ALL SCI-FI

[Bud Brewster]

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IMDB has several interesting trivia items for this production.
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~ John Quade as the Kreeg Commander wore an early version of the cranial ridge makeup that would later be used for the Klingons in Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979).

Note from me: Here's John in his "Kreegon" make-up.


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~ The Matte Painting used for Pax in this film was previously used as the city of Terrania, Pax enemies in the previous film, Genesis II.

Note from me: Nice to know that Gene appreciated a good matte painting.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Thanks so much, Krel, for posting those drawings for the PAX Team 21 equipment.

Even though it's from the 70s, the designs remain sharp looking to this day. If the premise for the this show could be revived today, the designs would still work quite nicely. That's not to say that the artistic team couldn't make modifications to the gadgets. But the basic look of each one is still useable for a SF TV series.

[Pow]

Want to read an enthusiastic & positive review of PE from Variety back in the day? Yeah, this isn't it.

Variety: Tuesday, April 23, 1974.

Tuesday Movie Of The Week, "Planet Earth"
(Tuesday, 8:30~10:00 p.m., ABC-TV)

Filmed on location in Malibu, Castaic and Irvine, California by Norway Productions in association with Warner Brothers TV for ABC TV.

Executive producer-creator, Gene Roddenberry; produced by Robert H. Justman; directed by Marc Daniels; teleplay by Gene Roddenberry and Juanita Bartlett.

Gene Roddenberry's PAX returns for a second try at a look into the future via a teleplay by Gene Roddenberry and Juanita Bartlett as an extension of last year's "Genesis II."

Now it's 2133 A.D., a 1979's John Saxon delves into tomorrow's fragmented world, thanks to suspended animation. He should have stayed home.

Saxon and fellow Paxters, a group dedicated to bringing plastic-age Harding normalcy to the world shattered years before by global conflict, are besieged by the Kreegs, an unlikely lot anxious to practice brutality.

When they wound Rai Tasco, Saxon, Janet Margolin, Ted Cassidy and Christopher Cary set off to rescue a medico caught up in an Amazonian confederacy known as Women of Ruth, headed by Diana Muldaur and overseen by Jo de Winter, among others.

Putting comic strips back 50 years, Saxon becomes ensnared by the confederacy as a ruse to rescue the doctor. All the males known as "dinks," are on drugged gruel dished out by Muldaur. But then, she is human.

Acting right down the line stems from Saturday afternoon serials of bygone days. Marc Daniel's direction is dazzlingly dull. Kreegs sport semi-military garb, Males wear jumpsuits, and just what the Ruthians are dressed for is never explained.

Gimmicks, including an underground shuttle, are suspiciously uninventive, and 2133 architecture resembles 1974 junior college fine arts buildings. Technical credits are okay.

[Bud Brewster]

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Ah well, it was a fair warning not expect too much from this TV movie. It doesn't age very well, does it?
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Pow]

Some aspects of this TV-movie/pilot still stand up quite decently for me.

Pros: The William Ware Theiss (Star Trek: TOS, ST: TNG) designed PAX uniforms are sharp looking. The subterranean shuttle that can cross the globe is a marvelous way to get our protagonists to their adventures. The various tools used by the PAX Team 21 are nifty looking gadgets. We don't get lingering closeups of them, but there is a website that has drawings of the gizmos in detail.

The lead cast is fine. Making Ted Cassidy an Amerind with a wig who speaks like a cliche Indian from a western film was a terrible concept by the creators. Why can't he simply be an intelligent scientist, non-Indian (I don't believe Ted had any native American blood in his background at all. So this would not fly today in our politically correct world)?

John Saxon made a fine heroic lead, Janet Margolin (David and Lisa, 1962 film) was attractive and could act.

The movie opens up with an exciting start as the PAX Team battle the Kreegs. Unfortunately it then becomes mired in a mundane women ruled society which is unexciting.

The idea of any pilot is to create something that's intelligent and exciting that will sell it to the network. Star Trek did so with both of its pilots. Planet Earth just wasn't that compelling.

