Pray You Never Meet Them...

CULT TV FLASHBACK # 63: The Time Tunnel (1966-1967)

"Two American scientists are lost in the swirling maze of past and future ages, during the first experiments on America's greatest and most secret project...the Time Tunnel..."

-opening narration to Irwin Allen's temporal opus, The Time Tunnel (1966-1967)

Love him or hate him, it's fair to state that producer Irwin Allen boasted a unique and distinctive take on science fiction television throughout the 1960s. His genre programs are undeniably kiddie-oriented, but they also reflect (in an almost reflexive, unthinking way...) a major philosophical conflict of the epoch.

In particular, Allen's adventurous cathode ray tube fantasies straddled the line between almost hysterical "technophobia" -- the fear that new inventions (like nuclear weapons or computers) would annihilate us outright, or at least put us out of work -- and, oppositely, the age's burgeoning Camelot/Kennedy-style "can do" optimism. This was, after all, the dawning of the Apollo Age; a period in which America's space program would achieve what was once believed impossible: a trip to the moon.

If you gaze across the wide array of Allen's TV programming from this age, you can detect how this unusual conflict plays out in various forms and colors. In Lost in Space (1965-1968), the future man of 1997 was able to reach the stars in advanced spaceships (such as the Jupiter 2) and build robots with human personality and individuality (like the bubble-headed booby...) but the first space flight also became hopelessly and irrevocably lost in the stars.

In Land of the Giants (1968 - 1970), the same conflict between technophobia and techno confidence was also present. In that series, man has developed (by the far-flung year of 1983...) high-tech "sub-orbital" spaceships like The Spindrift...but it still plows goes through a storm and ends up marooned on a planet of giants.

And in The Time Tunnel (1966-1967) -- which has aptly been described as "Lost in Time" -- mankind has developed the technology to conduct time travel at a top-secret facility (a huge subterranean complex in the Arizona desert...). But the behemoth, when activated, almost immediately misplaces two scientists (Dr. Doug Phillips and Dr. Tony Newman) in the corridors of time. Permanently.

On one hand: technological achievement and advancement. On the other, technological terror plus error. What these Irwin Allen speculative programs seem to tell us, I suppose, is that humans boast the intellect and skill to create amazing devices; but not the wisdom, perhaps, to adequately control them.

Of all Allen's storied sci-fi series, The Time Tunnel was perhaps the least successful on its original sortie. It aired for just a single season of 30 hour-long episodes on ABC. Broadcast from September 9, 1966 to April 7, 1967, the series involved the aforementioned scientists -- Newman (James Darren) and Phillips (Robert Colbert) -- tumbling (literally...) through various historical (and future!) time periods, a circumstance which enabled the series to frequently re-use footage and costumes from such films as Titanic (1953), The Buccaneer (1958) and Khartoum (1966).

Despite this crafty, cost-saving measure, the Time Tunnel pilot was still one of the most expensive ever produced at the time, costing a then-whopping $500,000 dollars. You can readily observe where all the considerable expense went in the pilot episode: there are some amazing matte-paintings of the Time Tunnel complex...the whole facility looks like it was outsourced to Krell construction workers. Also, the Time Tunnel control room set is vast and impressive: a testament to 1960s-style futurism. There are banks of giant computers with lots of blinking lights, and that massive, whirly-gig tunnel itself taking center stage. The visual effects are opulent too, particularly views of the lead actors somersaulting through a moving, glittering temporal vortex.

The Time Tunnel's first episode, "Rendezvous with Yesterday" (written by Harold Jack Bloom and directed by Irwin Allen), features guest star Gary Merrill as Senator Clark, a budget-obsessed politician who visits Project Tic-Toc (location of the Time Tunnel device...) in the Arizona desert. The colossal underground complex, which houses over 12,000 technicians and stretches over 800 floors, has already cost the U.S. government a whopping 7.5 billion dollars (hey, less than the monthly cost of our presence in Iraq!) This is simply unacceptable!

"Is time travel worth it?" Senator Clark asks pointedly.

The response from Dr. Phillips is that time travel is "potentially the most valuable treasure man will ever find."

Still, the impatient senator isn't convinced that time travel is a worthwhile endeavor, and he demands a demonstration of the not-yet-operational time tunnel. Scientist Tony Newman impulsively complies and -- without permission or preparation -- jumps through the machine. The result? Lots of smoke and explosions. And then Tony lands on the HMS Titanic on April 13, 1912, just hours before the "unsinkable" liner is destined to strike an iceberg and go to a watery grave.

D'oh!

Unfortunately, the techs at Project Tic-Toc, including the lovely Dr. Ann McGregor (a woefully underutilized Lee Meriwether), can't return Tony to the present. Not even with their high-tech "location probes" or other tools. They are able, however, to visualize Tony's chronological location with a "tele screen." And, as a last resort, the technicians can also yank Tony out of one time period and into to another random one...and hope they get lucky.

It's sort of...a temporal crap shoot.

Back aboard the Titanic, Newman realizes the heart does go on, and immediately attempts to change the time line by warning the ship's captain, a regal Michael Rennie, of the impending disaster. The captain doesn't believe Newman's stories and voices a variation of a line oft-repeated on this series; something along the lines of: "you don't expect me to believe that wild story, do you?"

One might also note, at this juncture, that Tony seems to have no preparation or schooling whatsoever for the event of actual "time displacement." He's one of the key designers/inventors of the time tunnel juggernaut and yet he has no plan, no philosophy, no agenda whatsoever about dealing with the temporally-challenged natives of other time periods. Apparently on instinct, he simply warns people about the future and is immediately incarcerated or beaten-up for his trouble (another tiresome convention that is repeated throughout the series).

