Vote for why you think it jumped
Day One
Never Jumped
After the opening
Shark Bytes
Hmm... Well, I guess I might be the only person who liked this series. I saw it when I was like 8 and loved it. I was never into sci-fi much but this show somehow rubbed off on me. I liked all the episodes and the props were killer for an eight year old kid. I think the one thing I didn't like was the fact that really no one belived that there was an accident and the ark needed to be put back on course. Of course no one would ever check it out or if they knew they were doing something else that was "more important". Nobody knew anything. That was frustrating.
Ahhh but I still like it today. I have all the episodes and I watch them the odd time. I know it is loserish but I guess it was something I grew up with and it blew me away when I was younger.
Ahhh but I still like it today. I have all the episodes and I watch them the odd time. I know it is loserish but I guess it was something I grew up with and it blew me away when I was younger.
With the current trend of revamping shows from the 70's, maybe they should consider giving this another shot by making this into the mini-series Ellison intended it to be. Giving him full creative control over the project would also be a great idea.
Go WGA!
Go WGA!
It was a long time ago. I was born in '63 and saw the show when I was ten. At that time, we had only four TV channels available, sooooo, you took what you could get. Starlost remains a pleasant memory. Granted, the memory has faded, but what I was most enamoured over was the exterior shots of the ship! Yeah, that's the ticket! And then, Silent Running came out. Yeah! More ships! More biodomes! Kewl...
I vaguely recall waiting impatiently through each episode for the next fleeting exterior shot of the ship. Hmmm, that might say something right there.
And what of the Starlost stories and acting? I can't remember, and maybe that's a good thing, judging from what I've read here from the more involved Sci-Fi historians. Today, I would most likely snap it off in disgust and reach for a DVD of some quality sci-fi show in an effort to wash away the experience.
Still, that morbid curiousity draws me. I mean, this wasn't the first time that Harlan Ellison was burned by TV shows. I think he referred to his work for Star Trek T.O.S., "City on the Edge of Forever" as his Thalidimide Abomination.
Words to chew on.
I vaguely recall waiting impatiently through each episode for the next fleeting exterior shot of the ship. Hmmm, that might say something right there.
And what of the Starlost stories and acting? I can't remember, and maybe that's a good thing, judging from what I've read here from the more involved Sci-Fi historians. Today, I would most likely snap it off in disgust and reach for a DVD of some quality sci-fi show in an effort to wash away the experience.
Still, that morbid curiousity draws me. I mean, this wasn't the first time that Harlan Ellison was burned by TV shows. I think he referred to his work for Star Trek T.O.S., "City on the Edge of Forever" as his Thalidimide Abomination.
Words to chew on.
Minor correction on Starlost props vs Silent Running props:
The Starlost model and props, particularly the biospheres predated Silent Running's ones. The SR ones are actually recycled props from The Starlost.
The Starlost was bad but give credit where credit is due. They didn't ripoff SR but the other way around on the props.
The Starlost model and props, particularly the biospheres predated Silent Running's ones. The SR ones are actually recycled props from The Starlost.
The Starlost was bad but give credit where credit is due. They didn't ripoff SR but the other way around on the props.
To begin with, I'm never thrilled with the notion of a dystopian future, and the backstory that the ship was built because Earth was facing destruction certainly qualifies as dystopian.
Moreover, neither am I exactly thrilled with stories about people stuck out on a multi-generation spaceship in order to escape a dystopian end. Smacks of running away from your problems.
Then, too, the look of the one episode I saw part of (before giving up in disgust) was so bland that it made Space:1999 look like Star Trek (TOS), and so low-budget that it made Red Dwarf look like Star Trek: The Next Generation.
Moreover, neither am I exactly thrilled with stories about people stuck out on a multi-generation spaceship in order to escape a dystopian end. Smacks of running away from your problems.
Then, too, the look of the one episode I saw part of (before giving up in disgust) was so bland that it made Space:1999 look like Star Trek (TOS), and so low-budget that it made Red Dwarf look like Star Trek: The Next Generation.
For one thing the credits read "Created by Cordwainer Bird." Bird is the psuedonym used by Harlan Ellison whenever his work is tampered with and translates to something like "one who works for the birds." Ellison wrote about the entire Starlost ordeal in an essay entitled "Somehow I Don't Think We're in Kansas, Toto" which is featured in his 1982 anthology "Stalking the Nightmare."
This show jumped before it ever left Earth orbit. The premise: 3 people wandering through a 200 mile long starship whose inhabitants don't know what's going on. (Did the actors or writers know?) They visit a different "biosphere" each week (all of which bear resemblance to the agricultural domes on the ships in "Silent Running" but on a larger scale) where groups of people, sealed off from the rest of the domes, bring new adventure each week. A computer simulation of a guy who looks like a cross between "Where's Waldo"'s dad and Harry Potter's dad can sometimes answer practical questions for them, but one mention of the word "bridge" and he flies into, "Warning! Alert Bridge!", worse than the "Warning! Warning!" the Lost in Space robot is famous for. So, this trio is supposedly looking for the Back Up Bridge (why? the primary bridge didn't look damaged) so they can save this Spaceship Ark from destruction. How do they know there's even a backup bridge? They find a bunch of kids (who all had youth serum treatment) at a training center but they don't know too much; they destroy a malevalent sentient computer called Magnus, thereby pissing off all the other sentient computers aboard the Ark; battle intelligent giant bees; meet an alien visitor determined to take the Ark to his home planet; and some more truly terrible episodes. A neat idea for a show, but very poorly produced.
