deployment of SF ideas, nor in- tended as such. The films fall into different traditions of the genre. STAR WARS is an escapist space opera that requires no context larger than good guys and bad guys (“Good vs. Evil,” if you must), while LOGAN’S RUN falls into a dystopian line that uses metaphor to critique the way we live now. Although it’s supposedly set in a future after a nuclear holocaust, its message is that 1970s America is a self-absorbed, youth-obsessed, consumer-oriented, technology- dependent bubble society that feeds on its young and resigns all decisions to an inhuman bu- reaucracy that reduces its citizens to rabbits in a gentle fascism— or, in other words, that the US is the thoughtless product of its own progress. Any questions? The short-lived TV spin-off has been even more maligned, but now it’s on DVD and—sur- prise—it holds up well in all its glorious late-70s TV cheesiness, the scrim through which we must inevitably view it. This series bal- ances its relatively expensive moments of special effects (es- pecially video effects by Ron Hays) and glossy set design (by Mort Rabinowitz) with cheap out- door filming and societies set in warehouse corridors. For the most part, these mono 1.33:1 episodes look bright and clean. There are no extras, apart from the addition of three never-broadcast episodes, one of them directed by Curtis Harrington (NIGHT TIDE, QUEEN OF BLOOD).
Episodes are philosophical fables set in a civilization of the week visited by heroes on an unending quest. Each mini-so- ciety (12 inhabitants or so) pre- sents a moral problem with ideas to be discussed, and the most persistent of these is what it means to be free. A whole series devoted to exploring this idea is surely worth overlooking the pat
resolutions, boxy computers, quaint effects and questionable fashions.
This mix of budget-conscious effects and moral philosophy on a strangers’ odyssey typifies the era. It also describes FANTASTIC JOURNEY and OTHERWORLD and apparently would have been the format for such busted pilots as PLANET EARTH and STRANGE NEW WORLD. The original BAT- TLESTAR GALACTICA would soon graft its post-STAR WARS pulpi- ness onto this wanderer template. The peripatetic scenario for such shows originates in a no- tion of America as a vast frontier to be explored, as seen in count- less westerns about wandering knights, or contemporary items like ROUTE 66 and THEN CAME BRONSON. The heroes might be driven by their own yearning rest- lessness or some terrible burden, but the effect is the same. It’s a mythic structure that lends itself to the nature of an episodic se- ries, an illusion of forward mo- tion that remains self-contained. In this case, the heroes’ quest is combined with a chase: the classic double-motive of THE FUGITIVE, also applied to SF pre- mises for THE INVADERS, THE IMMORTAL and THE INCREDIBLE HULK. Perhaps we digress, but the point is that so many of these shows feel similar (“archetypal”) with different window dressing. The 90m pilot was scripted by Nolan, Saul David, and Leonard Katzman (the latter serving as producer before mov- ing to DALLAS) and directed by semi-illustrious Robert Day (THE HAUNTED STRANGLER, SHE, THE AVENGERS). It begins with footage from the film as a narra- tor intones, “200 years have passed since the nuclear war raged to an end and the com- puters took over what was left of the world, sealed it off from the outside, and made it perfect.
Now in the Domed City, in this year of 2319, living is an unend- ing joy. Every wish is granted, every sensual dream is realized, and all the world is young. For, in this perfect society, no one is allowed to live past 30.” In lieu of classy British actors, we get hungry young Californians. Thus Logan (Gregory Harrison) and Jessica (PIRANHA’s Heather Menzies) escape the City of Domes to a desert and eventually to the Capitol (more stock shots from the film—might as well use ‘em), where they pick up a silver tank- mobile called a Solarcraft (de- signed by Dean Jeffries, maker of the Monkeemobile) and get to truckin’ in search of Sanctuary, the mythical land where their Runners have been running. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Logan’s ex-partner Francis (Randy Powell) has been told by a secret chamber of white-haired duffers that, in truth, the whole set-up really is a sham, but it’s for every- body’s good, and outstanding lackeys like himself can bypass Renewal to sit on the Council and run the place wisely if only he’ll be a good Sandman and retrieve Logan and Jessica for “re-pro- gramming” so they’ll publicly re- cant their sins and endorse the social order.
So off he goes with whole cadres of cohorts, or cohorts of cadres, to follow the fugitives far- ther and farther off the map in their own little silver power-cars. Francis only shows up in six epi- sodes, but he’s never far behind. He’s the past that won’t let go. The show’s great addition is the Reclective Entity Mobile, or REM (THE THING’s Donald Moffatt), a handy, quick-think- ing android with bushy eye- brows and a genial irony. He saves his humans’ bacon on more than one occasion and pro- vides a lively, plot-percolating in- telligence. While Logan and
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