Cult-TV Blogging: Ghost Story: "The Dead We Leave Behind" (September 15, 1972)

What if the TV set could control what we watch? 

That’s the bizarre question host Winston Essex (Sebastian Cabot) asks in “The Dead We Leave Behind, the second episode of the William Castle-produced horror anthology Ghost Story (1972).

In this tale, a forest ranger/sheriff named Elliot Brent (Jason Robards) lives in the mountains and grows increasingly irritated with his wife, Joanna (Stella Stevens).  She is bored with life in the country and spends all day, every day, watching television.  Worse, when she leaves the house at all, it’s only for sexual liaisons with local men.

When Joanna finally works up the nerve to leave Elliot for good, the spouses violently argue and Joanna is killed in a fall.  Rather than inform the authorities of the incident, Elliot moves her corpse to a garden shed.

But now when Elliott turns on her beloved television again, he sees Joanna there…still arguing with him, still tauntinghim.  After he kills one of Joanna’s lovers, Elliot’s visions on the boob tube grow even more disturbing.  He sees his victims’ bodies rising from the ground…and heading towards his house.

Then he hears a pounding at the front door, and knows that the dead have come for him…

Anchored by a superb, surly performance by Jason Robards, “The Dead We Leave Behind” is a provocative and scary installment of this program.  In fact, it forecasts much of the oeuvre of horror maestro Stephen King. 

For instance, a key component of this tale by Richard Matheson and Robert Specht is a local legend – spelled out in dialogue — which insists that all dead bodies must be buried before winter comes, before the ground freezes.  If corpses aren’t buried in time, they will come back to life wrong; possessed of both “life and death.”  

If you’re an admirer of King’s novel Pet Sematary (1983) as I most assuredly am, this set-up will seem abundantly familiar.

If you glance at a few other elements of “The Dead We Leave Behind” — such as an obnoxious, loud-mouthed wife (Creepshow [1982]), and a man’s slow descent into madness in an isolated location (The Shining [1977) — the King-like aspects appear even more pronounced. 

Nobody can know for certain, but I wonder if King was impressed with and inspired by this episode of Ghost Story, because in his 1981 book Danse Macabre (on page 249, in the chapter “The Glass Teat”) he writes enthusiastically of a Quinn Martin’s Tales of the Unexpected episode in which “a murderer sees his victim rise from the dead on his television set.”  

To the best of my knowledge, there’s no such episode in that particular series’ canon, which only consists of eight shows.  Furthermore, that description fits “The Dead We Leave Behind” perfectly.  Remember too, Ghost Story (1972) and Tales of the Unexpected (1977) were virtual contemporaries, as well as both hour-long network TV horror anthologies. Therefore, it’s easy to see how the two series might be confused.   The same thing happens all the time with The Twilight Zone and The Outer Limits. It’s all-too-easy to mis-remember one as the other.  Nobody’s perfect.  Believe me, I’ve certainly made my share of mistakes.

But if this indeed were the episode he wrote of, the insightful King would have been absolutely right to feel impressed with the creepy, unsettling qualities of “The Dead We Leave Behind.”  It’s well-shot, well-acted and anxiety-provoking.   

And from a certain perspective the tale could easily be interpreted as the story of a man losing his mind, responding to the sounds of his guilty conscience.  The episode doesn’t come flat out and state it, but it is strongly suggested that Elliot has killed Joanna’s lovers before, and made it look like am accident each time.  


We arrive in media res, then, as his grip on reality is already growing more tenuous.  The episode begins with Elliot having a dream involving the television, a dream that reveals his anger, and his connection with a dead man.

The powerful idea expressed here is one of inevitability.  The TV just won’t shut up, even after Elliot takes an axe to it.  He can’t escape the television, just as he can’t escape the fact that he has committed murder.  He has made a trap for himself, and very soon…it springs.  As viewers, we both desire to see Elliott escape his pre-ordained fate and face punishment for his bad deeds.

I’m a big fan of E.C.-styled stories such as “The Dead We Leave Behind,” ones where the scales of cosmic justice are righted, and we get a final closing shot (or comic book frame) that reveals how the bad have been punished.   In this case, Elliot’s corpse shares ground with Joanna and one of her lovers…all one big happy family…forever.  Yikes.

Next week on Ghost Story an episode as bad as this one is good: “The Concrete Captain.” 

Cult-TV Blogging: Ghost Story: "The New House" (March 17, 1972)

Ghost Story/Circle of Fear(1972 – 1973) represents the TV collaboration of William Castle, the great 1950s exploitation showman responsible for “Emergo” and “Percepto,” and Richard Matheson, brilliant scribe of The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), The Omega Man (1971), The Legend of Hell House (1971) and Somewhere in Time (1980), among others.