Now, my point here is simply this: whether or not time can actually be altered, why does Tony want to change the flow of time at all? Was the time tunnel constructed so that the American government can interfere in the past? I mean, if the captain of the Titanic had actually listened to Tony's warning and averted the nautical disaster, some several hundred additional souls would have survived the maiden voyage and thereby altered Tony's entire time-line (since he is born in 1938, after the Titanic accident).

Let me make this even more basic: what if one of those "new" Titanic survivors caused a car accident that killed Tony's Mom before she gave birth to him? See my point?

Besides wanting personally to survive the Titanic disaster (and I don't blame him for that...), what could possibly motivate Tony to reveal the details of the future to the denizens of 1912? When Doug returns to the past next, he mindlessly adopts the same plan. He even brings a newspaper from the day after the disaster to convince the Captain of Tony's veracity. I mean...jeez, what's the end game here? Saving the Titanic? Changing the course of 20th century history? Altering the time line? What?

Closely examined, the motives of the characters in this story make no sense. By my reckoning, Tony and Doug should be focused on one thing: keeping a low profile and escaping the disaster. They don't need to be sounding alarm bells, and they sure as hell don't need to commandeer the Titanic's radio room! One might expect more dispassion and weighing of variables here. Especially from two genius scientists, right?

It occurs to me while watching The Time Tunnel that the series would have been much more interesting (not to mention a bit more intelligent), if in stories like "Rendezvous with Yesterday," the heroes had to preserve the flow of time as they had already experienced it. Wouldn't it have been more interesting if Tony and Doug landed on the deck of the Titanic and realized it wasn't going to sink at all? That they had to aim it at an iceberg themselves, to ensure that their histories remained sacrosanct? I realize there would be moral questions there, but they'd still be "heroes" in the conventional TV sense, since they'd be preserving our chronology.

Oh wait, this was the premise for Voyagers (1980)...

Anyway, I'm not trying to be dismissive of The Time Tunnel. It is what it is: a product of the time period from which it arose (the 1960s), and for a very specific audience (children). It's harmless escapist fantasy, nothing more...and if you saw it as a child, I'm sure you would get a nostalgic rush watching it. That established, it's not a very smart series by today's standard (and remember, Star Trek was a smart series, and it also aired in 1966). Oh, there's definitely an occasional moment of real drama here, such as the instance in "Rendezvous with Yesterday" when Doug and Tony must inform the captain of the Titanic that he is destined to die that very night. However, for the most part, time travel mysteries and human emotions are curtailed, slighted, or outright ignored in favor of James Bondian fisticuffs and action. It's all cowboys, Indians, soldiers, spies, aliens, and disasters.

During the over-two-dozen episodes of The Time Tunnel, Tony and Doug visited the "Crack of Doom" (don't laugh...), the volcanic eruption at Krakatoa on August 27, 1883. They went to Pearl Harbor on December 6, 1941 (but didn't encounter the U.S.S. Nimitz there....) They experienced the French Revolution first hand ("Reign of Terror), averted the (first) assassination attempt on Abraham Lincoln ("The Death Trap") in 1861, witnessed D-Day ("Invasion") at Normandy, met General Custer ("Massacre"), Billy the Kid ("Billy the Kid") and...Robin Hood ("The Revenge of Robin Hood.")

Yes, before watching The Time Tunnel, I too always thought Robin Hood was a mythical hero, not a historical one, but who's counting? Another episode "One Way to the Moon," landed our wayward heroes on a rocket ship in flight, one bound for Mars...with a saboteur aboard.

As the series wore on, The Time Tunnel increasingly lapsed into empty-headed, monotonous phantasmagoria. The final episode, "Town of Terror" was set in the future year of 1978 and involved strange aliens with tin-foil faces and black capes who, for some unfathomable reason, are referred to as "androids"(!). These fishy-looking invaders -- rejects, apparently from Lost in Space -- had taken over the idyllic town of Cliffport, Maine (population 700), where they began sucking all the oxygen from the Earth. Tony and Doug landed in the town and put a stop to the plan, but not before an alien saboteur got to Project Tic-Toc and started sucking the air out of the room there too. It takes an inordinate amount of time for the brilliant project scientist, Dr. Swain -- gasping for air -- to realize the oxygen is being depleted. Whatever...

The last moments of the series are actually the most interesting, at least from a certain perspective. Following the landing in Cliffport, Doug and Phillip are shunted back in time again...to the Titanic. Now, on one hand, this return to the beginning was no doubt a lead-in to summer reruns of the first season. However, considering that there was no second season of The Time Tunnel, viewers might interpret this twist of fate to mean that our heroes were not merely stuck in time, but trapped in a loop too. Alas, we may never know...

Again, I don't want to rain on anyone's parade here -- and all sci-fi TV has its fans and adherents -- but The Time Tunnel is tough to take seriously. The lead characters - Doug and Tony - are about as cardboard as could be, not to mention the most physically fit and physically skilled "scientists" of all-time. Some of the technobabble on the series is inconsistent too. Sometimes the scientists in the tunnel control room can talkdirectly with the time travelers on a microphone, and sometimes the men can't hear them.

And you have to wonder, too, why are the time tunnel techies always rolling the dice and scrambling these unlucky guys from one time period to another? I'll tell you what...if I came from 1968 and ended up in 1978 (as Tony and Doug did in both "One Way to The Moon" and "Town of Terror"), you know what? I'd just call it a day. I'd rather live ten years in the future,than risk ending up in 1184 BC ("Revenge of the Gods"), or 1215 AD ("The Revenge of Robin Hood.")

