Cult-TV Blogging: Otherworld: "Princess Metra" (March 16, 1985)

We arrive at the end of Roderick Taylor’s Otherworld (1985) with the outstanding segment called “Princess Metra.”  In this eighth and final episode of the series, the Sterlings travel the Forbidden Zone by hot air balloon and end up in the province of “Metraplex.”  There, Gina (Jonna Lee) is mistaken for the legendary Princess Metra, a former ruler of the land, which is now separated into castes: the powerful “Macro Elite” and the enslaved “Micro Workers.”

The current ruler of the province, the Prime Manager (Carolyn Seymour of Survivors [1975])) believes Gina to be a fraud, but Gina passes a test of legitimacy in the “Hall of Memories” by answering correctly several questions about American history.  As the Sterlings soon learn, the original Princess Metra was from Earth too, a girl named Kelly Bradford.  She arrived in this strange dimension on August 22, 1964 and soon ascended to the throne. After ruling for a time, she left Metraplex for Emar and a way back home.

As ruler of Metraplex, Gina begins to make a series of humanistic reforms over the Prime Manager’s strenuous objections.  She discontinues production of particle-beam weaponry.  Then, she emancipates the Micro-Workers and grants the group full human rights and privileges (including child-bearing and rearing).  This last act causes the Prime Manager to attempt to kill Gina and her family…

Like many previous episodes of Otherworld, “Princess Metra” reveals a sci-fi series slowly but surely building an intricate and consistent mythology.  Here we learn more about the connection between Earth and the Otherworld, and the idea that time passes differently in each dimension.  What this means, as Trace (Tony O’Dell) worries, is that if the Sterlings do make it back to Earth, it will be a thousand years in their future.

Also, in this episode, Gina undergoes a kind of spiritual journey, and travels “psychically” to the city of Emar.  Pushing the limits of 1980s network television standards, she “trips” for a good two minutes in a fascinating, impressionistic montage.  For the first time, we actually see the spires of Emar, and the city is dominated by a view of Three Towers – the Twin Towers of Manhattan…plus one. 

Princess Metra boasts many allusions to previous works.  It plays a little like the Anastasia story, and bit like the (terrific) 1975 movie, The Man Who Would Be King.  But underneath these clever allusions is a story that is quite pertinent today.  Hal tells the people of Metraplex that they can’t erect a “government based on revenge.”  Instead it must be built “on fairness.”  It looks very much like the presidential election of 2012 may be fought on those very terms.  Will we choose anger or fairness?  Will the Macro-Elite of America (the 1%) get to continue to dictate economic policy, or will the Micro Workers (the 99) get a seat at the table?

In terms of genre history, "Princess Metra" offers a few interesting footnotes.  The soldiers of the city are all armed with Colonial pistols from the original Battlestar Galactica, as well as Draconian weaponry from Buck Rogers.  And this episode's director is Peter Medak, who directed an episode of Space:1999 as well as the brilliant 1980 horror film, The Changeling.

Frankly, I’m sad to see Otherworld end here.  I remember being heartbroken when it was canceled in 1985.  My mother and I watched the series together throughout its original network run.   Otherworld lasted just eight episodes, and a full four of those segments are excellent (“Rules of Attraction,” “The Zone Troopers Build Men,” “Rock and Roll Suicide” and “Princess Metra.”)  The remaining episodes (“Paradise Lost,” I am Woman Hear Me Roar,” “Village of the Motorpigs” and “Mansion of the Beast” are good and pretty ambitious, if not great.  There isn’t a real, flat-out stinker in the bunch. One of these days, I’d love to see Roderick Taylor resurrect the series today, and get the opportunity to build his mythology further.  He could send a new family to the Other world, and maybe, in a few installments, find out what’s become of the Sterlings…

Mark Phillips and Frank Garcia’s excellent McFarland book, Science Fiction Television Series reveals that at least two further scripts were written for Otherworld.  One, called “Seeing Double,” concerned the Sterlings in a province where their darkest fears were manifested. 

Another teleplay titled “The Judge” revolved around an evil judge character who threatened to imprison the family if it didn’t play a “game” by his own draconian rules.  I would have loved to see either of these episodes get produced.  Barring that, let's have an official DVD release.  Soon.

Next week, I begin blogging Ghost Story/Circle of Fear (1972) in this space.