The TV series — a one-hour horror anthology — ran for just one season on NBC in the early 1970s, and starred (as host) actor Sebastian Cabot.  He played “Winston Essex,” the “old world aristocrat” and owner of the upscale hotel/bed-and-breakfast called Mansfield House.  


In each episode of Ghost Story, Mr. Essex would reveal an unusual and macabre story about his various guests.  This aspect – the host and his world – were dropped from the series entirely when it transitioned into Circle of Fear after fourteen hour-long episodes.

As Ghost Story geared up for broadcast, co-creator and producer William Castle wrote that it would involve “strange happenings” and “ordinary people,” and that his intentiion was “not merely to shock or scare, but to do it in a fun way. Like a ride on a roller coaster.  You scream and you laugh.” (John J. O’Connor, The New York Times: “Cabot in Ghost Story, A Chiller Series,” September 29, 1972, page 87).

Despite the promise of a good time, the series was not particularly well-received by critics, though this is hardly unexpected given the mainstream perception of the horror genre during that time period.  Time Magazine noted that “week after week, this is perhaps the silliest of all the silly hours on TV.” (December 18, 1972, page 67).  The New York Times reviewer, O’Connor, reported yawning “once or twice” during the series, and that “Sometimes the ghosts work.  More often they don’t.”

The pilot episode for Ghost Story, titled “The New House” (or “Pilot”) was based on the English author Elizabeth Walter’s story She Cries, and it aired originally not as part of the series proper, but earlier – on March 17, 1972 – as the first hour of a two-hour special entitled Double Play.  The second hour presented the pilot for the Trucker series Movin’ On.

In “The New House,” directed by John Llewelyn Moxey and adapted by Richard Matheson, the Travis family moves into its newly constructed modern home, which sits atop the peak of picturesque Pleasant Hill.  


When expectant Eileen Travis (Barbara Perkins) begins hearing ghostly noises at night, she grows convinced that the new home is haunted.  She soon visits a local historian, De Witt (Sam Jaffe), who tells her that her home is actually built over a two-hundred year old gallows, the very spot where a defiant, unrepentant thief, Thomasina Barrows (Allyn Ann McLerie) was hanged on March 2^nd, 1779.  Upon her death, she swore to one day return…

Disturbed by her frequent night terrors, Eileen goes into labor and has a beautiful baby girl.  Things seem happy for a while, until a dark night when Mr. Travis (David Birney) can’t seem to get home from work, and Thomasina makes her ghostly presence known…

“The New House” is an effective horror tale that, in some ways, reflects the aesthetics of Rosemary’s Baby (1968).  Here we have another pregnant woman, spending her days alone, worrying about things.  And in that state of anxiety, she encounters the supernatural.  Of course, from the perspective of others, Eileen Travis seems unstable, and it’s easy to write  off that instability as a sign of her “condition.” 

In fairness, Mr. Travis is not evil, as Rosemary’s husband was in the classic Polanski film, but he’s not very useful to have about., either  He tries to patiently respond to his wife’s situation, but never cares enough to stay home from work, for instance.  Thus, Eileen’s feelings of isolation are powerfully-wrought in the episode.

Some of the visuals are nicely vetted too.  Eileen brings home a creepy statue at one point in the story, and when she hears ghostly singing inside the house at night, the visuals suggest the statue is, itself, vocalizing.  There are also some nice cockeyed pans across the exterior house, ones that suggest, in essence, that the house is off-balance, off-kilter.

The punctuation of all the horror comes when the ghost of Thomasina Barrows appears (in a thunderstorm, naturally), but we don’t see her face.  


Instead, we observe a shadowy, still figure in a long shot, at some distance from the camera.  The Travis’s maid actually speaks to her, believing she is speaking with Eileen, not a ghost.  It’s a creepy, creepy moment as you come to realize that the malevolent ghost is arranging to be alone in the house with Mrs. Travis and her innocent baby.

“The New House” also doesn’t fail in terms of commitment to the genre.  Something diabolical and awful happens at episode’s end regarding Thomasina’s encounter with Eileen and her daughter, and Ghost Story doesn’t back down from it.   Although I didn’t see the episode when it originally aired (I would have been three…) I can certainly imagine watching this pilot at night — in the dark — and being creeped the hell out.

In terms of series continuity, this first Ghost Story installment, introduces audiences to Winston Essex, the “host” of Mansfield House. He’s quite different from other series hosts, namely the macabre Alfred Hitchcock and the ironic Rod Serling.  Instead of taking on a tone of detachment or even black humor amusement, Essex exhibits concern and sympathy for the characters in his plays.  “I wish they weren’t going there,” he worries for the Travis family, off to their new home on Pleasant Hill.

Also, Essex describes himself as a “devious dinosaur” and discusses the incompatibility between Gothic tales and “the nuclear age.”  In a real sense, that’s the terrain Ghost Story wishes to tread.  