Close enough for government work, and all.

Night Gallery Blogging: "The Caterpillar"

This classic Night Gallery episode concerns a "little beastie" called an earwig. This tiny insect from Borneo boasts a fondness for the warmth of a human ear...but -- as host Rod Serling reminds viewers -- it doesn't exactly "whisper sweet nothings" once inside. Nope. It does something...horrifying.

"The Caterpillar," directed by Jeannot Szwarc (Jaws II, Somewhere in Time) aired in March of 1972 and is based on the famous short story by Oscar Cook (1888-1952), a former civil servant who actually served in Borneo from 1911-1919. Cook's story is set in Borneo, but the old wives tale about earwigs burrowing inside human ears (and brains...) has been chronicled as early in history as 1000 AD. A quick search on the Internet will reveal a number of news and science sites debunking the gruesome notion that Earwigs can crawl through the human skull. But still...ick.

"The Caterpillar" (adapted by Rod Serling) follows the arrival in Borneo of one extremely prickly British civil servant, Stephen Macy (Laurence Harvey). This cruel, nasty, arrogant man moves into the home of two other Brits, sixty-sixty year-old Mr. Warwick (Tom Helmore) and his gorgeous young wife ("an absolute knock-out"), Rhona (Joanna Pettet). As you might suspect, Macy soon makes trouble. He is disturbed by the incessant rain in the tropical location, and -- battling cabin-fever -- turns his obsessive eyes towards Rhona.

Macy's attentions are unwanted, but that hardly stops him from making lewd remarks and undressing the married woman with his eyes. When asked if he is hungry for dinner, if he has an appetite, Macy stares right at Rhona and notes that indeed his appetite is "slowly growing." Later, Rhona advises a cure for Macy's loneliness and abstinence: a "cold bath."

But Macy is a prick, and isn't content with the status quo. He is convinced that Rhona should be with him rather than the kindly old man, and meets with a local rogue, Tommy Robinson (Don Knight), in a bar. Robinson suggests not an assassination, but rather an "act of destiny." For a price, Tommy will send one of his native friends to deposit an earwig on Mr. Warwick's pillow.

These bugs are so light, so small, that they are practically unnoticeable. And, according to Robinson, earwigs have this"decided liking" for the human ear. Once inside the ear canal, the odds of an earwig evacuating it are a thousand to one. They can't turn around you see, and so instead keep plowing endlessly forward...burrowing into the brain and feeding on grey matter as they seeks an escape route.

The pain caused by these "stealthy chaps" is agonizing, horrible, and death is nearly always the result. Still, this sadistic plan appeals to Macy. He feels that after her antiquated husband dies, 28-year old Rhona will turn her affections to him. With little shame, Macy authorizes the plan. However, Robinson's thug makes a fatal mistake that very night...and puts the earwig on Macy's pillow instead of Mr. Warwick's.

Macy wakes up the following morning with a bloody ear and immediately realizes what has occurred. The earwig is inside his ear! In the ensuing two weeks, Macy undergoes agonizing pain as the earwig digs in. In fact, his hands have to be bound to his bed-posts so Macy doesn't claw his face apart in an attempt to get rid of the skittering bug feasting on his brain.

By some miracle, Macy survives the ordeal, which he describes as an "agonizing, driving, itching pain," and the earwig exits his ear. An unrepentant Macy tells the Warwicks that what he did, he did "for love," and that he paid the price with two weeks of Hell.

Unfortunately, those two weeks are only the beginning of Hell for Mr. Macy; a fact you will recall if you remember the segment's final punch-line before the fade-out (one revealed in intense, declarative close-up). I won't spoil the ending here, but suffice it to say that "The Caterpillar" boasts one of the nastiest and most macabre twists ever featured on Night Gallery (and likely network television, for that matter.)

Rod Serling's teleplay is whip-smart, witty and terrifying, but the episode likely belongs to Laurence Harvey, who plays Macy as a smarmy, monstrous bastard. You may hate Macy, but after witnessing his ordeal (again, in harrowing, unrelenting close-up...), you do feel some compassion for the man and his painful odyssey. There are moments here -- with Macy tied to the bed, gasping for air -- when it looks as though Harvey's bulging eyes are actually going to explode out of his head. His pain is palpable, and you can just imagine what's going on inside; how that thing is probing and pushing its way through his skull.

There's no real gore in "The Caterpillar," and the titular insect is never glimpsed, even for a second. Instead, we simply see what the bloody thing does, a torture painted on Harvey's expressive, gaunt face. And we listen as a physician (John Williams), Robinson, and a survivor describe the pain experienced...and the pain yet to come. Despite a lack of horrific visuals, the episode proves utterly harrowing (and involving).. Kathryn had to turn away from the last ten minutes because she felt the episode was so disturbing in nature.

"The Caterpillar" is probably Night Gallery's most famous episode; and for very good reason. Next time you have an ear ache, I defy you not to think of this episode. And of earwigs.

Night Gallery Blogging: "Silent Snow, Secret Snow"

In 1934, writer Conrad Aiken penned a short story of a most unusual variety: one concerning a seemingly normal pre-adolescent boy named Paul who succumbs to a voice "inside" his head; the voice of immaculate, glittering, and unending...snow. The boy uses his mental "snow" as a barrier "between himself and the world."

Paul's concerned, frightened parents attempt desperately to reach their son, to pull the boy back to their reality, but the ubiquitous snow -- an all-consuming yet strangely intimate mental blizzard -- buries Paul's mind inside itself. This progression towards isolation continues until Paul is simply...unreachable.

