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The Starlost (TV Series 1973)
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Pow
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 04, 2022 1:01 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

This was Harlan's description for the premise of The Starlost for the network.

Earthship Ark . . . Uncountable light years from earth.

Its passengers the last survivors of the now dead planet Earth.

Ark . . . Christened three hundred years before.

Launched in the hopes of seeking new worlds to colonize.

Ark . . . A structure two-hundred miles long. Riding on the strength of men's dreams for a new Earth somewhere beyond the infinities in space.

The gigantic space craft Ark is an entire world of some one-hundred levels. Each level holds a distant and separate civilization sealed off from the other.

In the centuries of the journey, countless generations have lived and died.

And man has forgotten everything, forgotten the reason for the journey, of the flight itself.

On each level, men believe they exist on an immovable planetary body and is surrounded by metal.

Our series begins when the colossal delusion is challenged. When one man discovers the stunning and nightmarish truth that they are The Starlost.
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mach7
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PostPosted: Sun Dec 04, 2022 11:40 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I also had high hopes for this show when it came out. I believe it was on TV shortly after UFO came to the US.

Sadly I agree with the comments posted, it never came close to archiving any of it's potential.

Bad production values
Bad writing
Bad producing
Bad acting
Bad directing

Everything that could make a show bad is present in TSL

low budget
inexperience writers
poor producers
shifting goals

Having said that, I do own the DVDs and occasionally i do watch an episode or two. It's hard to choke down more than two at a time.

So much potential lost.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 05, 2022 11:53 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

__________________________________________________

Mach, I love the way you formatted your post! Those lists of the bad qualities the show had were very effective.
Good job!
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Last edited by Bud Brewster on Wed Dec 07, 2022 2:35 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Pow
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PostPosted: Mon Dec 05, 2022 11:21 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

March 31, 1974, Harlan Ellison received a Writer's Guild of America Award for Best Original Screenplay for Original Script for The Starlost.

The Ark model had 37 Biospheres.

Detailed production drawings showed the Ark should have been 1,000 miles long carrying hundreds of 50-mile in diameter biospheres.

The episode production budget was approximately $100,000 per episode which was a little bit less than the average Star Trek: TOS episode. So you can see that the same amount of money used in 1966 on Trek brought in less by 1973 on The Starlost. For another comparison, Jason of Star Command was a 1978 Saturday morning TV series produced by the notoriously cheap Filmation Company. Their half-hour episodes cost $200,000.

Famed science fiction author Ursula K. Le Guin provided the story for the episode "The Goddess of Calabra with Martin Lager doing the teleplay.

Sidebar: It amazes me that the Starlost could have somewhat less money for their 1973 budget than Trek did in 1966, and yet, Starlost looks so incredibly cheesy in their production values. Apparently seven years between the two series did make a huge difference regarding the budgets and the look of those respective series.

Said it before & I'll say it again, Starlost still has enormous story potential and deserves to be revived as a weekly series. If they have a great story editor & writing staff, and with today's phenomenal visual effects, The Starlost could be fantastic!
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2022 11:12 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
Sidebar: It amazes me that the Starlost could have somewhat less money for their 1973 budget than Trek did in 1966, and yet, Starlost looks so incredibly cheesy in their production values. Apparently seven years between the two series did make a huge difference regarding the budgets and the look of those respective series.

I guess this is an example of the fact that a large budget doesn't mean a series (or movie) will be well made. Money doesn't guarantee the talent needed to make a good production.

Conversely, top talent can make a production look good, despite a low budget.

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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)


Last edited by Bud Brewster on Thu Dec 08, 2022 3:31 pm; edited 1 time in total
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mach7
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PostPosted: Tue Dec 06, 2022 8:46 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I agree The Starlost should be considered for a reimagining.

With enough budget and a production crew who cares it could
be good.

Just an FYI,

Star Trek TOS season 1 budget was $190K per episode
Season 2 was $185K, and season 3 was $175K.
Season 1 and 2 frequently went over budget.

So the $100K for the Starlost in 1973 is really not much at all.
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Gord Green
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2022 12:24 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just a couple of observations....

Along with the low budget was the fact that a good deal of that budget went to Kier and the "guest star" as payment. Even though he used his "alternate" name Harlan Ellison got a good piece of change out of it.

Also the producers were forced into using ONLY Canadian writers for the scripts. This is not to say there aren't very talented Canadian writers....Just that they didn't find any for this show!

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2022 3:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

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I managed to find this rare group photo of the entire Canadian writing staff for Starlost, hard at work during a scripting session! Cool

These gentlemen are quite well known, and they're said to be "the best writers that beer can buy".




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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Pow
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PostPosted: Thu Dec 08, 2022 6:07 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Gord Green wrote:
Just a couple of observations....

Along with the low budget was the fact that a good deal of that budget went to Kier and the "guest star" as payment. Even though he used his "alternate" name Harlan Ellison got a good piece of change out of it.

Also the producers were forced into using ONLY Canadian writers for the scripts. This is not to say there aren't very talented Canadian writers....Just that they didn't find any for this show!

Phoenix Without Ashes by Edward Bryant & Harlan Ellison.
"Unfortunately, because of the nature of Canadian TV, which is vastly different from American TV, they [Canadian writers] had virtually no experience writing episodic drama as we know it. And, for some peculiar reason, with only two exceptions I can think of, there are no Canadian sf writers." Harlan Ellison.
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