The Starlost was a sci-fi television series devised by writer Harlan Ellison and broadcast in 1973 on CTV in Canada and syndicated to local stations in the United States. I'm reasonably certain it never saw the light of day on this side of the Atlantic although with so many regional channels back then I stand to be corrected if any one knows better.
The show's setting was a huge colony spacecraft called The Ark, which had gone off-course. Many of the descendants of the original crew and colonists were unaware of this and that they were even aboard a spaceship.
The series experienced a number of production difficulties right from the start and Ellison ended up disowning it before the first episode had even aired. 16 episode were made in total before the plug was finally pulled.
Steve
I keep meaning to read Ben Bova's Starcrossed the novel he wrote inspired his experience with the series. I've seen 'em all I'm afraid, you're right it never made it here when it was made though. How can I describe the production standards? think of a Tom Baker era Who with a 1/3 of the budget. The scripting? a mixed bag, some of it's quite good, good enough to hold my attention but I can say without reservation the first episode is dreadful, a real basket case of a script. There's trouble with the lead cast too, the supporting cast is occasionally brilliant. I would single out Barry Morse and John and John Colicos who's efforts in the face of costumes that look as though they came from a novelty store are nothing short of heroic.
ReplyDeleteYet I watched 'em all, right to the bitter end so I must like something about it. I do occasionally get the urge to search 'em out on youtube where they surface, they never stay up for too long though I think the obvious problems with production standards are too much of an embarrassment for some of the contributors. Rumours abound on why it should look so cheap, dodgy dealings and shady characters, the debacle over Trumbal's Magicam normally get the blame but they couldn't even get the model shot in the title sequence in focus. How is it possible to not to even have someone who can work a camera on staff?
Thanks for that, DSE, invaluable input as ever. I'll see if I can track one down just out of curiosity. I'm drawn to the 70 aesthetic even when the show is shockingly bad. Hence my having watched every episode of the Tomorrow People.
ReplyDeleteJust remembered another one,the movie Hanger 18 from 1980,one of the first government conspiracy to cover up aliens stories that I can remember,it has a spacewalk scene at the beginning but I could only find this pic
ReplyDeletehttp://serialkillercalendar.com/VHSWASTELAND/HIGH-RES-VHS-COVERS/HANGAR-18.jpg
Theres also the remake of lost in space with the suits that were worn while exploring the alien derelict,I could only find one of major wests helmet
http://borgdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/lost-in-space-matt-leblanc.jpg
Space cowboys is another one
http://borgdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/sapce-cowboys-2000.jpg
And also fantastic four
http://borgdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/ben-grimm-space-suit.jpg
http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/3820/281/1600/astrofront.jpg
and the dr who judoon suits
http://www.thiel-a-vision.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/judoon.jpg
http://static1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120612215412/tardis/images/7/7f/March_of_the_judoon.jpg
Stargate Universe had these
http://www.scificool.com/images/2009/10/STARGATE-UNIVERSE-Water-550x365.jpg
http://www.gateworld.net/news/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/sgu_220_suits.jpg
http://borgdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/stargate-space-suits.jpg
The tv series Eureka featured suits
http://defyinggravity.jimdo.com/space-suits/on-screen/eureka/
Heres an interesting vid with a lot of suit helmets
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMgmxkZ0pWI
And heres 2 familiar suits in one the tholian web and prime directive suits guest starring in mork and mindy!
http://borgdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/mork-and-mindy.jpg
Found some better shots of ben grimms suit from fantastic four
ReplyDeletehttp://ironheadstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/bengrimmspacesuit3.jpg
http://ironheadstudio.com/wp-content/uploads/bengrimmspacesuit2.jpg
Heres some more stargate ones tho these are more conventional
http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o7/resurgamlaura/sci-fi/sg-1/dvd055qr6.png
http://stargate-sg1-solutions.com/interviews/at/images/06attvzonesp71.jpg
Theres also star trek enterprise
http://borgdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/enterprise-space-suit.jpg
http://img357.imageshack.us/img357/8550/enterprisespacesuitsqw7.jpg
http://www.filmwelt-collection.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/001_ENT_Spacesuit-2-900x659.jpg
And theres also this suit from the episode First Flight
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Environmental_suit?file=NX-program-flight-suit.jpg
http://cdn.justinmclachlan.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/screenshot16.jpg
http://www.treksinscifi.com/trekdaily/pictures/2009-02-22-First_Flight.jpg
There was also the 2009 reboot
http://borgdotcom.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/star-trek-2009.jpg
And these deleted scenes from Star trek the motion picture,the suits in this are quite different to the ones actually used in the final cut
http://www.marcellorossi.info/Memory/Memory.html
Cheers Tim. Some Christmas home work for me there when I finally break up from work. A quick scan reveals some stuff that's been pending finding better pictures than what I have so far found, confident these will be they.
DeleteAppreciate the research.
I found the series interesting kind of stark, but it kind of lends itself to the story. The acting is fairly bad, I'm guessing that the budget had a lot to do with that. I barely remember the original run of this show, I think it ran on the PBS stations around here since at that time we only had about four stations that we could get. ABC, NBC, CBS and KPBS (local Public Broadcasting System) . As I remember the suits only show up in one or two episodes at the end. John Colicos was an awesome actor that I miss.
ReplyDeleteThanks again, always nice when someone that's actually seen the show chips in with an opinion or two.
DeleteI remember this show as a kid. It was grudgingly done by CTV when they were forced by the government licensor to have a certain percentage of their programming to be Canadian. Before then they were just an importer network. Nothing original. They probably did them intentionally bad to show that, "see, Canadians just lack talent. We should not even try and just keep importing."
ReplyDeleteThey had a whole bunch of crappy shows. Comedy shows where they used the same jokes each week, a Hee Haw ripoff, talk shows, etc. This was their sci fi show. It's a neat concept. Some good actors in it too. Some ideas taken from Silent Running and the 1970s concern for the environment.
CTV produces much better quality shows nowadays.
A big thank you for that insight Clark. Appreciated
Delete" I'm reasonably certain it never saw the light of day on this side of the Atlantic "
ReplyDeleteI have seen some of this - they edited some of the episodes together to make movie-length instalments. It would have been in the early 1990s while I was a student and it would have been Central ITV showing it late at night - they used to show a lot of cheap imported sci-fi past midnight which was great if you're a fan.
And I probably slept through some of it as well. But I definitely remember the striped uniforms.
I was in the ITV Central area in the 90's but don't think I caught this... which is a bit annoying. It does look cheap though!
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