"Silent Snow, Secret Snow" was dramatized on radio in the 1950s and also very memorably on Rod Serling's Night Gallery in 1971 (now available on DVD). It's one of my all-time favorite installments of Night Gallery, actually. It's very, very disturbing, but also discomfortingly beautiful. One of the things I admire most about Night Gallery is that it dealt with horrors of all varieties, whether monstrous (like vampires and ghouls) or very real. On the latter front, it mused seriously about the horror of loneliness and regret ("They're Tearing Down Tim Riley's Bar"). Or, as is the case here, the horror of mental illness.

Whether you view this Night Gallery tale and young Paul's plight as a metaphor for autism or for schizophrenia, it's a terrifying journey. As the worry-wart and occasionally paranoid father of a two-year old boy, I lived through the common parental fear of "autism" (especially as incidences of the condition have mysteriously multiplied here in the States). Fortunately, my son is absolutely fine -- gregarious, outgoing, and extroverted to an amazing degree -- but my point is simply that "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" taps into a universal parental fear of losing your grip on your child; of losing him (or her) to something insidious that you can't control.

Orson Welles narrates this distinctive segment of Night Gallery, and his mellifluous voice captures some strange, artistic quality about this story. As scary as Paul's turn "inward" remains, the narration reads like fine, lyrical poetry; and the visuals are dynamic, glorious and well-chosen. In a certain sense, this is simply the darkest story of winter ever created because it concerns an interior winter; a metaphorical season of death that arrives like a storm and heralds the cessation of innocent youth.

As the story commences, Welles' recounts for us how Paul's unusual journey into mental illness originated; how his descent into the the never ending snow started simply as "nothing...just an idea. But then Paul's fantasy methodically grew worse and worse, becoming an obsession he couldn't turn away from. The notion is that Paul's real world is somehow dirty, muddled or confusing, and so his mind seeks out "the counterpoint of snow," that immaculate, perfect cleanliness of snow fall. His mind finds the purity it desires, and can't let go of it once it is located.

In keeping with this visual theme of "whiteness" symbolizing purity, there are moments in the episode in which the audience sees Paul drinking milk (notably also white), or glaring at a glass chandelier, which promptly transforms into ice-laden tree branches. Everything Paul sees is soon affected by the unique filter (his filter) of snow.

When Paul's disassociation from reality grows more pronounced, "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" begins to depict outsiders (a school teacher, parents, and a prying doctor) in the point-of-view subjective shot. They appear more than a little distorted this way; almost like aliens. The effect is that we -- like Paul -- find ourselves distanced from them and their hysterical concerns.

In a despairing, unhappy denouement, Paul finally turns away from the "inquisition" of the outside world for another place, an interior dwelling that "no one will ever again be able to enter."

In this white blizzard, the snow beckons more strongly than before, promising to tell Paul a beautiful story. It is a tale that gets "smaller and smaller," like a "flower that blooms into a seed." Again, that's a perfect metaphor for Paul's unexpected turn inward; for his shrinking world. In pre-adolescence, we expect the youth seed to bloom; for a child to "mature" and become something more than the sum of his or her parts. Imagine the terror when a child's journey is the opposite. A doubling down, a turn away from the wonders of the outside world. Welles' narration is especially good in this latter part of the episode, whipped-up into a strange, almost sensual frenzy.

Mental illness can blot out life's colors. It can blot out life's vibrancy and nuance, creating a kind of obsessive blindness, and .here it is visualized as a snow blindness. I don't want to say something corny or cheap about an elegant, scary show like this, but "Silent Snow, Secret Snow" is truly and inescapably...chilling. The pristine, cold beauty of this most singular Night Gallery episode will make your blood run cold. Especially if you're a Mom or Dad.

X-Files Double Feature

If you live in the Los Angeles area (and I don't, unfortunately...) this news item might be of some interest, especially for X-Philes:

"The "Inspired By" team, in association with 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment... will be holding a fundraiser screening of Fight the Future (1998) and I Want To Believe (2008) back-to-back!!

This is a charity event being held to solely benefit the organisation Neurofibromatosis, Inc. 100% of the proceeds from the screening will be sent in Ms. Anderson's name on behalf of Philes worldwide."

This X-Files double feature is being held December 6, 2008 from 2:30 pm to 7:30 pm at the Regency Fairfax Theatre at 7907 Beverly Blvd.

Tickets are on sale now (here) for $50.00. That price buys you the X-Files double feature, refreshments, a commemorative programme (and a brief speech from Neurofribomatosis Inc.) If you can't make it to the West Coast for the screening, there's also an option for "long distance" support.

Theme Song(s) of the Week # 34: The Marvel Superheroes (1966)

CULT TV FLASHBACK #62: Otherworld (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)

In January of 1985 -- just days after Ronald Reagan's second inauguration as President of the United States -- CBS introduced a new science-fiction TV series entitled Otherworld. Created by Roderick Taylor, this obscure but fascinating genre series was something of a wolf in sheep's clothing.

On the surface, Otherworld looked rather rather like The Cosby Show or Family Ties meets Lost in Space or The Fantasic Journey.

However, underneath the superficial "family" veneer of the series, Otherworld was often something else: a satire and pointed social commentary on American life in the Gipper's 1980s. It was Gulliver's Travels all over again, made modern, or rather, made futuristic.

During a short shelf life (the series was gone forever from network TV by mid-March of 1985...) Otherworld attempted -- with some dedication -- to achieve the same delicate and ambitious alchemy that had made Star Trek a classic of the form: it served up thoughtful science fiction under the guise of action-packed entertainment.