The series hopes to bridge the gap between modern reason and science, and our ancient, campfire fears of ghosts and goblins.  This idea recurs several times throughout the short-lived series, and I’ll be sure to bring it up again when it does.  


Importantly, “The New House” sets its horror inside a modern house, one that has never been lived in before.  It boasts all the modern conveniences of the 1970s, from telephones to dish washers.  And yet despite such comforts, something terrifying and ancient – from an age past – infiltrates the family’s life. 

“The New House” is well-written, scary, and effectively shot.  The story is solid, if not revolutionary.  In short, it’s a pretty good start for Ghost Story. Next week’s episode, however is a real humdinger, and a work of horror television genius: “The Dead We Leave Behind.”

Ghost Story (1972) Theme Song/Intro

Cult-TV Blogging: Otherworld: "Princess Metra" (March 16, 1985)

We arrive at the end of Roderick Taylor’s Otherworld (1985) with the outstanding segment called “Princess Metra.”  In this eighth and final episode of the series, the Sterlings travel the Forbidden Zone by hot air balloon and end up in the province of “Metraplex.”  There, Gina (Jonna Lee) is mistaken for the legendary Princess Metra, a former ruler of the land, which is now separated into castes: the powerful “Macro Elite” and the enslaved “Micro Workers.”

The current ruler of the province, the Prime Manager (Carolyn Seymour of Survivors[1975])) believes Gina to be a fraud, but Gina passes a test of legitimacy in the “Hall of Memories” by answering correctly several questions about American history.  As the Sterlings soon learn, the original Princess Metra was from Earth too, a girl named Kelly Bradford.  She arrived in this strange dimension on August 22, 1964 and soon ascended to the throne. After ruling for a time, she left Metraplex for Emar and a way back home.

As ruler of Metraplex, Gina begins to make a series of humanistic reforms over the Prime Manager’s strenuous objections.  She discontinues production of particle-beam weaponry.  Then, she emancipates the Micro-Workers and grants the group full human rights and privileges (including child-bearing and rearing).  This last act causes the Prime Manager to attempt to kill Gina and her family…

Like many previous episodes of Otherworld, “Princess Metra” reveals a sci-fi series slowly but surely building an intricate and consistent mythology.  Here we learn more about the connection between Earth and the Otherworld, and the idea that time passes differently in each dimension.  What this means, as Trace (Tony O’Dell) worries, is that if the Sterlings do make it back to Earth, it will be a thousand years in their future.

Also, in this episode, Gina undergoes a kind of spiritual journey, and travels “psychically” to the city of Emar.  Pushing the limits of 1980s network television standards, she “trips” for a good two minutes in a fascinating, impressionistic montage.  For the first time, we actually see the spires of Emar, and the city is dominated by a view of Three Towers – the Twin Towers of Manhattan…plus one. 

Princess Metra boasts many allusions to previous works.  It plays a little like the Anastasia story, and bit like the (terrific) 1975 movie, The Man Who Would Be King.  But underneath these clever allusions is a story that is quite pertinent today.  Hal tells the people of Metraplex that they can’t erect a “government based on revenge.”  Instead it must be built “on fairness.”  It looks very much like the presidential election of 2012 may be fought on those very terms.  Will we choose anger or fairness?  Will the Macro-Elite of America (the 1%) get to continue to dictate economic policy, or will the Micro Workers (the 99) get a seat at the table?

In terms of genre history, “Princess Metra” offers a few interesting footnotes.  The soldiers of the city are all armed with Colonial pistols from the original Battlestar Galactica, as well as Draconian weaponry from Buck Rogers.  And this episode’s director is Peter Medak, who directed an episode of Space:1999 as well as the brilliant 1980 horror film, The Changeling.

Frankly, I’m sad to see Otherworld end here.  I remember being heartbroken when it was canceled in 1985.  My mother and I watched the series together throughout its original network run.   Otherworldlasted just eight episodes, and a full four of those segments are excellent (“Rules of Attraction,” “The Zone Troopers Build Men,” “Rock and Roll Suicide” and “Princess Metra.”)  The remaining episodes (“Paradise Lost,” I am Woman Hear Me Roar,” “Village of the Motorpigs” and “Mansion of the Beast” are good and pretty ambitious, if not great.  There isn’t a real, flat-out stinker in the bunch. One of these days, I’d love to see Roderick Taylor resurrect the series today, and get the opportunity to build his mythology further.  He could send a new family to the Other world, and maybe, in a few installments, find out what’s become of the Sterlings…

Mark Phillips and Frank Garcia’s excellent McFarland book, Science Fiction Television Seriesreveals that at least two further scripts were written for Otherworld.  One, called “Seeing Double,” concerned the Sterlings in a province where their darkest fears were manifested. 

