The Stranger

If I feel tired and desirous to not think much before trying to dose off, I put movies like this on. They are slow moving but entertaining enough for me to lie down and watch before drifting off. This movie is great for that.

The Stranger is a low budget TV pilot which ended up being just a made for TV movie. They do an excellent job of setting things up for a series. An astronaut believes he returns to earth but discovers he isn't on earth at all but imprisoned on an alien planet which happens to be Earth's twin orbiting on the opposite side of the sun. The government is an oppressive police state. The people are identical to humans except they are left handed. There is nearly no effort to make up for the limitations of the budget. The cars are all normal looking, offices, shops, the only thing that looks sci fi is Ward E which is like the Ministry of Love in 1984.

The acting is fine. The movie itself is unremarkable but it doesn't try to be amazing either. I can sit through it but its not interesting enough to be considered a compelling thriller.

HERE WE GO... Featuring several actors from an amazing array of b-movies and made-for-tv flics, this turkey might appeal to the die-hard fan of velveeta cheese, spam and/or atari 2600, but not to the masses (except perhaps those watching a uhf channel at 3 in the morning after a binge at the local pub). Seemingly a failed pilot for a pre-doomed series, the only thing going for this movie is the sheer ability to crack jokes about the plot. Come on...

An astronaut, adrift in space, wakes up to find himself in a hospital bed surrounded by slightly-paranoid medical staff. Later he finds out (through the silliest of methods) that he's actually on a twin planet to earth (on the other side of the sun where we can never see). He wanders off (actually, it's supposed to be an escape, but my grandmother's escape from the nursing home would be more exciting to watch, not to mention more challenging), and the government wants him back (of course), to pry from him certain details (I won't spoil it). Later we find out that their space technology is slightly better than ours, as he manages to steal a shuttle for the trip back home (anyone doped up on sleeping pills could have been more sneaky, and why would they have to pry in the first place. Didn't they get his ship too?). And to top it all off, he crashes into the ocean, only to find himself....

(sorry, not allowed to spoil it. Too bad, because the truly pathetic

"twist, climax," whatever you'd prefer to call it, proves just how much of a groaner this film is). the end.

And thank heaven they didn't make the series! Great flick for drunken

bouts, cheese-fests and late-night viewing, but nothing I'd want to suffer through again.

I can't even believe I went on about this turkey for more than a few sentences.

Watch it on one of those mondo, make it funny shows late at night, but please don't watch it alone. 'Tis not proper to be a closet cheese-aholic!

The other reviews for "The Stranger" were all very negative. Well, for some reason, I didn't hate this one and enjoyed watching it. Am I saying it was great? Nah...but it's worth seeing.

The story is a bit like the movie "Journey to the Far Side of the Sun" combined with "1984" and was intended as a pilot for a potential series. Back during the run of the "ABC Movie of the Week" it wasn't uncommon for the network to show pilots--either to see if the public liked them or to recoup their losses when they knew they weren't going to do the series. This one ultimately was not bought by the network--which was usually the case for these films. One exception that comes off the top of my head was the "Nightstalker" series...and I am sure a few more were first shown here and then became TV shows. Considering others didn't seem to like it, I guess the network did well by not approving the series!

An astronaut (Glenn Corbett) is in space one moment and the next he wakes up in a hospital. This was pretty sloppy and showed that the budget wasn't very high for this project. Anyway, the hospital folks are trying to act like everything is normal but they are actually watching him closely, as they know he's an alien and comes from a planet called 'Earth'. These Terrans look like humans and act much like them but they also live in a parallel world that isn't quite the same. The biggest difference is that the government is very repressive and their way of dealing with problems is violent and nasty...and after he escapes (?) they pull out all the stops to kill him. Can the astronaut manage to survive and even get help from these Terrans?

Okay...there were a few plot problems I mentioned above. Additionally, Corbett didn't have the best screen presence I've ever seen. But the story is interesting and kept me watching. In fact, I might have enjoyed a TV series like this one.

Remake of the much better produced theatrical film JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN from 1969 (available on DVD) about an astronaut who lands on a twin Earth on the other side of the sun. This TV film has a good B-film cast including such sci-fi buff favorites as Cameron Mitchell (FLIGHT TO MARS available on DVD), Lew Ayres (1971 TV film EARTH II as well as Dr. Kildare in a series of films from the forties), Dean Jagger (X THE UNKNOWN available on DVD), and Sally Field's mom, Margaret Field (MAN FROM PLANET X available on DVD) to name just a few. Credits go out to the casting but isn't as fun as any of the other films mentioned and tries to start a TV series in the vein of 60's TV show THE INVADERS. By the way if you liked THE INVADERS, star Roy Thinnes is the star of JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN. THE STRANGER is more for sci-fi buffs than sci-fi fans.

This movie takes the plot behind the sci-fi flick "Doppelganger" (an astronaut from our Earth crashing on a 'counter-Earth' on the opposite side of the Sun, and the Cold War totalitarian vibes on that world) and tries to turn it into a pilot for a TV series. However, the whole thing sank without a trace, and TV is probably better off for it.

Everyone here is perfectly adequate in a 'made for TV' way. Cameron Mitchell turns in his usual solid performance. So does Glenn Corbett (who seems to be a kind of poor man's John Saxon) who plays the rugged individualist whose very existence poses a threat to the foundation of the 'World Order' on counter Earth.

But the low budget and low energy and inconsistent script and the lack of any real imagination in the set designs and cinematography keep this Sci-Fi adventure firmly tethered on the launch pad.

I'll give one example: in the original template for this pilot, ("Doppleganger"), the astronauts lose control of their landing vehicle in a thunderstorm, and crash their ship in a truly appalling sequence (it was obvious that their ship was never going to fly again). Then the two astronauts stagger helplessly from the smoking remains of their vehicle in the middle of howling rains and winds, only to be smacked down and overcome by faceless men yelling through loudspeakers.

In "Stranded in Space", the astronauts are sitting in their seats when buzzers sound, things start shaking, and the camera blurs into a blackout (and as a friend pointed out, it was pretty obvious that the actors were simply shaking themselves on their seats, the director wasn't even shaking the camera or the set). I've seen episodes of "The Twilight Zone" and "The Outer Limits" that took more effort to establish mood and setting than this made-for-TV mediocrity.

And that, in essence, is what's wrong with "Stranded In Space". No budget, no time, no imagination...just making the token gestures and hoping the sci-fi Fan Boys' imagination and enthusiasm will fill in the rest. Sorry, guys, it didn't work.

I'm sure that everyone here just finished their work on this one and walked away, and never thought of it again, except as a listing on their C.V. And that's what you, the viewer will do. You'll remember, if pressed, that you once watched a TV movie called "Stranded In Space", but it made no lasting impression on you, and you can't recall too much about it.