To be certain, the show wasn't always great (and some episodes were downright bizarre and surreal...) but -- also like Star Trek before it -- Otherworld boasted a weird, attractive sort of charm; a quirky, individual sense of humor and joie de vivre that could, for the most part, gloss over the budgetary inadequacies and the occasionally trite writing.

The first episode of the series, "Rules of Attraction," set up the series premise, protagonists and ground rules. Hal Sterling (Sam Groom) and his wife June (Gretchen Corbett) were typical American middle-class parents -- Reagan democrats (and yuppies...) -- with 2.5 kids: teenagers Trace (Tony O'Dell) and Gina (Jonna Lee), plus pre-adolescent Smith (Brandon Clark in the pilot; Chris Hebert thereafter).

As "Rules of Attraction" began, the Sterling family, on vacation in Egypt, decided to visit the Great Pyramids on a very special day; a day in which six planets in the solar system would align in a manner that "hadn't happened in over 10,000 years."

Before you can say "Land of the Lost," the American family Sterling is whirled through a glowing blue vortex and into an alternate dimension, a mysterious "other world." Yes, It's the same premise, to a degree, that informed not only Land of the Lost, but Fantastic Journey as well.

Only in the latter venture it was not a planetary alignment, but rather a force in the Bermuda Triangle (a strange green cloud) that opened the doorway to another world. Still, The concept of humans crossing over between our world and an "Otherworld" is also one common to ancient mythology; not just Egyptian lore, but Celtic myth as well. For instance, in Irish myth, it was believed that such dimensional crossovers were indeed likelym but only on special calendar days (like planetary alignments...).

But Otherworld derives inspiration from many sources. Even the character names have been created with an eye towards literature and pop culture. The family name "Sterling" means, literally, "admirable" or "fine," even "the best" or "the very best." This is an appropriate choice since this American family in a strange new world represents us as we'd like to be; at our finest.

"Hal Sterling" also sounds a lot like Rod Serling, don't you think? Again, that's appropriate, given the Twilight Zone nature of the dimensional vortex. And Mom's name is June. In case you've forgotten, "June Cleaver" is the name of Barbara Billingsley's matriarch in Leave it to Beaver (1957-1963). Finally, the little boy's name is Smith...as in Dr Smith on Lost in Space. And yep...he's the little tyke who's often getting into trouble (playing with military weather control devices, even, in one episode).

Anyway, after arriving in the "Otherworld" underwater (!), the Sterlings swim to the shore of a strange, foggy lake and spy two moons in the night sky. "I don't think we're in Egypt anymore," young Smith quips.

Searching for help and hoping to be rescued, the Sterlings make for a desert road, only to be intercepted by a hovercraft piloted by a Zone Trooper Commander named Nuveen Kroll (Jonathan Banks).

A sort of otherworldly Nazi Commandant, the villainous Kroll attempts to arrest the family for illegally traversing "The Forbidden Zone" between Provinces, but the Sterlings incapacitate Kroll, steal his all-important "Class One Access Crystal" (a kind of master key to computers and gateways in this strange world) and make off with the hover craft. When he awakes, Kroll makes it his duty in life to catch these "terrorists."

Yep, Kroll becomes, in Muir lingo -- the hapless pursuer; the cliched character who -- in the spirit of Barry Morse on The Fugitive or Jack Colvin on The Incredible Hulk -- chases the good guys each and every week, but never manages to catch them.

After ditching the hover vehicle on the border of a province called Sarlex, the Sterlings attempt to "blend in" with the local community. They go to an orientation with other newcomers, and are given housing and even job assignments. Hal gets a job at a printing press and Mom -- a veterinarian back in America -- is assigned the duties of housewife. "This is a time warp back to the 1950s," she complains.

Meanwhile, while attending high school, Trace falls head-over-heels in love with a beautiful girl named Nova (Amanda Wyss), and she begins to tell him something of this strange world.

For instance, there are 77 independent provinces in this Other World, and the distant city of "Emar" is the capitol. Emar, in case you wondered, is also the name of a real historical city, one of great power in the Bronze Age, in the Third Millennium B.C. In this Other World, however, Emar is ruled by a fascistic dictator, The Praetor. He brought all the provinces together in a war of "Unification."

Even today, however, strange obelisks mark the long road to Emar, and some people believe that strange magics there can send strangers home to their dimension. "They say a long, long time ago, people from other worlds would follow monuments to Emar and return home kings and sorcerors," Nova reveals.

As Dad begins keeping a journal of the family's adventures ("I want to leave a record behind, so someone else will know our story," he explains), the Sterlings soon learn that all their neighbors in Sarlex are actually "plasmoid replicants," human-like androids created to work in the local Sarlex mines, where a new form of radiation is lethal to human beings. When June falls ill, the Sterlings realize they have to leave the province immediately, but Trace wants to remain with Nova.

And this is where the premiere episode of Otherworld gets really clever: Trace asks Nova to leave her family behind and join him, because she's "just" an android. She replies that perhaps he should leave his family; and Trace responds that it's "not the same" because she's a "machine." Suddenly, we're in the territory of racism here; not malicious racism but ignorant racism just the same...and not on the part of some otherworldly alien; but on the part of our all-American boy, our "Sterling" representative.

Nova's response to Trace's ignorance is brilliant and telling: she shows Trace exactly the location of her android "soul" and then asks Trace pointedly: where's yours? This moment is not heavy-handed or preachy and comes up almost as a surprise. It's one of Otherworld's smartest and most unexpected twists, because as Americans we expected the Sterlings would be teaching those otherworlders our values; not vice-versa. Here, we get schooled.