The premise of PAX rebuilding a ruined Earth with fantastic technology and benevolent intentions offered marvelous possibilities. Gene Roddenberry simply wrote a prosaic pilot. With his previous experience with Trek, he should have written a script that hit the ball out of the park. In this case, it was a foul ball.

The concept is worthy of a reboot. It could be done well, as well as avail itself of visual effects technology that did not exist at the time of the pilot.

[Bud Brewster]

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Mike, I agree with all the positive aspects you described.

But of course, the bar has been raised for both movies and TV series, and that's why I said the series hasn't dated well.

You made the comment below which seems to indicate that, overall, we agree on this.

[Pow]

Here's another review for PE from Variety that's just as 2 thumbs down as the first one.

Variety; Wednesday, May 1, 1974.

"Planet Earth" was the kind of television program that could drive the American public back to conversation and pinochle at night. Strictly a piece of blank, as the saying goes.

The plot was Woody Allen's "Sleeper" without intentional laughs. John Saxon played this contemporary American astronaut, who through suspended animation happened to be in deep freeze until 2133 A.D.

He works for the benevolent society that restored him, though after the Great War that destroyed most of the earth, there are various different tribes and societies flourishing --- many of them evil.

The opening half-hour or so of "Planet Earth" was devoted to a dizzy recounting of the story's background --- none shown in dramatic terms, simply as a backdrop. Then Saxon and Janet Margolin, along with Ted Cassidy and Christopher Carey, went off on a dangerous, hurry-up mission to rescue a doctor trapped by the Confederation of Ruth, a tribe dominated by women who believe men to be inferior creatures. The women and the rescue team both were threatened by a tribe of atomic mutants called Kreegs, and after a great deal of silliness, everything came out happily.

Chief man-hater Diana Muldaur, incidentally, became infatuated with Saxon, and the women all accepted men as equals.

Plot, writing, acting, producing --- it was all lowercase. The prime intention was in seeing how many sexual fantasies could be suggested while Saxon tried to best the Confederation of Ruth. Some of the goings-on evidenced a kind of high camp humor.

Muldaur was sexy, and elicited sympathy for her talents being wasted, but everyone else seemed to be playing to full capacity. The made-for-television movie was meant as a pilot.

If handled well, the show could have panned out well for Gene Roddenberry ("Star Trek"), as endless spinoff plots could be devised. But the pilot was a zero.

Sidebar: The writer writes that the first half-hour was not dramatic. Huh? The opening thirty-minutes is the best part of this pilot. It has the Kreegs attacking the PAX Team with their vehicles as they attempt to capture them. Trucks are trying to run down the PAXers and throw nets onto them. It was exciting and action packed. I have no idea what this reviewer saw, but undramatic it ain't.

I also wonder how many of the reviewers are science fiction fans. Did they like Gene's "Star Trek" series? Are they into SF? Could it be the critic here felt that SF is beneath them, and having to review anything of a SF nature isn't a potentially fun assignment. It's a burdensome chore.

Also, such a person isn't going to see the potential of what such a pilot could be if they dislike SF in the first place. They just won't care.

[Bud Brewster]

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As usual, Mike, your review of the review was better than the review!

And I agree with your comments about the author's attitude towards science fiction (aka sci-fi, aka SF, aka I'm-getting-dizzy . . . ).

If I reviewed an opera, I'd have nothing good to say about it. That, of course, would not be because the opera was bad — it would be because I'm a bad choice to review something I just plain don't like!

Unfortunately, too many film and TV critics don't actually like sci-fi (aka science fiction, aka speculative fiction, aka SF) — which, when you say that last one out load it sounds like an abbreviation for something dirty, like FU and SOB!

However, if you're supposed to pronounce SF as "science fiction", heck, why not just write science fiction?

To be fair, I understand the need for abbreviations like FBI and CIA, which are easier to say and type than the full names of the agencies.

The same is true for the term "wireless fidelity", which we abbreviate as Wi-Fi. So, I wonder why some people really dislike Sci-Fi?

Anyway, thank God we don't all call "wireless fidelity" WF — because that's just one letter short of "WTF"!)
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)