ALL SCI-FI

[Pow]

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Wikipedia. White Dwarf was a SF television movie which also served as a pilot.

It premiered on May 23, 1995 on the Fox TV Network.

Written & produced by Bruce Wagner who wrote the SF miniseries Wild Palms (1993).

Also produced by Francis Ford Coppola (The Godfather trilogy, Apocalypse Now), and Robert Halmi, Sr., who produced the TV miniseries Gulliver's Travels (1996), Merlin (1998), Alice in Wonderland (1999), and Arabian Nights (2000).

Sidebar: Robert Halmi produced some of the most wonderful TV miniseries ever done. His productions were lavishly done with terrific production values. The writing, directing, and acting were always top notch in caliber.

His miniseries were usually shown in the spring and I recall always looking forward to his projects which were always first rate.

Peter Markle directed White Dwarf.

Synopsis: In the year 3040, pompous New York medical student Driscoll Rampart (Neal McDonough) is completing his internship on the planet Rusta, a rural planet which due to it being tidally locked to its primary sun, is divided into contrasting halves of day and night with the two halves separated by an enormous wall.

The two sides are involved in a civil war.

The day side contains a Victorian-styled colony that is at odds with the night side which contains a medieval kingdom.

The differences between the two cultures leaves Rampart in a state of wonder.

Rambart has just arrived from Earth to begin a six-month stint at the Light Side clinic run by Dr. Akada (Paul Winfield).

Rampart's ambition is to eventually set up a private practice in Manhattan on Park Avenue. So he's hoping to get through his half year on Rusta as quickly as possible and get back to Earth.

However, Rambart has much to learn from the mysterious Akada & his staff as well as his patients. Rusta is unlike anything Rambart has ever experienced before, both good and bad. In the process he will grow and learn more about life and himself than he ever imagined.

Paul Winfield accepted a pay cut in order to be a part of this project. Initially, he though it was meant to be a feature film.

Paul was excited to come on board because he was a life long science fiction fan who had read many SF novels.

The movie was shot within a forty-mile radius of Los Angeles.

Scenes of the prison shot in the same location where the L.A. Herald-Examiner once housed their printing presses.

Outdoor scenes were filmed at a ranch north of L.A.

Dr. Akada's clinic was done at a school in Arcadia, California.

The sea scenes were shot off the coast of Malibu where the ocean's red tint was added in post-production.

[Bud Brewster]

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Wow, I've never heard of this miniseries, Mike! Thanks.

YouTube offers two versions of it, and the second one below (from a VHS tape) looks a little better than the first one. I think I'll adjust the brightness and contrast on my TV to improve the picture when I watch a download.

The opening narration by the young doctor at the beginning explains the premise you described so well in your post, make, and it made me want see this unusual sci-fi miniseries.

_________ White Dwarf (1995) Television Movie


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__________ "White Dwarf" 1995 TV Pilot (VHS)


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

[Gord Green]

I remember seeing this when it was first broadcast and not thinking much of it. I'll check out the movie again and see if I was missing something.

I don't think it went much further than the pilot.
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Bud Brewster]

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Mike made us aware of a miniseries, but all I found on YouTube was a "made for TV" movie.

I suspect that what I posted was just the pilot. Mike can clear this matter up for us. But I'd love to see the entire miniseries. I looks very interesting!
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Gord Green]

That's all there is!

It wasn't picked up as a series. Unfortunately, the movie sets up threads and situations that were never to be resolved!

One and done!
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There comes a time, thief, when gold loses its lustre, and the gems cease to sparkle, and the throne room becomes a prison; and all that is left is a father's love for his child.

[Pow]

I had watched White Dwarf when the SF TV-movie/pilot first premiered back in 1995 and wasn't really enthralled by it then.

For my post on it, I went back last week to watch it again on good ole' Youtube. Still not enthralled by the production, but I've come to appreciate some aspects to it.

I thought that the made-for-television movie had some intriguing elements to it, but it was also a bizarre mishmash of SF, fantasy, and the wild, wild west.

And those varying genres made for an awkward mix that doesn't always work smoothly in WD.

The oddities for me were that they had another planet, Rusta, that our lead character travels to via a spaceship. We don't see the ship at all which is kinda disappointing even though it plays no other part in the movie than simply being the method that the hero travel to Rusta.

However, if one is producing a SF TV-movie isn't it cooler to feature the things that make it SF and different from other genres? A spaceship is just such a thing.

Once on Rusta we see our lead, Dr. Rampart, get to the hospital he'll be working at via a stagecoach right out of a western. Huh?

Look, I love westerns as I do SF. However, it seems unrealistic that in a galaxy where we have space vessels, we then have vehicles outta the wild, wild west for conveyance.

I get that perhaps this backwater planet as it's described may not have cars hovering all around, or all the latest and greatest technology available. But horses? To me it looks less like a clever idea and more a budget saver.

We see later a modest, family ranch and it's right out of an episode of Gunsmoke. Again, really!?!

Years ago there was a wonderful episode from ST:TOS titled "This Side of Paradise." The Enterprise is going to a planet where there's a human colony in order to evacuate them from the deadly radiation near the planet.

Once Kirk & his landing party arrive on the surface we see that the buildings look like their right out of The Big Valley.
The story tells us that these homesteaders eschewed 23rd century farming and ranching methods and technology. They wanted to farm with simpler methods as their ancestors once did.

Yep, you can make a case for that kind of thing. We have people like that right now in the 21st century. Amish, Mennonites, or individuals who choose to live off the grid.

Let's be real here, Trek did it that way because they had neither the time or budget to construct futuristic looking farm and ranch buildings. Perfectly understandable.

However, couldn't this 1995 film have figured out something better for their story? We saw this approach on Trek back in 1966. It really didn't fool us back then either.

Rusta has one half of the planet in daylight, while the other half is in night due to some gobblety gook about their sun, or suns.
Still, kinda intriguing concept.

The dark side is ruled by fairy tale kings who reside in their castles that look like they're right out of a Disney movie. The kings and their courts all wear the type of royal wardrobes you've seen in such films. They also act just like royals.

Just didn't work for me that this type of environment coexisted with what is supposed to be the SF light side of the planet.

Seemed like both sides of the planet rode horses; yet at the same time we have these nifty looking massive mechanical spheres in the sky which are to regulate the weather. Again, an absurdity with weather globes and horseback riding.

I realize that any SF show can certainly postulate such imperfect worlds as a mixture of high tech and low tech. In America we have NASA sending up astonishing technological achievements such as the recent Webb Space Telescope.

At the same time we have people living in tents in major cities. So yeah, this stuff is sadly all to believable. Just give me a firmer back story to it to convince me. If it's too expensive visually to do anything, or much, then some pithy dialogue will suffice.

The production had some very nice touches. The warden of the prison on the dark side was a huge bodysuit that the Jim Henson Company would drool over.

One simpler effect was the tinting of Rusta's ocean to look red. Simple to do in 1995, I think, but still effective looking.

So I cannot say I loved this SF pilot with its strange mixtures of SF & fantasy bumping up against each other. However, it's still worth checking out for some of its ideas and visuals, and a very fine cast.