The Starlost

Haven't watched Starlost in a long long time and then discovered there's a Roku channel with all the episodes available, so I'm binging it this week. :-)

What is crazy are all the bad reviews saying how bad the series is; especially the SFX. This was produced in the early 1970s using a process called Color Separation Overlay. Basically an early version of green screen (but it could use ANY color the producer wanted to). This was the same process the BBC's Doctor Who used at the time.

The main lead, Kier Dullea, was in 2001: A Space Odyssey, and many of the episodes had recognizable character actors (Frank Converse, Simon Oakland, Sterling Hayden, Lloyd Bochner, Walter Koenig, etc), so it's not like they were no-name players.

Are their points where it dragged? Sure. But, it's kind of a 16 part slow burner, as they try and save the Ark. Definitely worth watching through at least once for any sci-fi lover.

Any review should not be written without mentioned Harlan Ellison's issues with the series. Issues so much, that he put the name "Cordwainer Bird" in the credits, rather than himself, so that he wouldn't be associated with the series. FWIW, a cordwainer is a leather shoemaker. His opinion was that the series was mangled by those that actually produced it. Makes me wish I could find a copy of the original script(s) to read. FWIW2, he didn't like Star Trek's Journey on the Edge of Forever. I read his original script and it was nowhere near as good as what was eventually given the Emmy Award, so take his thoughts with a grain of salt, perhaps.

OK, so everyone thinks the production values were terrible, then why after 35 years, does this series still exist as clear as a bell in my mind? It was amazingly thought out and the possibilities for plots were infinite like any good sci-fi series. Of particular interest were the "bounce tubes". A travel method that involved jumping into a tunnel that had no gravity and being sucked to the other end. I couldn't wait for each time the characters did that! The show was filled with "wow" moments like the view of the destroyed command center, and the view out the the window at the incredible length of the ship. Note: The ship in this series was recycled a few years later as the ship in the movie, "Silent Running".

I desperately hope that there is a television producer out there that is looking for an idea to remake. With modern computer animation and a cast of a few talented young stars this could easily be the Star Trek of the new century.

IF the shot had used film instead of video tape, IF the supporting cast around Keir Dullea could act, and IF there had been some better scripts. The show had three good episodes; the first: "Voyage to Discovery", the second: "Lazarus frim the Mist", and one of the last "Farthins Comet". In all there were only 17 produced before the plug was yanked in the winter of 1973. I remeber how much I liked the show, and had it had a little more money spent on its prouction it might have lasted a bit longer. As it was shot on video tape, which degrades over time, I doubt any of the shows still exist. If they indeed still exist it would be great to see it on the Sci-Fi channel. I thought The Ark (the spaceship) was totally cool, and believable from the concept of the show. I read on the website devoted to the show that some one is trying to restore the Ark studio model back to as it originally existed!

You know, I was just sleeping and having a dream about a huge generational spaceship, with separate hanging living complexes, which carries most of the population of Earth away to a distant world. Then I realized, I'd seen this concept before on TV, when I was a kid. Reaching through my own memory banks to the distant past, I could only come up with the words: "lost", "ark", and "Walter Koenig" (Chekov from Star Trek). Did the search for Koenig through IMDb, and sure enough found this entry. If I had instead done a search for "lost" and "ark", I'd have probably ended up in "Raiders of The Lost Ark", so it's a good thing I didn't do that search. :-)

Wow, now that I'm looking at the list of stars of this show, I am surprised by how many of them are well-known. Walter Koenig was just a guest star on it. I didn't realize that one of the stars was Keir Dullea, Dave from 2001: A Space Oddessy. Also Robin Ward, I remember he used to be a weatherman or something later on. Ah, ancient Canadian memories.

Koenig seems to have a knack for memorable guest appearances on sci-fi shows. He also had a memorable turn as Bester on Babylon 5.

Of course I was only 8 years old at the time. But in retrospect, the storylines, weird synthesizer music and general atmoshphere were wonderfully creepy. Yes it had super-cheap production values but what could you expect from Canadian TV in the early 70s? The highest budgeted entertainment of the day would have been Hockey Night in Canada or the Irish Rovers Show (remember that one?).

The Starlost is a giant Ark ship hurtling through space on a collision course with a star. The earth has long since been destroyed and the ark ship itself was crippled by a meteor collision several generations into it's long journey. The technical people are dead. What is left are multitudes of biospheres, each with different sub-cultures of human "tribes", all cut-off from one another. These descendents of the original travellers have lost all knowledge of their journey and history. None of them even know they are on a space ship. Their biosphere is simply their home. You have to admit there is something mythic about that premise. I thought it was a nifty idea.

The series follows the adventures of 3 inhabitants, Devin, Rachel and Garth, who escape their biosphere, slowly find out the truth of the Ark, and travel from dome to dome.

I remember catching a few reruns of The Starlost in the early 80s and it was still as good (relatively speaking) as I remembered it. The use of those super-cheesy chroma effects did add a certain other-worldliness to the production that is hard to describe. It was as if it was so bad that it was actually effective (or almost). Certainly if this was redone today with a bunch of flashy, overblown, modern cgi, all the spookiness and creepyness of the original series would be diminished.

I think the reason why this series actually worked for me is because it had that "Space 1999" theme of being disconnected, alienated and lost, while scrambling like mad to get back to "somewhere" more connected. There is something metaphysical and tragic about that set-up which I guess appeals to introspective individuals.

I also liked the way that almost every episode ended on a down note, with the trio jumping to yet another Dome filled with raving madmen of one sort or the other.

Anyway, too bad this series seems to have disappeared. It would have been cool to watch a few episodes again. But I guess the original videotape that it was shot on has since decayed! :)