2001: a space odyssey

2001: a space odysseyOn a young planet called Earth, an alien intelligence – in the form of a large black monolith – tests the intelligence of a primitive race of primates. It also influences their development into a more ambitious and potentially more dangerous species. The monolith vanishes, having completed its task.

Millennia later, a primitive race of primates living on the planet Earth has developed the technology necessary to make short range space travel commonplace, and has discovered another monolith buried under the surface of Earth’s moon. Faced with the first solid evidence of extraterrestrial life, humankind launches a mission to Jupiter, the planet toward which the newly discovered monolith transmitted a brief signal. Astronauts Dave Bowman and Frank Poole pilot the spaceship Discovery, carrying a cargo of three trained scientists in cryogenically-induced hibernation, though Bowman and Poole – along with most of the rest of the human race – have not been told about the monolith on the moon, and their fellow travelers were frozen prior to the mission to avoid that information leaking out. The Discovery’s onboard computer, the artificially intelligent HAL 9000, begins to show signs of unreliable decision-making, and when Bowman and Poole take steps to shut HAL down, it kills Poole during a spacewalk and tries to shut Bowman out of the ship when he goes to retrieve his fallen comrade. HAL also deactivates the three frozen scientists’ life support units, killing them as well. Bowman manages to get back aboard Discovery and shuts down HAL’s higher logic centers. But when Discovery finally reaches Jupiter as planned – with only one surviving crewmember – no amount of astronaut training, nor even the sum total of human experience, has prepared David Bowman for what he will find there, for the monolith has returned.

Download this episodescreenplay by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke
directed by Stanley Kubrick
music by

Cast: Keir Dullea (David Bowman), Gary Lockwood (Frank Poole), William Sylvester (Heywood Floyd), Douglas Rain (HAL 9000), Daniel Richter (Moon-Watcher), Leonard Rossiter (Dr. Andrei Smyslov), Margaret Tyzack (Elena), Robert Beatty (Dr. Ralph Halvorsen), Sean Sullivan (Dr. Bill Michaels), Frank Miller (Mission Controller), Bill Weston (Astronaut), Edward Bishop (Aries-1B Lunar Shuttle Captain), Glenn Beck (Astronaut), Alan Gifford (Poole’s Father), Ann Gillis (Poole’s Mother), Edwina Carroll (Aries-1B Stewardess), Penny Brahms (Aries-1B Stewardess), Heather Downham (Aries-1B Stewardess), Mike Lovell (Astronaut), John Ashley (Ape), Peter Delmar (Ape), David Hines (Ape), Darryl Faes (Ape), Timmy Bell (Ape), Terry Duggan (Ape), Tony Jackson (Ape), Joe Refalo (Ape), David Charkham (Ape), David Fleetwood (Ape), John Jordan (Ape), Andy Wallace (Ape), Simon Davis (Ape), Danny Grover (Ape), Scott Mackee (Ape), Bob Wilyman (Ape), Jonathan Daw (Ape), Brian Hawley (Ape), Laurence Marchant (Ape), Richard Wood (Ape), Kenneth Kendall (BBC Newsreader)

2001: a space odysseyNotes: Actor Ed Bishop lent his voice to many genre animated series, including Gerry Anderson’s Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons and an episode of the animated Star Trek series. He later appeared in the flesh in Anderson’s cult classic ’70s live-action series UFO as Commander Ed Straker, and appeared in the Big Finish Doctor Who Unbound audio story Full Fathom Five. Kenneth Kendall was a BBC newsreader in real life – the first person to do so on camera in the BBC’s history, in 1955. He parlayed that unique historical footnote into appearances – more or less as himself in his familiar job – on The Morecambe & Wise Show, Adam Adamant Lives! and numerous British-made B-movies. The only actors to appear in both this movie and its 1984 sequel are Keir Dullea and Douglas Rain. Director Stanley Kubrick had the elaborate sets built for 2001 destroyed immediately after production to make sure that they wouldn’t be reused in later films (such reuse being a common practice that he felt would cheapen 2001).