Cult-TV Blogging: Otherworld: "Mansion of the Beast" (March 9, 1985)

Otherworld unexpectedly but delightfully becomes a fairy tale fantasy in this out-of-the-norm next-to-last installment of the series, “Mansion of the Beast.”  In very specific terms, “Mansion of the Beast” revisits the famous story of Beauty and the Beast (1740), with June Sterling (Gretchen Corbett) in the Beauty role, and a strange inter-dimensional traveler, Virago (Alan Feinstein) as the inhuman Beast.

The story begins with the Sterlings traversing a lovely fairy tale forest.  A beast – half man and half-savage -- materializes before them and proclaims himself the King of the Trees and the Lord of the Animals. This is Virago, and he refuses to let the family continue its journey unless June remains with him in his lonely country mansion.  Hal refuses to sacrifice his wife to such a monster, and is immediately put into a deep sleep by Virago.

While Mom remains with Virago, the children head into the woods to find help for Hal.  They meet Akin (John Astin), Virago’s brother.  Akin reveals that Virago was once a great scientist and charismatic leader, but his attempt to cross dimensions to reach the mythical land of Earth only returned him here as a beast. 

Worse, Virago seems to be losing his humanity by the day…

But Virago is taken with June.  He first observed her attempting to heal the wing of a wounded owl, and has fallen in love with her.  Now he offers her life in a beautiful mansion, but she misses her family, and can never love the Beast as he desires.  “I have never, ever, been loved,” Virago tells June, and she sows sympathy and compassion for the lonely creature.

Meanwhile, Hal undertakes a quest to capture and refine “cold star fire,” the only substance in the universe that can kill the Beast.  When June expresses to Virago her loneliness and the desire to see her family again, he allows her to leave….with a caveat.  He makes her promise she will return in one day’s time.  While she is gone, however, Hal arrives and kills the beast.  But June’s love is redemptive, and transforms the Beast into a human again…

From the Beauty and the Beast stories, “Mansion of the Beast” adapts several important themes and notions.  The first is of a Beast who trusts his beauty…and makes her promise to return to him.  And the second is the idea that the tears of Beauty can bring Beast back to life, and restore his soul.  These ideas are a little out of place in the hard sci-fi universe of Otherworld, but it’s an interesting notion to dramatize this story and imply, at least a little, that we get our fairy tales of Beauty and the Beast from Virago and his inter-dimensional journey.

Other fairy tale characteristics abound in this tale. John Astin plays a character who will remind you of the Woodsman or Lumberjack from Little Red Riding Hood, and Hal is put into a deep sleep from which he cannot awake, a lot like poor Snow White.  In terms of fairy tale format, this Otherworld mimics the Campbell Heroic Quest, with Hal going bare-chested on a mission  to retrieve cold star fire.  After he recovers the mineral, we see a blacksmith (Akin) tempering the cold star fire…making a heroic weapon from it, in the spirit of Excalibur.    With all these touches, “Mansion of the Beast” is clever and knowing in terms of its narrative, a post-modern exploration of fairy tale tropes.

In terms of Otherworld lore, “Mansion of the Beast” is an extremely important episode for the canon.  It establishes a great deal of information about the Sterlings’ quest to return home.  We learn that Emar (or Imar, perhaps) is home to a group of “signpost astrologers” who speak regularly of Earth, and the other world there.  Also, Virago leaves June and the Sterlings with a riddle about their way home:

“Look for the valley of vision, where the slain are not slain with swords, and the darkest shadows of light.  There, you will find a door.”

Unfortunately, Otherworld did not survive long enough to explore this riddle, or what precisely it meant.  “Mansion of the Beast” is followed by just one more episode, “Princess Metra.”  Still, I truly admire this short-lived series’ willingness to take chances and move the narrative in imaginative, unexpected directions.  We saw a funny post-modern take on rock history in “Rock and Roll Suicide” and now “Mansion of the Beast” apes fairy tale form and shape.

Next week:  The end of Otherworld comes with “Princess Metra.”

Cult-TV Blogging: Otherworld: "I am Woman, Hear Me Roar." (March 3, 1985)

In the sixth episode of Otherworld, called “I am Woman, Hear Me Roar,” and directed by Thomas Wright, the lost Sterling family finds itself in scenic “Adore,” a fully-functioning matriarchy where men are second-class citizens.  The province was founded by a female zone trooper named Livia, and is now maintained by strict gender “stratification laws.”  Women are not allowed to set foot in grocery stores or other shopping venues, as all such duties are now the exclusive responsibility of male servants.

