Vote for why you think it jumped
Singing (Trace and Gina)
Too much 80's Sci Fi
Shark Bytes
I was trying to explain the concept of this show to someone recently and they did not believe that this show existed. A complete fantasy world as I remember, and I still crack up that the kid "rock stars" performed Hall and Oats' "Method of Modern Love" In a decade full of prime time soap opera's this was one of the few creative shows of the 80's
It JTS from the get-go. The Sterling family isn't the only thing that should have disappeared while taking that tour of the Great Pyramid of Cheops.
I really liked this summer tryout show about a familiy who is visiting Egypt and has employed a free lance tour guide to take them to the depths of one of the pyramids. The guide says it is time to go back and asks for more money. When the Sterlings refuse to pay up. The guide dowses the torch and leaves them in the dark to try to find their way out. As they stumble about in the dark, they find an obelisk and somehow activate its secret components which transport them to a new "Other"world. They get dumped in the middle of nowhere and unfortunately in a "forbidden zone" and thus are immediately set upon by the Kommander who doesn't like the answers to his questions. The Sterlings are trying to tell the truth but in "Otherworld" there is no Egypt and there are no Pyramids. Realizing they are about to be arrested (or worse) they over power Kommander whatever and steel his car. The key to the car is a crystal that looks like an over grown bottle stopper and as it turns out is the key to everything. The thing is, every time the use the "key" the bad guys trace it. Anyway, the show jumped when the kids end up being Rock stars. (I forget the premise behind this.)They're new found fame has also drawn attention to them. The Kommander now picks up the trail again after he had all but given up. Meanwhile, the "Otherworlders" embrace this new kind of music except for the otherworld baptists who decide there are demon lyrics in the music if you play the songs backwards. WOW! THAT'S ORIGINAL! The only thing that kept my interest after that was the hot actress that played the daughter. Not that it mattered. After the 8 episode tryout, Otherworld had gone on to other places.
The concept of the show was so cool, it kinda covered over the predictability. The most vivid picture I have from the 8 shows was also the "Donnie & Marie" show. I thought the concept was cool that they could do "Rock & Roll Fantasy" & "Billie Jean" in the same recording session due to the fact that no one on the new world had ever heard any of it. The only thing that I didnt like was that in a matter of 2 weeks on the charts, they had a houseful of different merchandising items.(Action figures, albums, playsets...) I wish they would give the concept another chance today. It was a very "pre-sliders" type show.
In regard to the post above, I believe in this episode they sang old Beatles songs (since the citizens wouldn't have known them anyway) and they were a smash! I remember the father's voice over at the end quote from Hendrix's "Castles Made of Sand". Anyway, this show jumped, I believe because during this period 84-86 it seemed we were inundated by so many sci-fi/anthology shows: V: The Series, New Twilight Zone, Amazing Stories, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, etc. All were now using computer animated graphics which look pretty cheesy now (Think "Last Starfighter, not "Star Trek NG") Even Hitch was brought back to life and colorized like the drawings at the beginning Cheers to host the new "Presents" Not unique enough, not enough audience to go around.
OTHERWORLD was a classic sci-fi schlockathon from 1985 that I loved. This family, the Sterlings (seriously), gets separated from a tour group in this pyramid in Egypt and before you know it they're in this parallel world trying to find a portal home. But I loved it anyway, even though it was predictable and formulaic. The theme song was cool, the world was imaginative, and like all good sci-fi, the show provided thinly veiled social commentary about our own world. And the great Jonathan Banks was awesome as Naziesque bad guy Kommander Nuveen Kroll (spelling Commander with a "K"... now that's pretty Nazi!). This show jumped shark in so many ways in so little time, including Same Character Different Actor when they had a different kid play Smith Sterling in various episodes, and again when they had Special Guest Star John Astin (Gomez!) in another episode. But my favorite jump was when the teenage kids Trace (Tony O'Dell from HEAD OF THE CLASS fame) and Gina become rock stars when they start singing this cheesy made-up rock song in this town that had outlawed music. All this shark-jumping, and the show only had 8 episodes! That's gotta be some kinda record! *Heff*
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