The remaining seven episodes of Otherworld involve the Sterling family's trek across the provinces (following the obelisks) to Emar. As you might expect, Kroll is always in pursuit. Just a little behind...

The second episode aired, "The Zone Troopers Build Men" by Coleman Luck, finds the Sterling family (living a new life as the "Hardins" in the Tarka Province) horrified to learn that for flunking out of high school, Trace has been drafted into the Zone Troopers.

His superior at boot camp is none other than Star Trek's Mark Lenard, here portraying a heartless man with a mechanical hand/torch device. The Sterlings follow Trace to the"Triangula" province to attempt to free the boy from bondage, but the episode really concerns Trace making his own decisions...becoming a man; stepping out of his father's shadow.

Although Hal warns that "This is not the United States; they don't see things like we do," Trace manages to live up to the Zone Trooper ethos ("Proficiency, pride and prowess"), while simultaneously renouncing the belief that "compassion is a weakness."

In a move reflective of the Vietnam War experience (a big deal in the 1980s, with films like Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Hanoi Hilton and so on...), Trace -- now a Zone Trooper -- refuses to fire on innocent civilians during a bombing raid aboard a "vampire attack craft." The point here is that proficiency, pride and prowess necessitate something more than blindly following orders. Even soldiers under orders must be moral; most question command.

Otherworld's third episode, "Paradise Lost" finds the family stranded at an island resort, "Club Paradise," where there is a dark underside beneath the idyllic exterior. Located on a volcanic island, the resort was formerly a military base; one devoted to biological experiments.

It turns out the club's beautiful hostess, Scarla Ray (not to be confused with Charlotte Rae...) is mass-producing "coloma," a drug that is the "essence of life," which "gives us joy untouched by death" and "transforms us into Gods."

Ray acquires this vital (and apparently addictive...) drug by extracting it from the souls of the unwitting vacationers. In one sense, this is another "myth" story re-told for Otherworld; Homer's Odyssey. You know, the one about Odysseus and the Sirens. Accordingly Hal -- ever the loyal family man -- is seduced by the beautiful Ray until June stands up to fight for him.

Again, "Paradise Lost" finds Otherworld operating on several thematic levels. On the surface there's the villain (Scarla Ray) and the threat to the family's survival; but on another narrative dimension all together, "Paradise Lost" concerns Hal's mid-life crisis.

Sure, it's a drug-induced mid-life crisis, but it's the kind of thing that real families go through and fight through. "She's got some kind of strange power over him," June worries about the beautiful Raye, afraid of losing her husband. And she almost does: Hal rejects his wife, selfishly stating: "From now on, I only think about me and what I need."

Remember, the early 1980s saw a record number of divorces (over a million divorces granted) in the United States, and Ronald Reagan is our only divorced commander-in-chief in history, so Otherworld is discussing matters of life and death for the contemporary American family here; about how infidelity hurts; about the cost to the family unit.

In "Paradise Lost," what ultimately draws Hal back to the family hearth is June's sincere entreaty that though they may not know eternity and youthfulness forever, they do share the "hope of growing old together." Hal concludes that "paradise begins at home," and flees the island with his wife and children When he steals a look back at the abandoned Scarla Ray, she has been transformed into a monstrous old crone...

If fans remember Otherworld today at all, it's likely either for the cool, upside-down hand-guns of the Zone Troopers (where the trigger is on the handle butt...), or for the bravura, nutty fourth episode: the surreal, amazing and truly bizarre "Rock & Roll Suicide."

In this trademark episode, Trace and Gina introduce rock music to a staid, conservative province that resembles (right down to the automobiles...) 1950s Eisenhower America. After Gina and Trace perform "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" at a local talent show, their new-fangled music stokes the impulses of the province's repressed youth and earns enemies of the Otherworld's dominant religious faction, The Church of Artificial Intelligence. It's not long before the Church is burning Gina & Trace albums at a bonfire.

The most amazing thing about "Rock and Roll Suicide" is that it charts the entire rise of rock and roll, from rock music as voice of rebellion and anti-authoritarianism (think juvenile delinquent movies of the 1950s), to rock as transformative cult movement (think Beatlemania), to rock music as marketable pop product (here we see Mego-style Gina and Trace dolls mass produced...just like those of Donny and Marie, and Cher).

Many scenes in this virtuoso episode of Otherworld are actually lensed as cheesy 1980s rock videos, utilizing old school MTV techniques (split screens, fog, soft focus, etc.) And don't even get me started on the fact that the show's father figure (Hal) spends virtually the entire episode in clown make-up and costume...a sure "anti-establishment" swipe at fuddy-duddy parents.
Depending on your perspective, you will either find this episode absolutely hilarious...or totally ridiculous. I favor the former interpration, simply because "Rock & Roll Suicide" finds a new and inventive way to to introduce "American" (or at least Western...) values to the "civilization of the week."

On Star Trek, Captain Kirk gave the Yangs and The Cohms the U.S. Constitution in "The Omega Glory." On Otherworld, the Sterlings share rock and roll with the natives, fostering an all-out revolution against the fascist establishment (a tyranny which forces households to decorate with signs that read propaganda, like "CORPORATION" or "Emotions can be DANGEROUS.")

Other episodes of Otherworld included "Village of the Motor Pigs," which found Trace falling in with a bad element: a motorbike gang out of The Road Warrior (1982). "Mansion of the Beast" was another mythic story re-cast for Otherworld, this one The Beauty and the Beast (with Mom, June, as Beauty). "Princess Metra" saw Gina mistaken for the ruling dauphin of another province.