This “conservative” town “resists compromise” on matters of sex, we soon learn, and the Sterlings are deemed “progressives” for their gender equality beliefs.  In relatively short order, Trace (Tony O’Dell) is arrested by the Gender Patrol for parading about outside without his shirt on.  He is then taken to a weight room and forcibly made to exercise by female officers.  Then, finally, he is greased up (yes, greased up…) and put on the auction block at the Gender Arcade.  During the auction, he shows off his muscular definition…

Female-dominated societies have been the bread-and-butter of so many cult-tv programs across the long decades, from Space: 1999 (“The Last Enemy,” “Devil’s Planet”) and The Fantastic Journey (“Turnabout”) to Star Trek: The Next Generation (“Angel On”) and Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century (“Planet of the Amazon Women.”) Star Maidens (1975) is actually an entire series dedicated to the premise.

My problem with virtually all such episodes is the general lack of imagination about what a female-dominated society might actually look like.  Basically, in all these cult TV programs, the women are just as brutal and sexist as men have been, in certain situations.  In other words, the women in charge are depicted as aping and mimicking stereotypical male qualities rather than actually ruling as a female society might legitimately rule.  I’m not saying that this sort of strong-arm, bullying matriarchy isn’t possible, only that it somehow makes the premise seem sillier and less realistic than it could be.  

Just once, I’d like to see a female-led society that isn’t based, seemingly, on some silly male fantasy involving auction blocks, whips, cat-suits, and high-heeled boots.  Instead, I’d like to see a program where the qualities of female leadership are identified and explored in a meaningful way.  But, of course, it never ceases to be fun seeing gorgeous women in skin-tight outfits, dominating men, right?  I suspect this adolescent fantasy is the reason why Seven of Nine replaced the more three-dimensional Kes on Star Trek: Voyager.

In terms of Otherworld, the way that Hal (Sam Groom) acts in “I am Woman, Hear Me Roar,” suggests that maybe he had this aggressive role-reversal coming.  When he meets a female leader, he calls her a “charming lady” and the condescension drips from his voice.  Yikes.  In this throwaway moment, the episode reveals perhaps a bit more about male-dominated society than intended. It’s an indication that the writers and the actor can’t quite take the concept seriously. 

A woman in charge?  That’s funny…

There’s a tremendous amount of amusing satirical material in “I am Woman, Hear Me Roar,” from the “serious” school discussion in Adore of “the male problem,” to the magazine pages of Available Hunk magazine.  But still, there’s something less-than-satisfying and less real about this episode and perhaps that makes it the weakest program of the series so far, a title which I had previously reserved for last week’s “Village of the Motorpigs.” 

In short, this episode plays things tongue-in-cheek just a bit too much, as though no one can quite take seriously the concept of a society where women pass and enforce the laws.  It’s just a wee bit off, even if some of the jokes really stick their landings.

Between the condescending actions of Hal and Kroll in “I am Woman, Hear Me Roar,” perhaps it’s necessary indeed that “collective sisterhood” strike back hard in this episode of Otherworld.

Cult-TV Blogging: Otherworld: "Village of the Motorpigs" (February 23, 1985)

The fifth episode of Otherworld is called “Village of the Motorpigs” and it strives for a real Mad Max/The Road Warrior-type production design and vibe.  Underneath that sort of scruffy desert look, the episode is actually an anti-drug narrative, one that reinforces the human being's need for purpose, and the value, of course, of family.  That last bit is a recurring theme in the program.  No matter how bad things get, the Sterlings can always depend on one another.

In “Village of the Motorpigs” the Sterlings have chartered an old ,broken-down bus (driven by an old, broken-down driver…) to cross the Forbidden Zone.  


The bus stops at a Zone Trooper check-point, and the Sterlings attempt to hide in a smuggler’s compartment in the back of the bus, but are captured.  


Before the family can be taken to Kroll (Jonathan Banks), a motorcycle gang led by a guru called --  I kid you not -- “Chalktrauma” (Marjoe Gortner) rescues them, and takes them to his biker commune in nearby caves.

As the Sterlings soon find out, this isn’t much of a rescue at all.

Chalktrauma doesn’t permit family units to remain together, believing that such traditional social units only divide loyalties.  Furthermore, Chalktrauma maintains control of his society by keeping all his people “stoned” on a drink called “the Chalk.”  High on “the chalk” all the time, nobody questions the guru’s authority.

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One of the bikers, however, proves an ally.  Tango (Vincent Schiavelli) tells Hal that he is a former minister in the Church of Artificial Intelligence, and that one of his ancestors came from the “other world.”  