Another teleplay titled “The Judge” revolved around an evil judge character who threatened to imprison the family if it didn’t play a “game” by his own draconian rules.  I would have loved to see either of these episodes get produced.  Barring that, let’s have an official DVD release.  Soon.

Next week, I begin blogging Ghost Story/Circle of Fear (1972) in this space.

Cult-TV Blogging: Otherworld: "I am Woman, Hear Me Roar." (March 3, 1985)

In the sixth episode of Otherworld, called “I am Woman, Hear Me Roar,” and directed by Thomas Wright, the lost Sterling family finds itself in scenic “Adore,” a fully-functioning matriarchy where men are second-class citizens.  The province was founded by a female zone trooper named Livia, and is now maintained by strict gender “stratification laws.”  Women are not allowed to set foot in grocery stores or other shopping venues, as all such duties are now the exclusive responsibility of male servants.

This “conservative” town “resists compromise” on matters of sex, we soon learn, and the Sterlings are deemed “progressives” for their gender equality beliefs.  In relatively short order, Trace (Tony O’Dell) is arrested by the Gender Patrol for parading about outside without his shirt on.  He is then taken to a weight room and forcibly made to exercise by female officers.  Then, finally, he is greased up (yes, greased up…) and put on the auction block at the Gender Arcade.  During the auction, he shows off his muscular definition…

Female-dominated societies have been the bread-and-butter of so many cult-tv programs across the long decades, from Space: 1999 (“The Last Enemy,” “Devil’s Planet”) and The Fantastic Journey (“Turnabout”) to Star Trek: The Next Generation (“Angel On”) and Buck Rogers in the 25^th Century (“Planet of the Amazon Women.”) Star Maidens (1975) is actually an entire series dedicated to the premise.

My problem with virtually all such episodes is the general lack of imagination about what a female-dominated society might actually look like.  Basically, in all these cult TV programs, the women are just as brutal and sexist as men have been, in certain situations.  In other words, the women in charge are depicted as aping and mimicking stereotypical male qualities rather than actually ruling as a female society might legitimately rule.  I’m not saying that this sort of strong-arm, bullying matriarchy isn’t possible, only that it somehow makes the premise seem sillier and less realistic than it could be.  

Just once, I’d like to see a female-led society that isn’t based, seemingly, on some silly male fantasy involving auction blocks, whips, cat-suits, and high-heeled boots.  Instead, I’d like to see a program where the qualities of female leadership are identified and explored in a meaningful way.  But, of course, it never ceases to be fun seeing gorgeous women in skin-tight outfits, dominating men, right?  I suspect this adolescent fantasy is the reason why Seven of Nine replaced the more three-dimensional Kes on Star Trek: Voyager.

In terms of Otherworld, the way that Hal (Sam Groom) acts in “I am Woman, Hear Me Roar,” suggests that maybe he had this aggressive role-reversal coming.  When he meets a female leader, he calls her a “charming lady” and the condescension drips from his voice.  Yikes.  In this throwaway moment, the episode reveals perhaps a bit more about male-dominated society than intended. It’s an indication that the writers and the actor can’t quite take the concept seriously. 

A woman in charge?  That’s funny…

There’s a tremendous amount of amusing satirical material in “I am Woman, Hear Me Roar,” from the “serious” school discussion in Adore of “the male problem,” to the magazine pages of Available Hunk magazine.  But still, there’s something less-than-satisfying and less real about this episode and perhaps that makes it the weakest program of the series so far, a title which I had previously reserved for last week’s “Village of the Motorpigs.” 

In short, this episode plays things tongue-in-cheek just a bit too much, as though no one can quite take seriously the concept of a society where women pass and enforce the laws.  It’s just a wee bit off, even if some of the jokes really stick their landings.

Between the condescending actions of Hal and Kroll in “I am Woman, Hear Me Roar,” perhaps it’s necessary indeed that “collective sisterhood” strike back hard in this episode of Otherworld.

Cult-TV Blogging: Otherworld: "Village of the Motorpigs" (February 23, 1985)

The fifth episode of Otherworld is called “Village of the Motorpigs” and it strives for a real Mad Max/The Road Warrior-type production design and vibe.  Underneath that sort of scruffy desert look, the episode is actually an anti-drug narrative, one that reinforces the human being’s need for purpose, and the value, of course, of family.  That last bit is a recurring theme in the program.  No matter how bad things get, the Sterlings can always depend on one another.

In “Village of the Motorpigs” the Sterlings have chartered an old ,broken-down bus (driven by an old, broken-down driver…) to cross the Forbidden Zone.  


The bus stops at a Zone Trooper check-point, and the Sterlings attempt to hide in a smuggler’s compartment in the back of the bus, but are captured.  