LogBook entry and review by Earl Green

The Starlost

The Starlost

  1. Voyage Of Discovery
  2. Lazarus From The Mist
  3. The Goddess Calabra
  4. The Pisces
  5. Children Of Methuselah
  6. And Only Man Is Vile
  7. Circuit Of Death
  8. Gallery Of Fear
  9. Mr. Smith Of Manchester
  10. The Alien Oro
  11. The Astro Medics
  12. The Implant People
  13. The Return Of Oro
  14. Farthing’s Comet
  15. The Beehive
  16. Space Precinct

With Hugos and Writers’ Guild Awards under his belt, the controversial, contentious and unquestionably brilliant SF writer Harlan Ellison seemed like a natural person to create a new science fiction saga for television – perhaps even the next Star Trek in the making. The only problem: Harlan EllisonEllison himself. Never afraid to rub the right people the wrong way, Ellison had a time-honored tradition of removing his name from scripts that he felt had been tinkered with to the point of unrecognizability by the producers of shows he sold stories to, replacing his credit with the pseudonym “Cordwainer Bird,” a signal to his fans that his work had been altered. He had threatened to use this pseudonym on the famous Star Trek episode The City On The Edge Of Forever, much to Gene Roddenberry’s alarm; as Roddenberry was trying to gain respectability with top SF writers (hopefully enticing them to write Star Trek scripts), this would’ve been a highly visible stamp of disapproval. Ellison and Roddenberry never mended fences. And this was hardly the only instance of an unwelcome appearance by “Cordwainer Bird.”

20th Century Fox become the first studio to brave Harlan Ellison’s legendary temper, offering him the chance to create his own series concept. Ellison took them up on it, and the concept – at least on paper – was one of the smartest ideas anyone’s ever had for a Starlostscience fiction television show. While taking place aboard a vast spaceship, The Starlost allowed for location filming by equipping that ship with enclosed ecosystem domes, each containing a different kind of terrain and society. Any location could be used, and any issue explored, within The Starlost’s format. Three main characters would escape from a dome whose enclosed society was Amish, discovering the innards of a ship brimming with technology far beyond their comprehension. Making their way to the bridge, they find that the ship is out of control and off course, barreling toward a star in its path. None of the original flight crew, or their descendants, remain alive to pilot the Ark, which contains representative cross-sections of Earth flora and fauna – and diverse human societies, with all of their foibles intact. The hunt is on to visit the other domes in search of someone who can steer the ship away from imminent disaster. This way, even un-redressed modern-day settings could be used: just another snapshot of society, frozen in amber in one of the Ark’s domes – a perfect recipe for affordable, weekly, issue-driven science fiction.

But apparently it wasn’t affordable enough. 20th Century Fox opted to produce the show in Canada in association with Canaidan television network CTV, using the favorable currency exchange rate of the early 1970s to Starlostmake the show affordable. Canadian writers would be hired to execute Ellison’s vision, with Ellison and his science advisor – respected SF author Ben Bova – steering things from their offices in Hollywood. Famed special effects innovator Douglas Trumbull, who had wowed the movie world with 2001: a space odyssey and Silent Running, and would do so again participating in the making of Star Wars a few years later, was on board, as was another 2001 alumnus, actor Keir Dullea. Surely The Starlost was bound for glory.

But on the Canadian end of the production, efforts to keep the budget manageable were in overdrive. It was decided that The Starlost would be shot on video instead of film, and despite StarlostTrumbull’s best efforts, his patented system to superimpose live actors over detailed miniature sets failed to work convincingly in the medium of video. (Infamously, the “pitch reel” for The Starlost highlighted Trumbull’s technique to greater effect than the series itself ever did.) Rewrites were ordered to Harlan Ellison’s pilot script, in some cases quite drastic, and “Cordwainer Bird” swooped in once more; Ellison was disowning his creation before it had even gotten off the ground, and triggered an exit clause in his contract. Ben Bova had no such clause, and was trapped on the series, offering advice to a team of Canadian writers who ignored his scientific wisdom as often as they heeded it. (Bova would later fictionalize this experience in his novel “The Starcrossed,” while Ellison would rage about his singular shot at creating a television series in the introduction he penned for a novelization of The Starlost’s pilot script, “Phoenix Without Ashes.”)