To prove it, he shows Hal a U.S. dollar bill.  Anyway, Tango reveals that any one of the bikers can issue a “challenge of rule” to de-throne Chalktrauma.  Hal resolves that this is the course he must take.

Hal and Chalktrauma joust on bikes for supremacy, but just as Hal is about to lose, Zone Troopers raid the weird commune, and the Sterlings, with Tango’s help, slip away to safety.

If Chalktrauma’s “challenge of rule” sounds somehow familiar to you, it may be because it is an apparent law of many, many cult-tv cultures.  It appeared in The Starlost (“The Goddess Calabra”) and The Fantastic Journey (“Children of the Gods”) before being resurrected here for “Village of the Motorpigs.”  It’s a convenient way to easily vet regime change, I suppose: challenge the leader, and usher in a new way of life.  That way, your characters don't need to have an army at their side, or wage all-out war.

For an episode about a colony of rough-and-tumble, desert-dwelling motorcycle riders, Otherworld’s “Village of the Motorpigs” certainly tows the conventional, traditional line.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, however.  But teenage Trace gets scolded by his mom, June, when he samples the chalk and “tunes out,” for example. 

Meanwhile, Gina teaches Chalktrama’s lustful son (Jeff East) that people should fall in love, or at least get to know each other before having…relations.  Mom, meanwhile, refuses the chalk and pines for Hal, while he attempts to find a way out. 

So, in short, “Village of the Motorpigs” = don’t do drugs + don’t have premarital sex + promote family values.  


Again, nothing at all wrong with any of that, but it’s just kind of…square.   


Just once, I’d like to see a sci-fi show where inan altered-state isn’t depicted a priori as a totally negative thing.  Star Trek’s “This Side of Paradise,” Space: 1999’s “The Guardian of Piri” and Farscape’s “Thank God it’s Friday, Again” all push the same agenda: that any substance which alters your mental state will also kill your sense of purpose and desire to produce, to do good work.  It’s not that I disagree with the premise, just that a little variety in storytelling is nice.  At least Spock does admit that the spores made him happy in “This Side of Paradise,” but that’s as far as cult-tv goes…

“Village of the Motorpigs” starts out as a clips show, with Gina relating to their bus driver the story of the family’s arrival in this world, and in reaches its zenith in a well-written, well-performed scene between Hal and June. 


He instructs her to run away with the children if he doesn’t survive the “rule of challenge” (also known as the “blood clash.”)  June is understandably reluctant to leave her husband, but understands his point.  The motorpig culture is toxic to family units, and so the children must be free of it.  It’s an emotional scene, and well-done.   Both characters come off well.

So far, I’d have to declare that I like “Village of the Motorpigs” least among the series’ first five episodes.  The pilot featured that great discussion of souls and artificial life, the second episode “Zone Troopers Build Men” had a great character arc for Trace, “Paradise Lost” was a nice handling of an adult topic (marital infidelity) and “Rock and Roll Suicide” was just balls-to-the-walls nuts…and fun.  “Village of the Motorpigs” isn’t exactly bad, I’d conclude, just a bit less inventive (and more clichéd) than the other episodes.

Next week: “I am Woman, Hear Me Roar.”

Cult-TV Blogging: Otherworld: "Rock and Roll Suicide" (February 16, 1985)

“Rock and Roll Suicide” may not be the absolute best ever episode of the short-lived Roderick Taylor series, Otherworld (1985), but it sure as hell is the most fun. 

In this amusing and satirical tale, the Sterlings have taken up residence in Centrex, a large province with a population of approximately five million.  Centrex is a buttoned down, boring town, at least until Trace (Tony O'Dell) and Gina (Jonna Lee) introduce the province’s teenage inhabitants to rock-and-roll music.  So yes, this is, essentially, Footloose (1984) only done as a cult-tv, science-fiction story.

The conservative Church of Artificial Intelligence almost immediately protests the “sinful” music, and its leader, Baxter Dromo (Michael Ensign) sets out to destroy Trace and Gina, going so far as to burn their albums.  Even this opposition from the establishment, however, cannot prevent Trace and Gina from becoming a pop culture sensation in Centrex, one replete with its own merchandising blitz.  


Hal (Sam Groom) worries that his kids are drawing too much attention to themselves, but when the Church crosses the line from censorship to violence, he realizes the battle being waged here is not about music, but “free speech."  Unfortunately, the Praetor sends Commander Kroll (Jonathan Banks) to Centrex, thus ending the promising rock careers of the Sterling kids once and for all.  With the help of Trace and Gina's agent, Billy Sunshine (Michael Callan), the Sterlings escape Centrex.