In all, just eight hour-long episodes aired. There remains an enduring fan myth that thirteen episodes of Otherworld were actually created and that in the final episode, the Sterlings arrived at Emar and found their way home. Alas, this just isn't the case. Only eight episodes were made, and they've all been seen. Period.

During a short time on broadcast television, Otherworld managed to accomplish a whole lot with very, very little by way of resources (meaning budget). The production values were minimal, and most sets were re-dressed suburban houses and schools, with the oddball futuristic technology (like a weird game system) thrown in to provide the show an "other" worldly feeling.

But the settings hardly mattered. It was in the characterization (the dynamics of the family unit) and in the quirky storytelling that Otherworld truly found its niche. The series has a goofy, 1980s vibe, and an awful lot of heart.

Truth be told, before Star Trek: The Next Generation in 1987, Otherworld was as close as we got in the 1980s to genuine, Star Trek-type "civilization of the week" storytelling: science fiction adventures with real social commentary as well as entertainment value. And let's face it, the characters on TNG suffered under the burden that they always had to be evolved and perfect. On Otherworld, these everyday Americans, these "Sterlings" -- grown-ups and kids -- could fail, make mistakes, and authentically prove themselves heroic without the advantage of living in a utopia.

Otherworld also boasted a great 1980s synth-pop theme song, and featured a number of memorable guest stars, from Ray Walston ("Rules of Attraction") and Mark Lenard to Amanda Wyss and Vincent SchiavellI ("Village of the Motorpigs.")

While Otherworld no doubt seems pretty dated today, an official DVD release absolutely seems in order. If -- for no other reason -- to bring "Rock & Roll Suicide" back into the Light of Day. That episode is a hoot.

CULT TV-MOVIE REVIEW: Killdozer (1974)

"I don't like the way she handles..."

- quite the understatement, in Killdozer (1974)

Muir's Law of Nostalgia # 3: Some "gems" (both cinematic and earthen...) are better left unexcavated.

Or to put it another way: not everything you remember from your youth is a treasure. Sometimes it's just...poopie.

The 1974 hit TV-movie Killdozer -- another touchstone from my disco decade, mis-spent youth -- proves (like 1960's dreadful Dinosaurus!) a prime example of this theorem.

I'm sad and disappointed to report that under the microscope of critical viewing, this old made-for-television movie is a bit of a bust. Yep, Killdozer is stuck perpetually in idle.

And yes, this is a film that was constantly joked about on MST3K (for good reason, I see...). And no, I was not expecting great art upon my recent viewing.

On the contrary, I was simply expecting to have a good time; to be entertained on the level of a production such as Duel, Trilogy of Terror, Gargoyles, Snowbeast, Someone's Watching Me, Death Stalk or Don't Be Afraid of the Dark. Those are all 1970s TV-movies that hold up pretty darn well in 2008, given budgetary and censorious limitations. Unfortunately, Killdozer doesn't make the grade. By a long shot.

That's a bit of surprise, because the source material is strong stuff. Killdozer is based on a great and highly-suspenseful Theodore Sturgeon novella first published in Astounding Magazine back in 1944. Sturgeon's tale concerned a malevolent alien intelligence waging war against humanity (particularly a small work crew) by possessing a bull dozer.

The TV-movie pretty closely hews to that simple outline, but lacks the most basic sense of craft to bring to life the bizarre premise. To wit, Killdozer features a dearth of action, impossible-to-distinguish characters, and is poorly filmed. In short, it makes Maximum Overdrive (1985) look like King Lear.

Think of The Thing by way of comparing the ingredients: isolated location (here an island two hundred miles off the coast of Africa), few characters (all male...), an alien menace (not a shape shifter but "pure energy"), and a fierce battle for survival.

In fact, Killdozer's opening shot is one quite similar to John Carpenter's vastly superior The Thing (1981) remake. It's set in Earth's near-orbital space. Instead of a flying saucer crashing into the Antarctic snow 200,000 years ago, we see a meteor crash to Earth on that isolated island shore...time indeterminate.

We then cut to a small construction team working for Warburton Oil Resources. There are six men on the team, led by a recovering alcoholic named Kelly (Clint Walker). Before long, one of the workers, Mac (Robert Urich) spies an eerie blue glow transfer from the meteor to a bulldozer...and then he promptly dies of something like radiation poisoning.

An alien hum (like one emanating from the meteor), is soon detected in the bulldozer's bucket blade, but gritty mechanic Chub (Neville "Eaten Alive" Brand) can't pinpoint the source.

Before you can say "Bob the Builder," the alien-controlled bulldozer goes out of control. Its first act is to crush the team's one and only radio (clever girl...).

The next thing it does is go after the film's token African-American, Al (James Watson). Al's death is an especially absurd scene: I mean, how hard is it to outrun a slow moving bulldozer, when there are trees not far distant?

And answer me this: if you were being chased by a malevolent construction vehicle, would you stop in the vehicle's path to hide in a hollow pipe?

Sorry, but to quote Killdozer, "pain makes me snide."

The remainder of the film's seemingly eternal running time (74 minutes) is devoted to a lackadaisically-paced and poorly-orchestrated man vs. machine war.

Unfortunately, the machine seems to possess the upper hand here in terms of intelligence, and the construction team members are killed one-at-a-time in mostly idiotic fashion. For instance, the bulldozer pushes an avalanche of rocks down a mountainside onto one unlucky man who doesn't have the wherewithal to look up.

Then another character spontaneously decides to go joy-riding in a jeep on the beach...only to be surprised that the bulldozer is waiting on the shore for him, having sprung a trap.

