The Starlost - The Satire!

Ben Bova was as science adviser for the ill-fated sci-fi show The Starlost. This was a series regarded as an epic fail in the genre because those in command refused to pay attention to the experts they hired and like so many TV projects worked purely from the motive of profit and not art. No begrudges the making of profit, but when that profit comes by low-balling all the costs of production as opposed to doing the best job possible then it's understandable that the work might be held in low regard. And that's the case with Bova and this show, so he worked out his angst by creating a delightful satire about the whole affair entitled The Starcrossed.

The story is set in the early twenty-first century future as seen from 1975 and it's a different world in many ways, but in detail. The obsessions with fads has quickened and the world is a dirty polluted territory but made bearable by artificial images and scents. In this America is a conniving  TV producer who is about to go under and in a desperate gamble contacts "Ron Gabriel", the Harlan Ellison wannabe and in this story a notorious science fiction writer and quixotic personality to create a new sci-fi show. Gabriel is down on his luck too, though always able to find a date with a lithesome beauty, and so goes for it and fashions in a whirl if energy a yarn translating Romeo and Juliet into outer space.

The narrative of The Starcrossed is told from multiple perspectives but our core tale is of a scientist and engineer who has invented a new 3-D technique which is the real selling point of this new show. His naive introduction to the manipulation and dishonesty of Hollywood shapes much of the attitude the story is attempting to communicate. There back-biting executives and a lovely girl who has secrets within secrets. Few are what they seem in this tale and that's the way the world is supposed to be. When the production heads to Canada to cut costs the shenanigans have only begun and a show which was supposed to be great is now intended to fail for the good of the company.

There are good laughs to had in this one, and I even laughed out loud a few times, a real accomplishment for text in my experience. Bova doesn't really let anyone off the hook, and neither does he rob anyone of a fundamental humanity. Even the loathsome figures are motivated in a such a way as to make us understand. Satires are always about the here and now despite the fact they almost always are set in faraway times and places. So it is with The Starcrossed.

Rip Off

The Starlost - The Novel!

Phoenix Without Ashes was Harlan Ellison's original title for the debut story of The Starlost. It was changed to "Voyage of Discovery" which is not as poetic certainly. And that seems to be Ellison's most potent complaint against this show which was birthed from his ideas, that it loses its way by consistently playing down to its audience. More recent years have proven Ellison right, that TV fans and sci-fi fans in particular might well be receptive to shows that challenge them a might, that require more of them than an hour of their time. 

The novelized version of the script was expanded by Edward Bryant, a capable science fiction writer in his own right and well capable of taking the story of an outcast Amish man who doesn't fit into his society and eventually finds that his whole world is not what anyone thought it was. The is a story about seeking the truth and the novel spends more time inside Devon's head making him a somewhat more complex and consequently more fascinating character. We get to share his doubts, something the TV show almost never does. 

And we get to see aspects of human existence which were weirdly forbidden on television in those days. Not only does Devon love Rachel, but it's evident they have a physical relationship. On the TV show his love is more ethereal, more of the twin-souls variety and  in the book it's that and more. One memorable scene when Devon finally leaves his Cypress Corners habitat is that his physical needs, to eat and urinate are considered, giving the sense of a greater span of time. 

The novel shows us what the show might've been in another time and place and it does enhance our understanding of what we're seeing when we watch the show itself. 

Rip Off 

The Starlost - The Show!

I've heard about The Starlost for most of my life, but I'd never seen an episode of this notorious science fiction series. My knowledge was most likely a result of reading and reading about Harlan Ellison, the sci-fi writer who concocted the story this series is based on and who wrote the script for the debut episdoe. The Starlost is considered by some to be the worst science fiction series ever and I can vouch that it's not that.

But the guy who first thought it all up was not happy and was so unhappy in fact that he had his named removed and this standby identity of "Cordwainer Bird" punched in to fill the void. Ellison tells the tale of how he was much abused (Ellison is always much abused in his stories) by the folks who wanted to produce this show and how they made promises they either couldn't or had no intention of keeping. I'll take a look at the novel he made with Ed Bryant some time later which presumably puts forth his rendition of this story. But first here's the show.

We meet Devon, an iconoclastic member of an Amish sect which finds its world oddly circumspect. With a limited territory and a limited sky and a limited population the village uses authoritarian techniques to keep the balance. Devon does not fit in, he wants to marry Rachel the girl he loves despite the fact she is promised to another, his friend in fact, a blacksmith named Garth. Devon's confrontations withe powers result in his isolation but he never relents and eventually discovers that all is not what it seems. This Amish clan is floating in space and they don't even know it.

The first episode shows how Devon begins to find the truth and how when he tries to share that truth with his people he is yet again condemned. The three friends end up outside the society and together begin to learn the real truth of their existence. Some of that truth is that they live on a great Ark, a spaceship which was borrowed from the Bruce Dern film Silent Running.

I didn't find The Starlost to be all that bad, a tendency to be dull but certainly possessing special effects typical of the era. Most of the dullness is in the oddball flat way the acting is done. All the actors seem to do it, to demonstrate general lethargy punctuated by moments of furious activity, so I think it must have been intended.  Perhaps they confused ponderous silence with presumed wisdom, but whatever the case it hurts the viewing. As the series tumbles along it does tweak with its look and premise a bit, and toward the end seems to treat our trio of stalwarts as folks more comfortable with technology. That's natural of course, but it felt more like a reboot than an evolution. I've seen worse.

Rip Off

And Now For Some Things Completely Different!

And then at very long last came April. This month there is no big giant theme, but rather a catch-as-catch-can approach which will present a scud of things which have been gathering and calling out for some attention. As we huddle  in our homes waiting for the world as we've understood it for decades to right itself or perhaps find new footing, at least here a little distraction and mirth might find a foothold as the minutes pass. So hang in and hang on my fellow inmates, each day is a new day and will have something new (or very old) to behold here at the Dojo.

For instance some (or maybe all) of the delightful things below may appear in the coming weeks.

All these perhaps and maybe other things besides. Whatever we can squeeze in, if I don't sidetracked and forget about some of the above. So hang on Effendis for a rough and tumble month, even I don't know where we're headed exactly.

Rip Off

Night Of The Reaper!

It is an absolute mystery to me why the Rutland, Vermont Halloween stories have never been collected in a single volume. (I'm talking to you Craig Yoe.) They are delightful artifacts from a bygone time when comics was a small world and dominated by two largish companies who had not yet been swallowed up by corporations and who treated their fans by inviting them into the story. Now these weren't exactly fans, but creators such as Marv Wolfman, Len Wein, Berni Wrightson and Steve Englehart among others who participated, but the sheer fun of the fourth-wall busting events brought absolute glee to this fanboy's heart.

"Night of the Reaper" is arguably the best of the Rutland stories, perhaps simply by dint of the art from superstar Neal Adams. The story weaves in and out and around the parade and the follow-up party hosted by Tom Fagan. During this dark and sometimes gruesome tale we learn that Nazis prowl the darkness and that one in particular, a former commandant of a death camp has found a hiding place in the isolated quiet of Vermont. Batman tries to track down the deadly "Grim Reaper" who seems to be appearing and killing off folks. 

While Batman gets to the bottom of the mystery and as we all know bring some level of justice to the proceedings, comic book pros find all sorts of tomfoolery to engage in, some of it even beneficial to the case.

Rip Off