“Rock and Roll Suicide” is such a terrific episode of Otherworld (and sci-fi tv, to boot), because in just barely forty-five minutes it tells the whole, glorious, multi-decade story of rock-and-roll in America.  That story begins with relatively innocuous music, by today’s standards.  We see this epoch of history embodied in Gina and Trace’s performances of The Beatles’ “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”  But before the long, as the episode progresses, the costumes, haircuts and music all grow more flamboyant and edgy, drifting into the then-contemporary era of 80s punk, pop and hair metal.

All the while, of course, the “establishment,” embodied by the Church of Artificial Intelligence fears the growing rock movement.  The form seems to encourage youngsters to "express themselves," for one thing.  And in one especially amusing scene, the leader of the church, Dromo, listens to a Trace and Gina song backwards, and becomes he’s convinced he’s hearing subliminal, evil messages. In particular, he hears the word “inter-dimensional,” he thinks.  

Soon, the Church goes from protesting something it doesn’t like to squelching free speech, and this impulse too has been part of rock history.  “You’ve defied the order of things,” says Dromo, “You have disrupted the spiritual equilibrium of this whole province.”

Indeed, but only in his own tortured mind…

“Rock and Roll Suicide” also showcases, amusingly, the marketing blitzkrieg that can surround a musical phenomenon.  Here, we see Trace and Gina dolls (that look surprisingly authentic  in terms of 1980s toys), but if you lived through the 1970s as a kid, you remember Sonny and Cher dolls, Donnie and Marie dolls, and KISS dolls too.   In a consumer culture, a band ultimately becomes a commodity, as we see here.

Another interesting subplot in this episode by Roderick Taylor and Bruce A. Taylor involves Trace’s new girlfriend.  He realizes all too quickly that she’s only into him for the fame and the money, not because she likes him.  So this episode meditates on the pitfalls of fame as well as the “guitar hero” aspects of being a rock star.  Once you're famous, you can never be sure that a person loves you for you, and not for the girth of your...wallet.

Even the final shot of "Rock and Roll Suicide" is a wondrous and funny put-on. Trace and Gina, together in concert, are superimposed and immortalized over a panoply of night stars.  Yes, they are as timeless as the constellations themselves.  I love it.  It's a wonderful jab at music fans who consider their ephemeral favorites the greatest thing on Earth.

Taken in toto, “Rock and Roll Suicide” is a pretty great rock-and-roll fantasy, but what makes the episode so intriguing after all these decades is what it says about rock’s place in our culture.  “There’s something about these lyrics that hate authority!” the Church Leader complains, and in real life, we’ve all heard the same (stupid) argument for decades.  Why is it that every older generation must hate the younger generation’s music?  And not only hate it, but try to actively destroy it?  We’ve seen this bad impulse in every era for decades, and Otherworld reminds us that, as parents, we don’t always give the younger generation the same leeway we wish we had been given by our folks.  

Lesson to be learned…in Otherworld.

Next Week: “Village of the Motorpigs.” 

Cult-TV Blogging: Otherworld: "Paradise Lost" (February 9, 1985)

In Otherworld’s third episode, “Paradise Lost,” things unexpectedly get a little…adult. 

While vacationing at a sort of alternate-universe Club Med with his wife and kids, family patriarch Hal Sterling (Sam Groom) soon falls hard for the sexy seductress, Scarla Raye (Barbara Stock), the siren who runs the establishment.

Of course, there’s a good explanation for Hal’s unexpected flirtation with infidelity.  Scarla Raye lures him away from his family responsibilities with a brand of pheromone perfume called “Coloma” (“the essence of life” and created literally from human desire.) 

And well, Hal’s clearly not in his right mind; he’s “under the influence.”

At first merely flattered by Scarla’s attentions, Hal soon stays out all night with her, unable to refuse her anything. He then becomes verbally abusive to his children, and downright rude to his wife.  So while “Paradise Lost” concerns a science-fiction concept and provides a (chemical) excuse for Dad’s extra-marital romp with another woman, it’s pretty clear that the episode concerns a serious “real” issue: a family on the verge of falling apart.

Things go pretty far too in this episode of Otherworld too. We don’t know (*ahem*) exactly what good old Dad is up to till 4:30 am with Scarla (though we can guess…), and at the end of the episode, while still under her spell, Hal explains to his wife and children his sincere desire to stay on the island with “the other woman:”  

“From now on, I only think about me and what I need,” he tells his wife, a shell-shocked June (Gretchen Corbett). 