This show jumped on Day one. I only vaguely remember this show since I was only 6 years old when I last saw it. But as I recall even at 6 the bottom of the barrel special effects and the idea of Amish guys in a space ship didn't impress me. Kier Dullea must have been in one hell of a career nosedive to appear in this piece of ****. Imagine going from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Starlost in just 5 years.
When John De Lancie (Q) came aboard the show as the evil military conspirator.....the whole direction of the show went more towards military conspiracy and political scheming and away from exploration and the wonder of the science. I want O'Neill to get revenge on the DeLancie character for shooting him IN THE BACK..... and give the crud a slow,painful death thus ENDING the whole conspiracy bullshit storyline and then get back to the Stargate as exploration and source of dramatic conflict, bringing back Daniel Jackson who was the heart of the show in his relationship with the whole team. I am appalled that the powers that be apparently thought Corin Nemec could be cute and replace Michael Shanks. It wasn't just that Shanks is gorgeous...DANIEL is important. And my loyalty to the show has been compromised.
My experience of this show was from the perspective of a 5 year old (being born in 1967) and if you can believe it, I really thought it was a great show!! I was just getting into classic Trek reruns at the time so I was a budding sci-fi geek, and there was something about this show that intrigued me (at the time). In fact, I'd actually forgotten the name of this show altogether, but remembered the name of the huge ship, Ark, which had the same domes from "Silent Running". I've since been told that the special effects guy on this show was indeed the director of SR and he's obviously re-cycled the domes for use on Starlost. Anyway, I'm sorry to say that whatever i found interesting about the show back then is totally lost on me now because a friend of mine got a hold of a tape of the show, which I saw a few weeks ago (for the first time in 28 years)...and it really was a stinker!! Although I did find the "Amish in space" aspect somewhat amusing, but as far as the rest of it goes...I don't know what I was thinking. Must have been the innocence of youth??
As a Canadian, I am embarrassed to say that this big steaming pile of dung was made in Canada. The Starlost was a Canadian attempt at producing science fiction which unfortunately suffered the great Canadian TV flaw--cheap ass budget. I remember watching this piece of crap as a child and wondering where the hell did they get that much Styrofoam for the sets? Not only were the actors as stiff as the sets, but the writing was absolutely horrid--"Radiation Virus" WTF? The only redeeming qualities were the guest stars, William "Hammy" Shatner and Walter Koenig, and the guy who played the weird ass computer (similar in function to the MS Paperclip) with the weirdest annunciation I have ever heard. I think this show would have been better if they casted TMA-1 (the monolith from 2001) instead of Keir Dulla as the main character because the monolith would have show a lot more emotion than Keir.
What a ripoff piece of junk this was...bad writing, bad acting, bad sets, all brought to you on crappy videotape. Plus, does anyone remember when they were promoting this show by using clips from the film Silent Running?
Just a response to the last poster: I agree, one can't watch more than one of these episodes at a time. They're slow paced & not for everyone. BUT ... if one is in just the right mood, there can be some satisfaction in viewing.
I've gotta admire the patience of the above poster. Sheesh, what a BORING show this was! The acting wasn't wooden or even leaden but virtually comatose- they might as well have hired lithium addicts! The ONLY vaguely interesting part of this entire snoozefest was the opening in which they did a slow pan of the elaborate model of the giant spaceship and narrated the series's concept! It had been four years since 'Star Trek' had been cancelled and us sci-fi fans were DESPERATE for something new on TV - but ,for me (and virtually everyone else I've talked to who somehow remembered the show), even the desperation in slacking sci-fi thirst wasn't enough to prevent the narcolepsy this show brought on!
The Starlost was a Canadian-produced 1-season wonder (of sorts) created by Harlan Ellison, who quickly disowned it. The premise: a huge generation-starship is hopelessly off-course and a trio of young people (led by "2001" star Kier Dullea) try to save it. Each week, they visit another section of the huge ship, called Ark, encountering all kinds of oddball aliens & societies. (Oh, THEY are the only ones who know they're on a spaceship, of course). Now, THAT's a pretty tough concept to make work in a weekly series .. and on most levels this show simply doesn't work. The acting is wooden, the scripts (ironically by some fine writers like Ellison & LeGuin) are banal. The SFX (by Doug Trumbull!) are shoddy too, though the actual model of the huge Ark ship and interiors are kinda cool in a mid-70s, Logan's Run-sorta way. Oh .. the whole thing was produced ultra-cheap on videotape, giving it a "school play" quality that's hard to describe unless you've seen a few installments. All that said, THIS SHOW IS SO BAD, IT'S GREAT! SEEK IT OUT!! Dullea & the regulars aren't exactly Kirk & Co., but they play their roles with such humorless conviction that in a way they're utterly convincing. All kinds of cool 70's guest star types (Simon Oakland, Walter Koenig twice!) show up as aliens or bad guys .. and the show's worth watching just to see some of them give this turkey a whirl. Ellison's pilot episode, "Phoenix Without Ashes," has been novelized (by Ed Bryant) and includes a good essay about how Ellison feels they ruined the show. (With all due respect to Harlan, the book and filmed pilot don't really differ all that much). This show is a minor cult fave and there are quite a few Web sites with pix & episode guides. SEEK IT OUT!
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