CULT TV BLOGGING: Logan's Run Round-up: "Turnabout and "Stargate"

Well, I'm just about finished with my second cult-tv blogging experience (the first was Push, Nevada). For those of you who've been keeping up, I've been blogging the 1977 CBS series, Logan's Run. There were fourteen hour-long episodes in all, and many episodes were quite enjoyable ("Pilot," "Man Out of Time," "Crypt," "The Judas Goat" and "Carousel"), though there were also quite a few stinkers ("Fear Factor," "Futurepast" and "Night Visitors.") The mediocre or average ones ("The Collectors," "The Capture," "The Innocent") make-up the rest of the canon.

Sadly, the series ends with two more not-so-hot episodes, "Turnabout" and "Stargate." The production team must have been cranking these episodes out at warp speed to make network deadlines, and the mediocre results speak for themselves. I didn't really have the heart to blog them individually, since I'm a fan of Logan's Run: The TV Series and don't want to pillory it. And like I said, there are a number of good episodes here to enjoy, and the show was produced nearly thirty years ago. I know, I'm an apologist...

So anyway, I'm blogging a "round-up," the two final episodes in one post.

"Turnabout" is a run-around by Michael Michaelian and Al Hayes in which Logan, Jessica and REM stop for water in desert and find an unconscious woman in the sand. She's wearking a berka to hide her face. An armed patrol on horseback finds the Runners and escorts them to the city of Zidar, a repressive, religious society where books aren't permitted. Francis and another Sandman show up in pursuit and are captured too, and both groups are taken before "the Judgment Chair," where the city leader proclaims they should be executed. With the help of the woman they saved, Mia, Logan and his pals escape the city, but then must stop and go back to save Francis, and so forth. There are a series of rescues/captures/rescues before it's over, and Francis is forced into a "duel" before the Judgment Chair. At the end of the day, there is regime change in Zidor, and the Runners continue on their way.

When this episode started, I believed it was going to be pretty cool, especially since it focused on a society - at least to surface appearances - that seemed based on Islamic principles. My enthusiasm petered out, however, sometime in the middle of all the chasing around and captures. This is another of those "straw man" societies for Logan to knock down (or in this case, repair), and though I'm relieved to see him taking on more than a "dream clinic" ("Futurepast"), a psych ward ("Fear Factor") or a one-person bunker ("The Innocent"), most of the story just feels like a waste of time. Who's rescuing whom? Who's going back for whom? It's all become increasingly tedious...

"Stargate" just isn't much better...sadly. Logan, Jessica and REM encounter another city, one run by aliens who wear thermal clothing because they can't stand the cold of Earth. They want to invade the planet and have a "stargate" or transporter which can bring aliens to Earth, but it's broken, and they need some of REM's parts to repair it. The aliens start disassembling REM, but Logan and Jessica seek the help of a human survivor and attempt to set things right, preventing the alien invasion...especially because they know that they will soon be "replaced" by alien doppelgangers in thermal suits.

I've always loved the novel, Logan's Run, and also the movie starring Michael York and Jenny Agutter. I've always had a fondness for the TV series too, but stories like "Stargate" just don't seem to fit with the premise very well. I think there would be enough material involving the re-building of a post-nuclear world without bringing in invading aliens. E.T.s should never enter the picture as far as I'm concerned...and after "The Collectors," this is actually the second episode of fourteen to feature would-be alien conquerors.

So Logan's Run is done. I started out really enthusiastic about the opportunity to re-visit this program, but I've found that its truest value seems to be in nostalgia. I love seeing the Sandman uniforms and flare guns again; I love witnessing Carousel and seeing stock footage of The City of the Domes. Except for some highlights like "Man Out Of Time" and "Crypt," however, there's not a whole lot of thematic stuff here worth championing, and I feel that ultimately neither the characters nor the plotlines were very well developed.

Logan, Jessica (and my favorite character, REM) never found Sanctuary, but I leave the series wondering if there ever was one to begin with. In the movie, there was not, but the characters speak about it so plainly and with such conviction on the TV series, that I wonder if somewhere out there a haven for the Runners actually existed. Had Logan's Run continued, we would have discovered the answer to the Sanctuary question, and hopefully the series would have also gotten down to the nitty-gritty of addressing a post-apocalyptic world of desperation and hope; savagery and humanity; hatred and love. That's the series I wanted to see...