Before the family can be taken to Kroll (Jonathan Banks), a motorcycle gang led by a guru called —  I kid you not — “Chalktrauma” (Marjoe Gortner) rescues them, and takes them to his biker commune in nearby caves.

As the Sterlings soon find out, this isn’t much of a rescue at all.

Chalktrauma doesn’t permit family units to remain together, believing that such traditional social units only divide loyalties.  Furthermore, Chalktrauma maintains control of his society by keeping all his people “stoned” on a drink called “the Chalk.”  High on “the chalk” all the time, nobody questions the guru’s authority.

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One of the bikers, however, proves an ally.  Tango (Vincent Schiavelli) tells Hal that he is a former minister in the Church of Artificial Intelligence, and that one of his ancestors came from the “other world.”  


To prove it, he shows Hal a U.S. dollar bill.  Anyway, Tango reveals that any one of the bikers can issue a “challenge of rule” to de-throne Chalktrauma.  Hal resolves that this is the course he must take.

Hal and Chalktrauma joust on bikes for supremacy, but just as Hal is about to lose, Zone Troopers raid the weird commune, and the Sterlings, with Tango’s help, slip away to safety.

If Chalktrauma’s “challenge of rule” sounds somehow familiar to you, it may be because it is an apparent law of many, many cult-tv cultures.  It appeared in The Starlost (“The Goddess Calabra”) and The Fantastic Journey (“Children of the Gods”) before being resurrected here for “Village of the Motorpigs.”  It’s a convenient way to easily vet regime change, I suppose: challenge the leader, and usher in a new way of life.  That way, your characters don’t need to have an army at their side, or wage all-out war.

For an episode about a colony of rough-and-tumble, desert-dwelling motorcycle riders, Otherworld’s “Village of the Motorpigs” certainly tows the conventional, traditional line.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that, however.  But teenage Trace gets scolded by his mom, June, when he samples the chalk and “tunes out,” for example. 

Meanwhile, Gina teaches Chalktrama’s lustful son (Jeff East) that people should fall in love, or at least get to know each other before having…relations.  Mom, meanwhile, refuses the chalk and pines for Hal, while he attempts to find a way out. 

So, in short, “Village of the Motorpigs” = don’t do drugs + don’t have premarital sex + promote family values.  


Again, nothing at all wrong with any of that, but it’s just kind of…square.   


Just once, I’d like to see a sci-fi show where inan altered-state isn’t depicted a priori as a totally negative thing.  Star Trek’s “This Side of Paradise,” Space: 1999’s “The Guardian of Piri” and Farscape’s “Thank God it’s Friday, Again” all push the same agenda: that any substance which alters your mental state will also kill your sense of purpose and desire to produce, to do good work.  It’s not that I disagree with the premise, just that a little variety in storytelling is nice.  At least Spock does admit that the spores made him happy in “This Side of Paradise,” but that’s as far as cult-tv goes…

“Village of the Motorpigs” starts out as a clips show, with Gina relating to their bus driver the story of the family’s arrival in this world, and in reaches its zenith in a well-written, well-performed scene between Hal and June. 


He instructs her to run away with the children if he doesn’t survive the “rule of challenge” (also known as the “blood clash.”)  June is understandably reluctant to leave her husband, but understands his point.  The motorpig culture is toxic to family units, and so the children must be free of it.  It’s an emotional scene, and well-done.   Both characters come off well.

So far, I’d have to declare that I like “Village of the Motorpigs” least among the series’ first five episodes.  The pilot featured that great discussion of souls and artificial life, the second episode “Zone Troopers Build Men” had a great character arc for Trace, “Paradise Lost” was a nice handling of an adult topic (marital infidelity) and “Rock and Roll Suicide” was just balls-to-the-walls nuts…and fun.  “Village of the Motorpigs” isn’t exactly bad, I’d conclude, just a bit less inventive (and more clichéd) than the other episodes.

Next week: “I am Woman, Hear Me Roar.”

Cult-TV Blogging: Otherworld: "Rock and Roll Suicide" (February 16, 1985)

“Rock and Roll Suicide” may not be the absolute best ever episode of the short-lived Roderick Taylor series, Otherworld (1985), but it sure as hell is the most fun. 

In this amusing and satirical tale, the Sterlings have taken up residence in Centrex, a large province with a population of approximately five million.  Centrex is a buttoned down, boring town, at least until Trace (Tony O’Dell) and Gina (Jonna Lee) introduce the province’s teenage inhabitants to rock-and-roll music.  So yes, this is, essentially, Footloose (1984) only done as a cult-tv, science-fiction story.

The conservative Church of Artificial Intelligence almost immediately protests the “sinful” music, and its leader, Baxter Dromo (Michael Ensign) sets out to destroy Trace and Gina, going so far as to burn their albums.  Even this opposition from the establishment, however, cannot prevent Trace and Gina from becoming a pop culture sensation in Centrex, one replete with its own merchandising blitz.  