20th Century Fox sold The Starlost in syndication after failing to interest an American network in the series. The Starlost premiered in prime time in Canada, but in America the show frequently found itself in Saturday morning time slots, with local TV stations completely misunderstanding that the show was not targeted toward children; desperate to sell the show and break even, 20th Century Fox did little to help that misperception with the sales material sent out to convince stations to pick the show up.

The Starlost premiered in the fall of 1973. While the show’s production values were comparable to British-made science fiction Starlostshows of the time, most American-made drama series were made on film, and the use of video was perceived as “cheap,” or a necessary evil used by programs requiring a very quick production turnaround, such as newscasts and soap operas. The special effects of The Starlost had been reduced to technology that the Canadian studio could handle, abandoning Trumbull’s sophisticated two-camera system, frquently resulting in effects shots looking no more convincing than a nightly weather forecast. Despite guest appearances from past and future genre heavyweights such as John Colicos, Barry Morse and Walter Koenig, among other faces familiar to Canadian TV viewers, The Starlost couldn’t be saved; the show was cancelled after only 16 episodes.

Pairs of episodes were edited together in the early 1980s into a package of “movies,” with a different opening narration describing Starlostthe Ark as “8,000 miles in character” (and then describing the star with which it will eventually collide as being “5,000 miles in character” – or, in other words, smaller than the Ark – presumably it’s a dwarf star); these “movies” went out of circulation as quickly as they appeared, and represented the only time The Starlost was repeated after its original 1973/74 broadcasts. Having vanished into obscurity, The Starlost gained a reputation – usually by word-of-mouth, and frequently repeated by those who had never actually seen it – as the worst science fiction series in the history of TV. Harlan Ellison, in convention appearances, essays and book introductions, did nothing to attempt to salvage the show’s reputation; if Ellison was saying this about his own show, then surely it must have been true. A 21st century DVD release gave The Starlost its first airing since the ’80s, allowing curious viewers to judge its merits – or lack thereof – for themselves.

StarlostIf nothing else, The Starlost represents a brave attempt to make something out of nothing – a perfect illustration of the law of diminishing returns. The series concept remains viable, though it’s doubtful that Ellison will ever overcome his distaste for Hollywood enough to allow it to be revisited. A recent comic adaptation claimed to hew more closely to Ellison’s original intentions for the pilot, but in reality didn’t change much aside from the “production values” thanks to a huge set costing as much as a small one in the realm of printed artwork. The Starlost is still one of the smartest ideas anyone’s had for a genre TV series – if anyone can ever forgive it for the cheap execution foisted upon its first attempt.


Voyage Of Discovery

The StarlostAfter returning from exile as punishment for sacrelige, Devon returns to the rustic farming community of which he is a member, still bitter that he will not be permitted to marry a woman named Rachel. Devon demands a second opinion, and so the town’s preacher asks the computer system – a device which gives him direct access to his Creator, and which he refuses to question or second-guess – and it once again declares Devon an unfit genetic match for Rachel, regardless of her feelings for him. Devon refuses to stop his attempts to interrupt the impending marriage of Rachel and Garth, and is cast out from his community again. But when Devon learns that the “voice of the Creator” is actually programmed by the preacher himself, a new decree is issue: Devon must be purged from the gene pool. He ventures into a remote cave with a torch-and-pitchfork-toting mob hot on his heels – and a metallic hatch closes behind him. Devon discovers himself in an enormous chamber filled with technology the likes of which he has never seen. He stumbles across a talking console which reveals to him the truth about this place: his village is part of an agrarian biosphere, one of many biospheres clustered together to form an enormous spacefaring vessel called Earthship Ark. Constructed between the Earth and the moon and launched after a catastrophe in the year 2285, Earthship Ark’s sealed biospheres contained a representative sampling of Earth’s flora, fauna and cultures, carrying them away from their dead homeworld and seeking a solar system around a class G star, capable of supporting life.