This is a particularly blunt and bracing moment, as Hal chooses the “pleasure” island over everything else of importance in his life.  The moment feels surprisingly real and harsh, and I’m sure Hal’s words, or variations of those words, have been spoken many times in too many families.

Fortunately, June is a fighter and isn’t about to lose her husband.  She tells Hal that Scarla has made him “forget” who he really is.  And then she pointedly contrasts herself with the immortal Scarla, a woman made perpetually young by ingestion of the Coloma.  “I can’t offer eternity.  I don’t even know what that means,” June admits.  But June does offer the “hope of growing old together,” and notes that she is Hal’s best friend.

That moving and well-delivered speech snaps Hal out of his stupor, and he flees with his family as the island paradise conveniently self-destructs and Scarla super-ages into an old hag in a matter of moments. 

Hal then concludes, in voice over narration that “paradise begins at home.”

Since this is a continuing TV series, you might have guessed there was going to be a happy ending and a re-affirmation of marriage and monogamy, right?  

Here, Hal is persuaded to return to his family, but in real life, that’s not always that way.  In real life, once a person starts thinking only about himself, it’s hard to draw him back on the basis of being a “best friend.”  People leave marriages or cheat because they are looking for the exotic, the different, and that’s precisely what Scarla Ray offers.  Despite the re-assertion of mainstream family values (and thus order), this Otherworld remains pretty daring since it risks making the audience hate, or at least dislike, Dad.  At the very least, the episode portrays him as weak.

Directed by Tom Wright (Millennium), “Paradise Lost,” like the previous two episodes of this 1985 series, combines a family story with a science fiction plot.  It does so, at least most of the time, with a degree of intelligence and humor.   This episode develops June's character very well, in particular, as she deals with the surprising changes in her husband.   The kids are shunted to the side a bit, but that's okay, because the family issue here is commitment, and how it relates, specifically, to husband and wife.  

Fans of cult-tv will note that the late Ian Abercrombie (Seinfeld, Birds of Prey) has a significant role here, as Scarla Ray's superior from the home land.  And lovers of good literature will recognize resonances of The Tempest here, in the setting, and of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Next week on Otherworld: "Rock and Roll Suicide."

Cult-TV Blogging: Otherworld: "The Zone Troopers Build Men" (February 5, 1985)

In the second episode of the short-lived 1985 cult series Otherworld, “The Zone Troopers Build Men,” young Trace Sterling (Tony O’Dell) is conscripted into the Zone Troopers, and sent off to basic training.  


His worried parents attempt to rescue him from a life-time of involuntary service, but Trace realizes something important about himself at the 13-week boot camp: the training he receives is valuable.  It changes him.

As the episode opens, Trace is failing at his new school in a small, out-of-the-way agricultural community.  He just can’t get very excited about a high-school exam concerning…corn.  Trace’s low grades result in a “yellow warning,” meaning that the Zone Troopers are free to break into the Sterling house and take away Trace in the thick of night.  

As Mr. Sterling insightfully notes “this culture is not as permissive regarding teens as 1980s America.”

Indeed.  

Soon, the sheltered Trace is undergoing rigorous training at the draconian hands (and torch…) of merciless Perel Sightings (Mark Lenard), the equivalent of a drill-sergeant.  But where this new Z.I.T. (Zone Trooper in Training) differs philosophically from his mentor is in weighing the importance of compassion and loyalty.  Perel sees such  qualities as weaknesses, but Trace knows they are strengths.   

On graduation day, Trace demonstrates his compassion – and independence from the Zone Troopers – by refusing to destroy several rebel encampments from the cockpit of his “vampire” air-craft.  He betrays Sightings, but Sightings allows Trace to escape, having learned, perhaps, to respect the young man.

In short, I’ve always considered “The Zone Troopers Build Men” to be one of Otherworld’s finest hours, in part because of the strong presence of Star Trek's Mark Lenard in a significant role, but also because it offers a rather three-dimensional examination of the so-called military mentality.  

Military service is about being part of a hierarchy and following orders, but too often people forget true service is also about becoming a fully-realized, capable individual…one who knows when orders are wrong, and will do something about that fact.  


Trace clearly benefits from the skills he learns in the Zone Troopers, but that fact doesn’t change the truth that the organization – no matter its revered “Hall of Heroes” – takes its marching orders from a corrupt and cruel state.  Trace is able to separate the commendable ethos of the Zone Troopers ("proficiency, pride and prowess") from the unfit command structure that deploys it.

