This was the third and weakest attempt to make something out of Roddenberry's Genesis II concept- this time with Gene not involved. Suffice to say it didn't work.
The fundamental premise is that a team in an Earth Orbiting Laboratory belonging to an organization called Pax is conducting hibernation research. While monitoring the experiment the MOCR discovers the eternal sci-fi cliche of the meteor swarm headed for Earth. The trajectory of the orbiting lab is changed from Earth orbit to Sun orbit due to return in 180 years and the hibernation period extended for the same amount of time. Just before the meteors hit Earth -devastating it and destroying civilization-volunteers enter hibernation chambers at Pax HQ. The astronauts mission on return is to seek out and revive them. The pilot has two main stories. In the first one they find and are imprisoned by a Physician from their time who has developed a form of immortality along with clones. The second story involves them coming across an old wildlife preserve where the descendants of the Wardens are in conflict with the locals who poach the animals. Strangely enough in the version I have the order of the two is reversed. Good thing too as if I had seen them in the proper order I would have stopped watching within a few minutes.
I'll start with the premise. Why are they doing the experiment at all? Hundreds of volunteers put themselves in hibernation on Earth. That scale of existing hibernation vaults suggests it is a well established procedure deemed safe enough for people to sleep for decades. Take that part away and I can accept the premise. Second- the Earth Lab is moved from Earth to solar orbit for 180 years. That takes a pretty good amount of rocket power especially as those rockets will have to be used again after 180 years to re-establish Earth Orbit. The 180 years is explained simply by orbital geometry. OK- I can accept that. Desperate situations call for desperate actions. The Space Lab itself is pretty cool and clearly shows the influence of shows like Earth II or 2001:A Space Odyssey spinning wheel artificial gravity. The Earth return vehicle however is a space shuttle. How do they expect to land it on runways that no longer exist without bad things happening? Hint- while not shown bad things happened while trying to land on runways that no longer exist. I liked it up to this point. Poor acting -but what the heck. This is 70's TV Sci-fi - not exactly noted for academy award performances. Incidentally- the concept of the Earth Impact that destroys civilization came just a few years before the scientific community accepted that just such a disaster offed the dinosaurs.
Then we get to the immortal colony. My interest instantly started to wane. The physician leader (played by James Olsen) is from their time and he has developed cloning and a way to keep himself alive using the clones' blood. Guess whose blood he intends to use now ? Even worse- the team physician (played by Keene Curtis) throws in with the doc to kill his friends. WTF? Good way to make one of your lead characters thoroughly un-likeble right off the bat. If I had not seen the Animaland scenes before this I would probably have turned it off and never watched the rest. One interesting concept was that there was no cure for senility- which James Olsen shows a lot of (he didn't have much acting to do here- the entire script reeks of senility) Keene Curtis has a last minute conversion back to reality and the bad doc is defeated. For some bizarre reason there is a force field surrounding the colony and everyone dies from the resulting infection instantly when the shield fails and normal air enters the compound. Pretty fast acting bugs. This was not in the least bit believable. When the actors read the script I have always wondered what they thought- probably something like "Not much we can do with this drivel. I'm just going to read my lines and get my paycheck"
Then we come to the second episode- which I saw first. This one almost made up for the first one. We see the crew in their All-Terrain RV. They have been back on the surface for some months and are running out of water. They are also lost. Not surprising given they have no way to determine their location. All they know is they are in the desert SW. They come across an old zoo preserve and find the pools and fountains are made with concrete. The navigator (the obligatory helpless female our virile heroes need to rescue) finds a trap and frees the animal., gets captured by the wardens and as a convicted poacher is going to be branded on her chest with a big letter "P" then is going to be thrown into a pit of vipers which our male heroes stop in the nick of time. How did they get there? They ran into the real poachers made a deal with their leader to raid the Warden's compound in exchange for the flare gun. Suffice to say the leader is a bad guy, manages to steal the flare gun , and sets up an attack to kill the wardens and take over the forest. Our heroes have made tranquilizer darts out of a 200 year old chemical vial and save the day by shooting the poacher leader with a handmade crossbow and a one of their darts. The Wardens take their advice and decide to re-write the CFR book . They all live happily ever after while our heroes ride off into the Sunset (a road through the mountains to the west).
In spite of my sarcasm and the poor acting I rather liked this segment. The plot- while somewhat contrived- is I feel realistic. The wardens are denying others the use of the forest and water in the classic bureaucrat tactic of enforcing regulations written for long ago conditions that no longer exist. The net result is that the poachers have no way to get food or water without raiding the forest. When the springs dry up in summer the old and young die. A least initially the sympathy is on the side of the poachers. They are desperate men driven to committing desperate acts. This is negated when we find the leader is a thorough scoundrel who wants to be king of the forest more than obtaining food and water for his tribe. Then we see the wardens confused as they discover the situation is not what they think. But the only thing they can think of is to look through the CFR. Finally the deputy warden realizes the necessity of change. He realizes a lot of the poaching activity is pure desperation. He realizes that if the poachers can be taught basic agriculture and foraging they may not be so dependent on killing and eating game. I think he recognize the basic injustice of the situation. Although I think he is naive to think the head poacher is going to be anything but a recurring enemy.
If the series had followed the second story it could well have been worth developing although the formula was too limited to last more than a season .Think of the contemporary series "Planet Of The Apes" and " Logan's Run" adventure of the week series. Neither lasted more than a season. This one would have met the same fate.