But Devon doesn’t even know what space is, the people in his biosphere dome having reverted to a more primitive way of life (and yet one that acknowledges the prefabricated boundaries of the world, computer equipment, and other anachronisms). The machine tells him that 100 years into Earthship Ark’s multi-generational flight, an unspecified accident occurred, and the command module containing the Ark’s bridge, from which its flight was guided, was damaged; the bridge has not been heard from in over 400 years. Devon returns to his village with this knowledge, but he is branded a heretic and is sentenced to be stoned to death. Garth breaks Devon out of his prison cell on the condition that Devon should leave and not come back, but instead, Devon does the one thing that he knows will reveal the truth to the rest of his neighbors: he takes Rachel through the hatch into the Ark’s infrastructure. Only Garth is brave enough to step through, and he does so armed with a crossbow, intending to bring Rachel back by force if necessary. The three of them make their way to the bridge, finding it littered with the skeletons of the Ark’s crew. And blazing through the enormous windows in the distance ahead, they see a class G star – suitable for settling the Ark’s precious cargo of life if it has habitable planets – but there’s just one problem: the Ark is locked on a collision course for that star…and no one left alive knows how to alter that course.

Season 1 Regular Cast: Keir Dullea (Devon), Gay Rowan (Rachel), Robin Ward (Garth)

Get this season on DVDwritten by Cordwainer Bird (pseudonym for Harlan Ellison) and Norman Klenman
directed by Harvey Hart
music by Score Productions Ltd.

Guest Cast: Sterling Hayden (Jeremiah), George Sperdakos (Jubal), Gillie Fenwick (Old Abraham), William Osler (The Computer), Sean Sullivan (Rachel’s Father), Aileen Seaton (Rachel’s Mother), Jim Barron (Garth’s Father), Kay Hawtrey (Garth’s Mother), Scott Fisher (Small Boy)

Notes: The concept for The Starlost was credited to series creator “Cordwainer Bird”, a well-known pseudonym for renowned SF writer Harlan Ellison, who frequently used this nom de plume to signal to his fan following that his writing had been tampered with by producers. (At one point Ellison campaigned to have his famous Star Trek script, City On The Edge Of Forever, credited to Cordwainer Bird, and claims that Gene Roddenberry threatened to smear his name in Hollywood if he did so; afterward, Ellison included contractual provisions to have his work credited to Cordwainer Bird, and he triggered that clause on The Starlost.) The producers at Canada’s CTV network obviously had the relatively-recent 2001: a space odyssey on the brain, as Keir Dullea (2001‘s David Bowman) and 2001 special effects maestro Douglas Trumbull both worked on The Starlost.

LogBook entry & review by Earl Green

Gallery Of Fear

The StarlostAs they continue to explore the Ark, Devon and his friends are driven to the safety of another biosphere by what appears to be a windstorm in one of the ship’s corridors. Once inside, they find themselves in a gallery of abstract art that reshapes itself depending on their moods. A woman called Daphne appears, telling the travelers that they are guests of Magnus – but evading any kind of question Devon asks about who Magnus is. After Rachel and Garth see illusions of their parents, they’re more than convinced of Magnus’ impressive powers, but Devon isn’t swayed so easily. He demands to meet Magnus personally, and has to fight to regain his friends’ loyalty. But when Daphne finally agrees to escort Devon to his audience with Magnus, it becomes clear that Magnus is a supercomputer, not a living being. Even the Ark’s usually-helpful sphere projectors can’t clear up the mystery of why Magnus is here, warning Devon that whoever built Magnus, they had the highest security clearance on the Ark, since it seems to supercede even the ship’s computer itself. It finally emerges that Magnus was a computer designed to help the bridge crew make life-or-death decisions – and that it was taken offline due to mechanical delusions of granduer even before the accident that left the Ark adrift. But why is it online again now?

Get this season on DVDwritten by Alfred Harris and George Ghent
from a story by Alfred Harris
directed by Joseph L. Scanlan
music by Score Productions Ltd.

Guest Cast: Angel Tompkins (Daphne), Allen Stewart-Coates (Magnus), Jim Barron (Garth’s Father), Aileen Seaton (Rachel’s Mother), William Clune (Admiral Austin), Danny Hodgkins (Monster), William Osler (Computer Voice)

Notes: Series star Keir Dullea is an old hand at dismantling supercomputers that have decided they’re superior to humans, having participated in arguably the best-known version of that basic plotline in 2001: a space odyssey. Aileen Seaton and Jim Barron reprise their roles here from the pilot episode, Voyage Of Discovery.