This is undeniably Trace’s best episode in the series because the young man takes responsibility for his actions (and failures in school) and emerges “with a deeper understanding” of what it means to commit to something.  "The Zone Troopers Build Men" is about Trace finally growing up, and about Hal's recognition of that fact about his son.  

Written by Coleman Luck and directed by Richard Compton, “The Zone Troopers Builds Men” also does a fine job of reminding viewers that “this is not the United States.  They don’t look at things the way we do,” as Hal Sterling comments.  

In other words, there is still enough alien about this world to distinguish it from home.  Like holographic tests in high school, and computerized lockers that “talk” to student.  Or a "combat" robot that nearly offs Trace (but which looks kind of ridiculous, and must be hidden with some manipulation of color in the frame.)

All that established, the budget is clearly stressed here.  The Zone Troopers drive contemporary mini-vans, and the vampire aircraft – designed for “psycho terror” campaigns – are clearly pretty flimsy little gliders.  You'd think this army would be better equipped.

On the creepy and oddball side, this episode features a wonderful and bizarre interlude in which Trace is led through a Zone Trooper museum, and there are all of these weird, totally-unexplained wax figures -- heroes of the Unification Wars -- displayed there.  


You get the feeling the creators of the series had some interesting history in mind there, and I love when Otherworld heads off on these unexplored weird tangents.

Next week: “Paradise Lost.” 

Cult-TV Blogging: Otherworld: "Rules of Attraction" (January 26, 1985))

"Other Worlds lie outside our seeing; beyond the beyond; on the edge of within. The Great Pyramids: erected by the Ancient Ones as a barricade at the portal between two dimensions; two separate realities. This is the story of one family drawn through a mysterious vortex into the other world and their perilous trek homeward."

-Opening narration to Roderick Taylor's Otherworld (1985)

From the age of nuclear family sitcoms such as The Cosby Show (1984 – 1992) and Family Ties (1989) arrives this family-oriented science fiction series, Otherworld (1985).  


Created by Roderick Taylor and airing on CBS,  Otherworld -- much like The Fantastic Journey (1977) -- concerns a tightly-knit group of displaced people trapped in an alien world, moving from place to place, civilization to civilization, in search of a path home. 

In The Fantastic Journey, that prized destination was the Devil Triangle's “Evoland” (in the East…) where wayward travelers could return to their time periods and lands.  In Otherworld, that destination is “Emar,” a city where wayward travelers could also find portals home and return to their lands as “sorcerers” and “kings.”

But where The Fantastic Journey concerned a group of characters who became an ad-hoc family over the course of many episodes and adventures, Otherworld focuses instead on an already-existing American family: The Sterlings.  


That name sounds a lot like “Serling” (as in Rod Serling), which may or may not be an intentional tribute given the Twilight Zone nature of the premise. 

More importantly, the word Sterling is defined as “genuine, pure or true,” and those descriptors very much apply to this suburban family.  The family consists of resourceful engineer and Dad, Hal (Sam Groom), Mom and veterinarian June (Gretchen Corbett) -- seemingly named after June Cleaver -- teenagers Trace (Tony O’Dell) and Gina (Jonna Lee), and little Smith (first Brandon Crane, then Chris Hebert).

In the first episode of Otherworld, titled “Rules of Attraction,” the Sterlings are finishing up a summer vacation in Egypt, where Hal has been working to construct a hydro-electric plant.  


On the day of a great planetary alignment -- which has not occurred for 10,000 years -- the family visits the Great Pyramids.  In short order, the family is zapped through a whirling vortex (shades of The Fantastic Journey, again), and whisked into an entirely new, alien world.

Specifically, the Sterlings arrive in a barren “Forbidden Zone” outside the province of Sarlex, and have a terrifying run-in with a Zone Trooper Kommander named Nuveen Kroll (Jonathan Banks).  After Kroll attempts to arrest the family for traveling in a restricted area, the Sterlings overpower him and appropriate his military hover-craft.  More importantly, the Sterlings take Kroll’s “access crystal,” a small, cylindrical key which permits unlimited access to travel and information banks in this bizarre totalitarian world.  In short order, Kroll is ordered to catch the fugitives and retrieve his access crystal.

Hoping to hide and blend in with the populace, the Sterlings soon settle down in the mining Province of Sarlex, which seems a weird reflection of 1950s America.  Everyone seems to live by the edicts of a strangely-worded Bible, and in Leave it to Beaver-styled family units.  The government of Sarlex even orders Mom – a medical professional – to become a “housewife.”  Meanwhile, Trace falls in love with a high-school classmate, the beautiful Nova (Amanda Wyss).