The fundamental premise is that a team in an Earth Orbiting Laboratory belonging to an organization called Pax is conducting hibernation research. While monitoring the experiment the MOCR discovers the eternal sci-fi cliche of the meteor swarm headed for Earth. The trajectory of the orbiting lab is changed from Earth orbit to Sun orbit due to return in 180 years and the hibernation period extended for the same amount of time. Just before the meteors hit Earth -devastating it and destroying civilization-volunteers enter hibernation chambers at Pax HQ. The astronauts mission on return is to seek out and revive them. The pilot has two main stories. In the first one they find and are imprisoned by a Physician from their time who has developed a form of immortality along with clones. The second story involves them coming across an old wildlife preserve where the descendants of the Wardens are in conflict with the locals who poach the animals. Strangely enough in the version I have the order of the two is reversed. Good thing too as if I had seen them in the proper order I would have stopped watching within a few minutes.
I'll start with the premise. Why are they doing the experiment at all? Hundreds of volunteers put themselves in hibernation on Earth. That scale of existing hibernation vaults suggests it is a well established procedure deemed safe enough for people to sleep for decades. Take that part away and I can accept the premise. Second- the Earth Lab is moved from Earth to solar orbit for 180 years. That takes a pretty good amount of rocket power especially as those rockets will have to be used again after 180 years to re-establish Earth Orbit. The 180 years is explained simply by orbital geometry. OK- I can accept that. Desperate situations call for desperate actions. The Space Lab itself is pretty cool and clearly shows the influence of shows like Earth II or 2001:A Space Odyssey spinning wheel artificial gravity. The Earth return vehicle however is a space shuttle. How do they expect to land it on runways that no longer exist without bad things happening? Hint- while not shown bad things happened while trying to land on runways that no longer exist. I liked it up to this point. Poor acting -but what the heck. This is 70's TV Sci-fi - not exactly noted for academy award performances. Incidentally- the concept of the Earth Impact that destroys civilization came just a few years before the scientific community accepted that just such a disaster offed the dinosaurs.
Then we get to the immortal colony. My interest instantly started to wane. The physician leader (played by James Olsen) is from their time and he has developed cloning and a way to keep himself alive using the clones' blood. Guess whose blood he intends to use now ? Even worse- the team physician (played by Keene Curtis) throws in with the doc to kill his friends. WTF? Good way to make one of your lead characters thoroughly un-likeble right off the bat. If I had not seen the Animaland scenes before this I would probably have turned it off and never watched the rest. One interesting concept was that there was no cure for senility- which James Olsen shows a lot of (he didn't have much acting to do here- the entire script reeks of senility) Keene Curtis has a last minute conversion back to reality and the bad doc is defeated. For some bizarre reason there is a force field surrounding the colony and everyone dies from the resulting infection instantly when the shield fails and normal air enters the compound. Pretty fast acting bugs. This was not in the least bit believable. When the actors read the script I have always wondered what they thought- probably something like "Not much we can do with this drivel. I'm just going to read my lines and get my paycheck"
Then we come to the second episode- which I saw first. This one almost made up for the first one. We see the crew in their All-Terrain RV. They have been back on the surface for some months and are running out of water. They are also lost. Not surprising given they have no way to determine their location. All they know is they are in the desert SW. They come across an old zoo preserve and find the pools and fountains are made with concrete. The navigator (the obligatory helpless female our virile heroes need to rescue) finds a trap and frees the animal., gets captured by the wardens and as a convicted poacher is going to be branded on her chest with a big letter "P" then is going to be thrown into a pit of vipers which our male heroes stop in the nick of time. How did they get there? They ran into the real poachers made a deal with their leader to raid the Warden's compound in exchange for the flare gun. Suffice to say the leader is a bad guy, manages to steal the flare gun , and sets up an attack to kill the wardens and take over the forest. Our heroes have made tranquilizer darts out of a 200 year old chemical vial and save the day by shooting the poacher leader with a handmade crossbow and a one of their darts. The Wardens take their advice and decide to re-write the CFR book . They all live happily ever after while our heroes ride off into the Sunset (a road through the mountains to the west).
In spite of my sarcasm and the poor acting I rather liked this segment. The plot- while somewhat contrived- is I feel realistic. The wardens are denying others the use of the forest and water in the classic bureaucrat tactic of enforcing regulations written for long ago conditions that no longer exist. The net result is that the poachers have no way to get food or water without raiding the forest. When the springs dry up in summer the old and young die. A least initially the sympathy is on the side of the poachers. They are desperate men driven to committing desperate acts. This is negated when we find the leader is a thorough scoundrel who wants to be king of the forest more than obtaining food and water for his tribe. Then we see the wardens confused as they discover the situation is not what they think. But the only thing they can think of is to look through the CFR. Finally the deputy warden realizes the necessity of change. He realizes a lot of the poaching activity is pure desperation. He realizes that if the poachers can be taught basic agriculture and foraging they may not be so dependent on killing and eating game. I think he recognize the basic injustice of the situation. Although I think he is naive to think the head poacher is going to be anything but a recurring enemy.
If the series had followed the second story it could well have been worth developing although the formula was too limited to last more than a season .Think of the contemporary series "Planet Of The Apes" and " Logan's Run" adventure of the week series. Neither lasted more than a season. This one would have met the same fate.