I have to admit, this latter moment is hysterically funny. Staged as a shocking surprise, the film cuts suddenly to the bulldozer on the beach... just waiting to strike as the joy-rider appears on the scene. You have to ask yourself: how did the malevolent bull dozer know exactly where the jeep would show up on the vast shore line, and then park there undetected? Do bulldozers have stealth mode? How, precisely, can a loud bull dozer "sneak up" on someone?

I often joke that in horror movies, human beings do not possess peripheral vision. In Killdozer, human beings also do not have the capacity to hear, apparently. Ears are purely decorative. For example, there's a moment in which the parked bulldozer raises its mechanical blade (to smash a worker), while an imperiled character stands cluelessly in front of the machine, just inches away. Does he hear anything and turn around? Nope. Not until the bucket smashes at his feet. (Yes, the killdozer conveniently misses his target...).

The dialogue in Killdozer is mostly atrocious too, a piss-poor stream of endless lines like "machines don't just run by themselves!"

Well, if you are trapped on an island and your comrades are being murdered at an alarming rate, are you going to cling to that particular theory or believe your own lying eyes?

Obviously the damn bulldozer is running itself!!! Jeez! The movie tries to squeeze some mileage out of the fact that Kelly is a former drinker, and therefore he doesn't trust what he sees, but come on, Killdozer...don't insult my intelligence! How many people do you have to see crushed by a self-operating bulldozer before realization starts to dawn?

But Killdozer's biggest deficit remains that, from a visual standpoint, it is a remarkably ugly film. The island setting is chalky and dusty -- not exotic at all -- and there is no variation (therefore no relief) whatsoever in location. From start to finish, the movie looks as though it were filmed in a quarry somewhere. The scared work men drive back and forth from one chalk pit to another, trying to come up with a plan to kill their nemesis. After dynamite doesn't do the trick, electrocution proves efficacious (a nod to Hawks' The Thing?) But even the iconic battle between crane and bulldozer is visually underwhelming. A clever filmmaker might have tried to play up the beauty of the location; making a distinction between the natural beauty of the island and the mechanical ugliness of the bulldozer.

Total honesty requires that I admit one thing. I did feel a plesant flush of nostalgia while watching Killdozer (especially during the yellow-lettered, Universal Studios, 70s-style opening credits). In particular, I remember how I first encountered it as a little kid (as a Saturday Afternoon Super Spectacular or some such thing...). But the happy glow of nostalgia fades quickly during this monotonous TV-movie and the audience is left with the realization that these interchangeable characters are so dumb, so slow-witted, that they deserve to die at the hands (or gears) of the killdozer.

The best part of Killdozer is the clever title. However, the operative syllable there is "doze."

Theme Song of the Week # 33: The Herculoids (1967)

RETRO TOY FLASHBACK # 80: Golden Books' The Black Hole Collection

I still remember the day that my grandfather (who passed away in late 2002), purchased this sci-fi movie collectible for me.

It was a hot day in the late summer of 1980 (August, I think...) and my family was spending a week's vacation at the Jersey shore with my grandparents. I was sun-burned, and wanted to play inside.

We all went out to a local five-and-dime store, and my grandfather instructed me to buy anything I wanted...within reason.

Well, I wanted this:

...The Golden Books' The Black Hole omnibus of officially licensed items, which included in one rectangular collectible box a potpourri of goodies including a little Golden Book, a Golden Poster Storybook, a Golden Book of Things to Do, a Press-out Book, a coloring book (with crayons), and two robot puppets.

All of these treasures -- naturally -- related to Gary Nelson's The Black Hole, the notorious and expensive 1979 Disney sci-fi bomb...which I happened to love. And which, beyond all reason, beyond all explanation, I still love. So sue me.

The Black Hole Press-Out Book was my favorite item in this collection. It was a giant over sized book constructed of heavy paper. You could perforate and punch out the various components of the unique space ships seen in the film (including the probe ship, the Palomino, and the mysterious Cygnus), and then put them together to have good-sized replicas.

You could also punch-out paper "stand-up" figures of the movie's primary characters: Captain Holland (Robert Forster), Dr. Kate McCrae (Yvette Mimieux), Joe Pizer (Joseph Bottoms), Dr. Alex Durant (Anthony Perkins), Harry Booth (Ernest Borgnine), and even the evil Dr. Reinhardt (Maximillian Schell).

The robots were also represented in the Press-Out book, and you could stand-up little card-board figures of V.I.N.cent (voiced by Roddy McDowall), Maximillian and even Old B.O.B. (Slim Pickens). Once you were finished poking out the figures, you could put all of these cut-outs against an accurately illustrated backdrop of the multi-story Cygnus command center. Reinhardt's vast command chair and console was also included.

The "Press Out" Robot Puppets were fun too. They were ostensibly "easy to assemble" and the set came with two characters. First was Maximillian, "the sinister robot," and the second was V.I.N.cent, the "lovable" robot from The Black Hole. I remember I did a particularly botched job of assembling V.I.N.cent, which disappointed me no end. He ws my favorite character.

The "Golden Poster Storybook" was this gigantic poster which told the story of the film in glorious, colorful photographs. In the days before VCRs and DVDs, this was priceless (especially as the Black Hole comic-book featured really bad art in which the characters bore no resemblance to their on-screen counterparts).

Yep, this Golden Books toy set was truly "an astronomical assortment of fun that's out of this world." Hard for me to believe I've had the bloomin' thing for about twenty-eight years now.

Jeez, I feel old; like my youth got sucked into a black hole along with that probe ship...

VOTE!

Just sayin'...

Be the change. The power is in you.