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In 19th century Wyoming, a U.S. marshal discovers a secret futuristic underground city run by a supervillain bent on conquering the surface. Originally aired as part of NBC's Cliffhangers TV series which featured three revolving serials.

I remember The Secret Empire, and it really a cliffhanger at the end of each episode, which meant I had to wait one whole week to find out what happened! No binge viewing for sure in those days. A reminder of what the networks could achieve.

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The Secret Empire

This was a great escape for me as a teen in the late 70s. Although the mists of time may tempered this somewhat, but I remember the production values and scripts were of a higher quality than some TV shows at the same time (CHIPS and SuperTrain). Part of the Cliffhangers television show, The Secret Empire was kind of like The Wild Wild West meets The Fugitive and Star Wars. At the time it was novel to have each show end in a cliffhanger, ala Saturday serials. If I remember right, three shows, one about Susan Anton (Stop Susan Williams) and one about Dracula were given 20 minute segments in an hour long show. Each one ended in a cliffhanger and was resolved the next week. It was the right mix of sex appeal (Susan Anton) science fiction (Lost Empire) and horror (Dracula), and it came about two years before Raiders of the Lost Ark made it to the silver screen. Too bad it hasn&#39;t made it to DVD/VHS yet. With the current &quot;release anything&quot; mentality perhaps this show will make it to tape/DVD soon.

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I watched this series from the first one, and each week I looked forward anxiously to the next episode. The series was canceled after a short run (maybe 6 weeks), and I really couldn&#39;t understand why. It was a great show, with good acting and plot. Even if it would one day be available on DVD, it would still end in the middle of all the plots. I especially liked the western episode called &quot;The Secret Empire&quot;. It was one of the most imaginative shows I have ever seen. It starts out like a standard western, where a ranchers cattle are being stolen. When the ranch hands chase the rustlers, they seem to disappear into a mountain. eventually, someone discovers the entrance to the inside of the mountain, and when they enter, what they find turns the show into a science fiction.

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It&#39;s 1880 in Cheyenne, Wyoming. A group called the Phantom Riders are stealing gold, which gets U. S. Marshal Jim Donner (Geoffrey Scott) on the case. It turns out that these are no ordinary criminals. Instead, they&#39;ve come from an Inner Earth alien city named Chimera. The plot is lifted from the 1935 Gene Autry singing cowboy movie serial The Phantom Empire. There, Gene fights the Thunder Riders from a subterranean alien city named Murania. With the series starting with &quot;Chapter 3: Plunge Into Mystery&quot; - Cliffhangers wanted to put people into the middle of the action - Donner is healing from being blasted with one of the Riders weapons. He later saves Maya (Pamela Brull), who is the daughter of Chimera&#39;s overthrown ruler Demeter, with a whip just like Lash LaRue. Now, the city is commanded by her uncle orval (Mark Lenard, who was also Sarek, Spock&#39;s father), a wheelchair riding maniac who wants to take over the world with the mind-controlling Compliatron, which is powered by gold. There&#39;s also another alien female named Tara (Diane Markoff) who is on the evil side yet has the hots for our hero. I remember being strangely attracted to her as a seven-year-old Sam and not knowing why. The story expanded to have a greedy mine baron working with the evil side of Chimera, a giant spider, a mine collapse and even spaceships. But sadly, we&#39;d never see these episodes in America. &quot;Chapter 13: Partisans Unchained&quot; and &quot;Chapter 14: Escape to the Stars&quot; would only play in Europe and we wouldn&#39;t even get a compilation movie for The Secret Empire like the other two serials, Stop Susan Williams and The Curse of Dracula, had. It&#39;s funny because a lot of critics hated this segment, thinking that science fiction and cowboys had no business being in the same story. Maybe they didn&#39;t know about the serial it was based on. Maybe no one was really ready for serials. But if they could have only released this two years later, when Raiders of the Lost Ark came out, this may have been a bigger success than it was.

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Cliffhangers was an interesting experiment: an attempt to revive the thrills and drama of the old movie serials. It featured three segments: The Secret Empire, The Curse of Dracula, and Stop Susan Williams. Of the three, The Secret Empire came closest to replicating an old Republic serial; namely, the Gene Autrey serial The Phantom Empire. The time is the 1880&#39;s and the place is Wyoming. The story opens (seemingly in progress) with Marshal Jim Donner in pursuit of the Phantom Riders, black-clad criminals who have stolen gold shipments. The riders disappear into a mountainside. With the help of young orphan, Billy, the marshal locates the hidden entrance to a cave. He also opens a door to an elevator, which takes him to Chimera, a fantastic underground city. He assists Maya, the daughter of the deposed ruler and leader of a resistance movement. He aids in the fight against the evil Thorval, and his seductive daughter Tara. Thorval has an above ground accomplice, Jesse Keller, and the Marshal is aided by Billy and Millie, the female doctor. The series was typical of the old serials, with fast moving plot, evil villains, seductive femme fatales, and chaste heroines. The above ground elements were filmed in black and white, while Chimera appeared in color. Geoffrey Scott made a great hero, part Flash Gordon, part Matt Dillon. He plays the hero well, if not with great depth. Star Trek&#39;s Mark Lenard is Thorval. He plays it straight, with culture and menace, although his lines get a bit hokey. His daughter, Princess Tara is played by Diane Markoff and Stephanie Kramer (from TV&#39;s Hunter), the actresses switching after the character undergoes a transformation. Markoff was the sexier, playing Tara like Princess Aura in Flash Gordon (including a direct homage to one of Flash&#39;s escapes). Pamela Brill is the rebel leader Maya, the platonic heroine. Carlene Watkins is great as Millie, the doctor and potential love interest for the marshal. Tiger Williams, who plays Billy, is a typical child actor. Peter Breck (The Big Valley) is a hoot as Jesse Keller. He plays him over the top, but never descends into camp. He has some of the best scenes. The final chapters were never broadcast in the US, but they were produced. The Marshal helps free the resistance and leads them against Thorval&#39;s Shadow Guards. Thorval is defeated and escapes to the stars (in Buck Rogers&#39; Ranger 3 spacecraft). Billy is adopted by Maya and stays in Chimera, while Millie and Marshal Donner return to Cheyenne. The series was great fun, with some decent stuntwork, especially in the unaired final two chapters. The dialogue is rather hokey and Chimera looks like it is a mall, with plenty of sub-basements and maintenance corridors. The initial matte paintings, seen as the elevator descends, were far more interesting. Given a greater budget and a little tweaking of the script, the series could have been great. As it stands, it&#39;s entertaining.

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User reviews

The Secret Empire

Could have been a contender

Pre-dated Raiders of the Lost Ark

Great Series

Cliffhangers!

Interesting remake of The Phantom Empire

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