But the Sterlings have a shock coming. Everyone in the town, including Nova herself, is an android, a “plasmoid replicant” designed to work the mines, which produce a radiation poisonous to human beings.


When June falls ill from exposure to the radiation, the Sterlings realize they must flee their new home, in search of another, and Nova helps the family escape through a series of subterranean tunnels.  Before Nova says farewell to the Sterlings, she also tells Trace of Emar, the capital province where a technology is located that can send them home.  She also informs them that in this strange world “every province is completely different” and also  that “a long time ago, people would follow” strange monuments to reach Emar.

Cutting to the chase, “Rules of Attraction,” the pilot for Otherworld is a really great opening hour, and one that wastes no time beginning the adventure.  We learn just enough about the family before the unexpected trip through the vortex, and then suddenly, we’re in an entirely different world, and in a new adventure.

In the finesttradition of science fiction television, “Rules of Attraction” also involves a social critique of the then-contemporary “real” culture in which it was produced.  Specifically, Trace has trouble accepting that Nova – as an artificial life form – can feel love as fully as he does.  “It’s not the same,” he declares

This is the old, widely-accepted fallacy we have all  heard over the past few generations in America: that people of different ethnicity, religion and race don’t possess the same evolved sense of family, love and humanity as we do; that they are somehow “inferior” beings.  In this case, Trace suggests that Nova must leave Sarlex with him, since he can’t possibly leave his family.  Of course, she points out that she can’t leave her family, either.  But Trace has a tough time seeing the families as equivalent.  “If you cut me, I bleed.  It’s the same,” Nova declares, hoping to sway him.

Making her point in brilliant, pointed fashion, Nova later shows Trace exactly where her “soul” is located (in a wall of computerized machinery beneath the city), and then challenges the Sterling boy to show her his soul.  


Of course, he can’t so easily pinpoint his own soul, and so the question becomes, how do we know we have souls?  Is it possible that the machines are more “alive” and “spiritual” than we are?

      

 Talk about a heady brew for a first outing on network television...but Otherworld is extremely ambitious in terms of its subject matter and perspective on that material.  At its root, “Rules of Attraction” brilliantly discusses racism in this subplot of Trace/Nova, which involves, essentially, an interracial romance.  I must confess, I was gratified to see the series so quickly and so efficiently move into the “meat” of its theme, when so many opening episodes of cult-TV require laborious set-up and lengthy exposition.  But Otherworld gets right to the action, and right to the beating heart of its premise.

            

There’s an even more subversive aspect of “Rules of Attraction” as well.  The Sterling family meets with neighbors (who resemble the Flanders on The Simpsons) and there’s this uncomfortable sense of someone  behind-the-scenes (the androids progenitors?) intentionally creating a world of social inequality, a world of 1950s stereotypes.  For instance, women are not supposed to hold down jobs, only do the shopping.  Why have the androids been created in the image of...an outmoded patriarchy?

At episode’s end, Hal battles for replicant rights by destroying a main computer under Sarlex that can audit the personal memories of each android, thus freeing them from domination by the Zone Troopers.  With this very Captain-Kirkian blow against a corrupt establishment, one gets a sense of Otherworld’s burgeoning sense of morality and ethics.   I remember watching this pilot in January of 1985 and thinking, at the time, that Otherworld was as close to a new Star Trek as we were likely to get in the 1980s in terms of TV sci-fi probing the edges and parameters of the human equation.

Of course, Star Trek: The Next Generation premiered less than two years later.  So I was wrong.


Still, there was a delight in discovering Otherworld on CBS, and its full-throated sense of humor and social commentary.  Simply put…I loved this show.  And I can't figure out why in Hell it isn't available on DVD, or at least for streaming.  I know it boasts an avid cult-following...

Although produced cheap, "Rules of Attraction" features some good visuals that hold up pretty well today.  For instance, there's a nice matte painting of Sarlex (later re-used on TNG in episodes such as "Angel One") and also the bizarre monuments of the Other World.  Also, underneath Sarlex is a vast computer center and that wall of souls, and the breadth of the domain is impressive considering the TV budget.  

You may also notice here the series' trademark upside-down Zone Troopers guns.  The barrels are below the handles, in other words.  I always thought this was another creative way of showcasing the topsy-turvy, upside down nature of the Otherworld, but the weapons still take some getting used to.

Next Week: Otherworld episode 2, “Zone Troopers Build Men” starring Mark Lenard.