiting the Sun. They realise the significance of this, exclaiming "a battle cruiser! You could have some serious fun with a battle cruiser!".

Episode list

Series 1 (1997)

Series 2 (1998)

Aquila

Aquila is a liferaft from a larger ship, built by the Yrrillians from the planet Deneb.

Editorial summary

“Aquila (TV series)” enters the record as british children's television show. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Aquila, series and British can confirm, complicate or overturn.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1997, 1998, 2010—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. Its strongest next move is a source search built around Aquila, series and British.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

“Aquila (TV series)” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Aquila, series and British provides the most credible route into that argument.

Evidence profile

Reception evidence should be dated and situated: later canonical status may differ sharply from the work’s initial circulation. The source revision retrieved here is dated May 29, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7663085. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1997, 1998 and 2010.

Critical limits

Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Aquila (TV series)”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Aquila (TV series) primary sources, Aquila (TV series) archive and Aquila research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Aquila (TV series)”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Aquila (TV series)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.