Hal (Sam Groom) worries that his kids are drawing too much attention to themselves, but when the Church crosses the line from censorship to violence, he realizes the battle being waged here is not about music, but “free speech.”  Unfortunately, the Praetor sends Commander Kroll (Jonathan Banks) to Centrex, thus ending the promising rock careers of the Sterling kids once and for all.  With the help of Trace and Gina’s agent, Billy Sunshine (Michael Callan), the Sterlings escape Centrex.

“Rock and Roll Suicide” is such a terrific episode of Otherworld (and sci-fi tv, to boot), because in just barely forty-five minutes it tells the whole, glorious, multi-decade story of rock-and-roll in America.  That story begins with relatively innocuous music, by today’s standards.  We see this epoch of history embodied in Gina and Trace’s performances of The Beatles’ “I Wanna Hold Your Hand.”  But before the long, as the episode progresses, the costumes, haircuts and music all grow more flamboyant and edgy, drifting into the then-contemporary era of 80s punk, pop and hair metal.

All the while, of course, the “establishment,” embodied by the Church of Artificial Intelligence fears the growing rock movement.  The form seems to encourage youngsters to “express themselves,” for one thing.  And in one especially amusing scene, the leader of the church, Dromo, listens to a Trace and Gina song backwards, and becomes he’s convinced he’s hearing subliminal, evil messages. In particular, he hears the word “inter-dimensional,” he thinks.  

Soon, the Church goes from protesting something it doesn’t like to squelching free speech, and this impulse too has been part of rock history.  “You’ve defied the order of things,” says Dromo, “You have disrupted the spiritual equilibrium of this whole province.”

Indeed, but only in his own tortured mind…

“Rock and Roll Suicide” also showcases, amusingly, the marketing blitzkrieg that can surround a musical phenomenon.  Here, we see Trace and Gina dolls (that look surprisingly authentic  in terms of 1980s toys), but if you lived through the 1970s as a kid, you remember Sonny and Cher dolls, Donnie and Marie dolls, and KISS dolls too.   In a consumer culture, a band ultimately becomes a commodity, as we see here.

Another interesting subplot in this episode by Roderick Taylor and Bruce A. Taylor involves Trace’s new girlfriend.  He realizes all too quickly that she’s only into him for the fame and the money, not because she likes him.  So this episode meditates on the pitfalls of fame as well as the “guitar hero” aspects of being a rock star.  Once you’re famous, you can never be sure that a person loves you for you, and not for the girth of your…wallet.

Even the final shot of “Rock and Roll Suicide” is a wondrous and funny put-on. Trace and Gina, together in concert, are superimposed and immortalized over a panoply of night stars.  Yes, they are as timeless as the constellations themselves.  I love it.  It’s a wonderful jab at music fans who consider their ephemeral favorites the greatest thing on Earth.

Taken in toto, “Rock and Roll Suicide” is a pretty great rock-and-roll fantasy, but what makes the episode so intriguing after all these decades is what it says about rock’s place in our culture.  “There’s something about these lyrics that hate authority!” the Church Leader complains, and in real life, we’ve all heard the same (stupid) argument for decades.  Why is it that every older generation must hate the younger generation’s music?  And not only hate it, but try to actively destroy it?  We’ve seen this bad impulse in every era for decades, and Otherworld reminds us that, as parents, we don’t always give the younger generation the same leeway we wish we had been given by our folks.  

Lesson to be learned…in Otherworld.

Next Week: “Village of the Motorpigs.” 

Cult-TV Blogging: Otherworld: "Paradise Lost" (February 9, 1985)

In Otherworld’sthird episode, “Paradise Lost,” things unexpectedly get a little…adult. 

While vacationing at a sort of alternate-universe Club Med with his wife and kids, family patriarch Hal Sterling (Sam Groom) soon falls hard for the sexy seductress, Scarla Raye (Barbara Stock), the siren who runs the establishment.

Of course, there’s a good explanation for Hal’s unexpected flirtation with infidelity.  Scarla Raye lures him away from his family responsibilities with a brand of pheromone perfume called “Coloma” (“the essence of life” and created literally from human desire.) 

And well, Hal’s clearly not in his right mind; he’s “under the influence.”

At first merely flattered by Scarla’s attentions, Hal soon stays out all night with her, unable to refuse her anything. He then becomes verbally abusive to his children, and downright rude to his wife.  So while “Paradise Lost” concerns a science-fiction concept and provides a (chemical) excuse for Dad’s extra-marital romp with another woman, it’s pretty clear that the episode concerns a serious “real” issue: a family on the verge of falling apart.