LogBook entry by Earl Green

2010: The Year We Make Contact

2010: The Year We Make ContactDr. Heywood Floyd, the mission director of the Discovery mission, resigned after the ambiguous conclusion of that flight, a scapegoat for the U.S. government and the press to blame for the disastrous outcome. The Soviet Union offers Floyd a berth on a Jupiter-bound Soviet mission which will get to the derelict Discovery long before an American follow-up mission can be launched. Despite a precarious political standoff taking place between the two superpowers, Floyd talks the U.S. government into allowing him to go on the Soviet flight along with two other Americans – Walter Curnow, the Discovery’s original designer, and Dr. Chandra, the eccentric computer genius who created the HAL 9000 computer.

The Russian spacecraft Leonov arrives in Jupiter’s vicinity three years after leaving Earth, and Dr. Floyd is awakened from cryogenic hibernation prematurely by captain of the Leonov, Commander Kirblik. The Leonov’s instruments have detected unusual chemical reactions occuring on the icy Jovian moon of Europa, and a remote-controlled probe is launched to investigate. The probe is destroyed by an unknown force, but not before it detects chlorophyll, a necessary component of plant life. Upon reaching Jupiter’s volcanic moon Io, Curnow and cosmonaut Bralovsky spacewalk from the Leonov to the Discovery, finding no trace of missing astronauts Bowman or Poole. Reactivating Discovery’s power systems, Curnow gets control of the older spacecraft and follows the Leonov away from the orbit of Io. Chandra manages to restore HAL, and the mission is now underway. The two ships reach the enormous monolith, and very strange things begin happening. Two important discoveries are made: the true motive behind HAL’s murderous behavior, and Earth’s solar system is about to change…forever.

Download this episodescreenplay by Peter Hyams
based on the novel 2010: Odyssey Two by Arthur C. Clarke
directed by Peter Hyams
music by David Shire and Craig Huxley

Cast: Roy Scheider (Heywood Floyd), John Lithgow (Walter Curnow), Helen Mirren (Tanya Kirblik), Bob Balaban (R. Chandra), Keir Dullea (Dave Bowman), Douglas Rain (HAL 9000), Madolyn Smith (Caroline Floyd), Dana Elcar (Dimitri Moisevitch), Taliesin Jaffe (Christopher Floyd), James McEaching (Victor Milson), Mary Jo Deschanel (Betty Fernandez), Elva Baskin (Maxim Bralovsky), Savely Kramarov (Vladimir Rudenko), Oleg Rudnik (Vasili Orlov), Natasha Shneider (Irina Yakunina), Vladimir Skomarovsky (Yuri Svetlanov), Victor Steinbach (Mikolai Ternovsky), Jan Triska (Alexander Kiovalev), Larry Carroll (Anchorman), Herta Ware (Jessie Bowman), Cheryl Carter (Nurse), Ron Recasner (Hospital Neurosurgeon), Robert Lesser (Dr. Hirsch), Olga Mallsnerd (SAL 9000), Delana Michaels (Commercial Announcer), Gene McGarr (Commercial Announcer)

Oops: At no point in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 did Bowman ever say “My God, it’s full of stars” (though he does say it at the end of Clarke’s original novel). Also, 2010‘s more “modern” spacesuits made the replica of the 2001 spacesuit look streamlined and sleek – 2010‘s designs heavily reference the Apollo moon suits, but the 2001 suits seem much more advanced, if a bit less realistic. Also, check out Floyd’s amazing portable Apple IIc “luggable” computer – a 1984 model still in service in 2010 (not entirely impossible, since there’s still a working IIc used for Phosphor Dot Fossils reviews).

LogBook entry and review by Earl Green

Convergence

WitchbladeSara Pezzini has gone rogue from the NYPD, and Dante makes finding her – and killing her – the top priority of the White Bulls. But also on their slate is finding the missing daughter of a congressman whose influence could be of help to Dante’s elite officers in the future. McCartey, who is still in touch with Pez, asks for her help on this case, and she refuses until Danny convinces her that it could win McCartey’s cooperation in her quest for justice. Pez does indeed find both the missing girl – who was raped and murdered – and the perpetrator…but what can she do to bring down a serial killer without alerting the police to her presence? If she succeeds, she may yet find out who Jake McCartey really is.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonteleplay by Richard C. Okie
story by Ralph Hemecker & Richard C. Okie
directed by James Whitmore Jr.
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Nestor Serrano (Captain Dante), John Hensley (Gabriel Bowman), Keir Dullea (Irons’ doctor), Eden Roundtree (Charlene), Kelly Ivey (Kate Havilland), Stefan Brogren (Leeman Bostwick), Noah Danby (Burgess), Ken Kramer (Lars)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Transcendence