Things go pretty far too in this episode of Otherworld too. We don’t know (*ahem*) exactly what good old Dad is up to till 4:30 am with Scarla (though we can guess…), and at the end of the episode, while still under her spell, Hal explains to his wife and children his sincere desire to stay on the island with “the other woman:”  

“From now on, I only think about me and what I need,” he tells his wife, a shell-shocked June (Gretchen Corbett). 

This is a particularly blunt and bracing moment, as Hal chooses the “pleasure” island over everything else of importance in his life.  The moment feels surprisingly real and harsh, and I’m sure Hal’s words, or variations of those words, have been spoken many times in too many families.

Fortunately, June is a fighter and isn’t about to lose her husband.  She tells Hal that Scarla has made him “forget” who he really is.  And then she pointedly contrasts herself with the immortal Scarla, a woman made perpetually young by ingestion of the Coloma.  “I can’t offer eternity.  I don’t even know what that means,” June admits.  But June does offer the “hope of growing old together,” and notes that she is Hal’s best friend.

That moving and well-delivered speech snaps Hal out of his stupor, and he flees with his family as the island paradise conveniently self-destructs and Scarla super-ages into an old hag in a matter of moments. 

Hal then concludes, in voice over narration that “paradise begins at home.”

Since this is a continuing TV series, you might have guessed there was going to be a happy ending and a re-affirmation of marriage and monogamy, right?  

Here, Hal is persuaded to return to his family, but in real life, that’s not always that way.  In real life, once a person starts thinking only about himself, it’s hard to draw him back on the basis of being a “best friend.”  People leave marriages or cheat because they are looking for the exotic, the different, and that’s precisely what Scarla Ray offers.  Despite the re-assertion of mainstream family values (and thus order), this Otherworldremains pretty daring since it risks making the audience hate, or at least dislike, Dad.  At the very least, the episode portrays him as weak.

Directed by Tom Wright (Millennium), “Paradise Lost,” like the previous two episodes of this 1985 series, combines a family story with a science fiction plot.  It does so, at least most of the time, with a degree of intelligence and humor.   This episode develops June’s character very well, in particular, as she deals with the surprising changes in her husband.   The kids are shunted to the side a bit, but that’s okay, because the family issue here is commitment, and how it relates, specifically, to husband and wife.  

Fans of cult-tv will note that the late Ian Abercrombie (Seinfeld, Birds of Prey) has a significant role here, as Scarla Ray’s superior from the home land.  And lovers of good literature will recognize resonances of The Tempest here, in the setting, and of The Picture of Dorian Gray.

Next week on Otherworld: “Rock and Roll Suicide.”

Cult-TV Blogging: Otherworld: "The Zone Troopers Build Men" (February 5, 1985)

In the second episode of the short-lived 1985 cult series Otherworld, “The Zone Troopers Build Men,” young Trace Sterling (Tony O’Dell) is conscripted into the Zone Troopers, and sent off to basic training.  


His worried parents attempt to rescue him from a life-time of involuntary service, but Trace realizes something important about himself at the 13-week boot camp: the training he receives is valuable.  It changes him.

As the episode opens, Trace is failing at his new school in a small, out-of-the-way agricultural community.  He just can’t get very excited about a high-school exam concerning…corn.  Trace’s low grades result in a “yellow warning,” meaning that the Zone Troopers are free to break into the Sterling house and take away Trace in the thick of night.  

As Mr. Sterling insightfully notes “this culture is not as permissive regarding teens as 1980s America.”

Indeed.  

Soon, the sheltered Trace is undergoing rigorous training at the draconian hands (and torch…) of merciless Perel Sightings (Mark Lenard), the equivalent of a drill-sergeant.  But where this new Z.I.T. (Zone Trooper in Training) differs philosophically from his mentor is in weighing the importance of compassion and loyalty.  Perel sees such  qualities as weaknesses, but Trace knows they are strengths.   

On graduation day, Trace demonstrates his compassion – and independence from the Zone Troopers – by refusing to destroy several rebel encampments from the cockpit of his “vampire” air-craft.  He betrays Sightings, but Sightings allows Trace to escape, having learned, perhaps, to respect the young man.

In short, I’ve always considered “The Zone Troopers Build Men” to be one of Otherworld’s finest hours, in part because of the strong presence of Star Trek’s Mark Lenard in a significant role, but also because it offers a rather three-dimensional examination of the so-called military mentality.  

Military service is about being part of a hierarchy and following orders, but too often people forget true service is also about becoming a fully-realized, capable individual…one who knows when orders are wrong, and will do something about that fact.  


Trace clearly benefits from the skills he learns in the Zone Troopers, but that fact doesn’t change the truth that the organization – no matter its revered “Hall of Heroes” – takes its marching orders from a corrupt and cruel state.  Trace is able to separate the commendable ethos of the Zone Troopers (“proficiency, pride and prowess“) from the unfit command structure that deploys it.

This is undeniably Trace’s best episode in the series because the young man takes responsibility for his actions (and failures in school) and emerges “with a deeper understanding” of what it means to commit to something.  ”The Zone Troopers Build Men” is about Trace finally growing up, and about Hal’s recognition of that fact about his son.  

Written by Coleman Luck and directed by Richard Compton, “The Zone Troopers Builds Men” also does a fine job of reminding viewers that “this is not the United States.  They don’t look at things the way we do,” as Hal Sterling comments.  

In other words, there is still enough alien about this world to distinguish it from home.  Like holographic tests in high school, and computerized lockers that “talk” to student.  Or a “combat” robot that nearly offs Trace (but which looks kind of ridiculous, and must be hidden with some manipulation of color in the frame.)

All that established, the budget is clearly stressed here.  The Zone Troopers drive contemporary mini-vans, and the vampire aircraft – designed for “psycho terror” campaigns – are clearly pretty flimsy little gliders.  You’d think this army would be better equipped.

On the creepy and oddball side, this episode features a wonderful and bizarre interlude in which Trace is led through a Zone Trooper museum, and there are all of these weird, totally-unexplained wax figures — heroes of the Unification Wars — displayed there.  


You get the feeling the creators of the series had some interesting history in mind there, and I love when Otherworld heads off on these unexplored weird tangents.

Next week: “Paradise Lost.” 

Saturday Morning Cult-TV Blogging: Jason of Star Command: "The Power of the Star Disk" (October 20, 1979)

“We don’t even know what dimension of space we’re in!” Commander Stone (John Russell) reports in “The Power of the Star Disk,” the next episode of Jason of Star Command featured in our Saturday morning cult-tv blogging.

As you’ll recall, Jason (Craig Littler), the Commander (Russell), Dr. Parsafoot (Charlie Dell) and Matt Daringstar (Clete Keith) have been sent into “limbo” by the evil Dragos (Sid Haig).  In that limbo this week, our heroes encounter a ghostly alien Tantulution, a “guardian” who establishes a telepathic link with the Commander.  

As it turns out, the Commander’s race (still unnamed, I think…) bears a biological connection to the legendary Tantulutions, and the Guardian wishes to share his galactic knowledge with Stone – a descendant – before the planet’s sun goes supernova.

Once the telepathic link is complete, Jason and the others are able to escape the planet (and dimension…) and return to our universe using a second star disk.  They do so just in time too, since Dragos has released a “warp dragon” to destroy Star Command…

The multi-episode Star Disk/Tantalution arc ends with this episode of Jason of Star Command, which primarily provides new details about Commander Stone.  For one thing, his score to settle with Dragos (mentioned in the previous episode) involves the fact that the despot drove his people from their home world sometime in the past.  We also learn that the Commander’s people are related to the legendary Tantulutions, as mentioned above.  At this point, it’s fair to state Stone is becoming the most well-developed of all the characters on the series.  For instance, we know more about his past than we do about Jason, which is strange.  It would be great if Samantha were to see the same level of attention as Stone in upcoming episodes as well.

Otherwise, “The Power of the Star Disk” presents quite a challenge for Jason as he must navigate barriers of fire to open a locked door inside the Guardian’s panel.  An over-sized vent shaft also rears its ugly head, so I wished I could have seen this episode a few weeks ago to include a gallery image for the Cult-TV Faces of Vent Shafts.

Finally, the special effects are, once more, extraordinary.  The planet of “mist” is an impressive and creepy set, and there’s a great shot here of Stone’s crashed Star-fire, composited with the live-action.  The Warp Dragon also returns in this episode, and looks more impressive and menacing than before.

In terms of Jason of Star Command episodes, “The Power of the Star Disk” is a pretty good one, I suppose, though it still boasts some glaring errors.

For instance, in the insert-shots of Wiki, the episode cuts to the Year One model of the handheld robot, not the more recent upgrade seen in second season episodes.  Also, Matt Daringstar goes from being bounty hunter, traitor and “pirate” to a man who cowers and trembles at the presence of unseen ghosts in this episode.  

Not very daring, Daringstar…

At the end of this episode, the Star Disks disappear because man is “not meant to use them,” which is convenient but doesn’t make a whole lot of sense given the details of Samuel A. Peeples’ story line.

I thought Commander Stone was given the knowledge of the disks as a descendant of the Guardian and the Tantulutions?   Why is the Guardian reneging on the deal now?  Does Commander Stone still possess the knowledge from the mental link?  Is Dragos just going to give up and move on to another nefarious plan to conquer the universe?

I have a sneaking suspicion that Jason of Star Command isn’t going to answer these questions, but instead move on to something new and different.  


And just when it was starting to get kind of interesting, and building up a mythology about the universe, and its most ancient inhabitants…

We’ll find out for sure, in “Through the Stargate…”