WitchbladeSara Pezzini’s quest for justice is growing closer to a resolution – and growing more dangerous. Ian tracks her down, ostensibly to say goodbye to her, and she and Gabriel narrowly escape as Dante and the White Bulls follow Ian to their hideout and shoot him down in cold blood without even the slightest hint that their target was armed. McCartey balks at Pezzini’s suggestion of using herself as bait to catch Dante, but realizes there may be no better way to take the corrupt police captain down. McCartey arranges a meeting at an FBI safe house, while Gabriel – suspecting that McCartey’s still working for the White Bulls – receives a visit from someone who only Sara herself could see until now. At the meeting, Dante says too much and winds up in the middle of an FBI raid – but he also tries to take a last shot at McCartey, which Pezzini sees coming. She fires first, inflicting a mortal wound, and learns from Dante that Kenneth Irons gave the order to kill her father. McCartey is stunned when Pez leaves the takedown to confront her benefactor/antagonist, and with Gabriel in tow goes to try to get her out of trouble. Irons needs more of Pezzini’s blood to extend his life…and he’s willing to kill all of her remaining friends to ensure her cooperation.

Order the DVDsDownload this episode via Amazonteleplay by Ralph Hemecker
story by Ralph Hemecker & Richard C. Okie
directed by David S. Jackson
music by Joel Goldsmith

Guest Cast: Nestor Serrano (Captain Dante), John Hensley (Gabriel Bowman), Keir Dullea (Irons’ doctor)

LogBook entry by Earl Green

Space Station 76

Space Station 76Jessica Marlowe arrives at space station Omega 76 to begin a tour of duty as the station’s second-in-command under uptight Captain Glenn, whose previous second-in-command left under mysterious (and much-gossiped-about) circumstances. She meets the station’s other personnel and spouses in rapid succession, including Ted and his wife Misty, the latter of whom has an oddly distant relationship with both her husband and their daughter, and Steve and Donna, both eager to move on to a better posting than Omega 76. Jessica, unable to have children of her own, quickly befriends Ted and his daughter, as Misty grows jealous of her presence. Glenn continually questions Jessica’s fitness for duty and her every suggestion, until she realizes that his relationship with her predecessor was more than just professional. She finds that her feelings for one of her new crewmates is entering that territory as well.

screenplay by Jennifer Elise Cox, Sam Pancake, Jack Plotnick, Kali Rocha and Mike Stoyanov
based on a stage play by Jennifer Elise Cox, Sam Pancake, Jack Plotnick, Kali Rocha and Mike Stoyanov
directed by Jack Plotnick
music by Steffan Fantini & Marc Fantini

Cast: Patrick Wilson (Glenn), Liv Tyler (Jessica), Matt Bomer (Ted), Marisa Coughlan (Misty), Kylie Rogers (Sunshine), Kali Rocha (Donna), Jerry O’Connell (Steve), Matthew Morrison (Daniel), Keir Dullea (Mr. Marlowe), Ryan Gaul (Chuck), Space Station 76Victor Togunde (James), Jonny Jay (Trucker), Mike Stoyanov (Dr. Bot), Susan Currie (Steve’s Mom), Hart Keathley (Donna’s Baby), Anna Sophie Burglund (Star Angel), Sam Pancake (Saul), Katherine Ann McGregor (Janice), Julia E.L. Wood (Susan), Phillip Agresta (Crew Member), Kevin Beltz (Crew Member), Billy Brooks (Crew Member), Dan Burks (Crew Member), Melodi Hallenbeck (Crew Member), Marianne Heath (Crew Member), Matthew Horn (Crew Member), Shannon Jones (Crew Member), Alexander Koehne (Crew Member), Ilana Marks (Crew Member), Ken Koyasu Park (Crew Member), Jack Plotnick (Crew Member), Rachel Ward (Crew Member), Garrett Watts (Crew Member)

LogBook entry and review by Earl Green