Supertrain

Correction: George Boone was originally played by Harrison Page, but following a timeline breach somewhere around Episode 2, all characters were retroactively replaced by Ernest Borgnine - including the women, the children, and the train itself.

By the season finale, everyone on Supertrain was Ernest Borgnine. It wasn't explained. It wasn't acknowledged. It just was.

The Borgnine Convergence

In the future, individuality collapses into a unified Borgnine Field, where every citizen has: * The face of a grizzled Navy vet, * The soul of a man who's seen Poseidon Adventure too many times, * And the laugh of someone who definitely eats lunch at 10:45 AM.

It's not reincarnation. It's Borgnification.

"In the beginning, there was one Ernest.

In the end, there will only be Borgnine."

• Book of Ratings, Chapter 13, Supertrain Edition.

Just imagine Love Boat but instead of a ship it's on a train then add some drama and excitement to spice things. Now imagine how bad that would be. This is actually worse.

If you weren't watching TV back in 1978-1979, you can't know how much hype NBC subjected the public to over this inane piece of fluff. For months before it premiered, at 10 minute intervals during prime time, there were commercials about this supposedly innovative series. The money spent on "Supertrain" and it's advertising would have helped everyone under the poverty line in America to buy a house and a car and still have money left over, and would have been much better spent. It was truly a case of overkill, especially when the series premiered and it was such a glittering piece of trash from the first moment.

There wasn't an interesting story during the entire run, just lots of flash; Hollywood will never learn that if the story is good everything else will fall into place. Each episode was the same. Lots of boring people boarding the train, the train moving somewhere, lots of boring people leaving the train. This sounds like "Loveboat" on the rails, and it was. But at least most of the episodes on "Loveboat" had a plot.

Fred Silverman took so much heat for this garbage, and he deserved it. His face was everywhere at the time, and he was being touted as a pioneer - all Hollywood hype. Suffice to say, "Supertrain" was his "Heaven's Gate," and it quickly died. There's no chance anyone will ever see this series again; it's simply not interesting enough to rebroadcast, thank goodness.

Supertrain looked like it had potential but NBC screwed it up big time. I remember seeing promos with train racing out of the Grand central tunnel all the time and watching Express to Terror then it disappeared. If NBC hadn't rushed it through production and let the writers make decent material it might have lasted longer. I wish someone would bring it back and get it right this time. Retooling a show is usually a death sentence for it. Why did they change things after three episodes? If your gonna spend that kind of money on a show you have better keep at it until it works. NBC put all their effect into getting the effects to look realistic but never tried to fix all scripts before any were filmed. I am guessing most of the screenplays were first or second draft versions.

I remember this series from back in the day and have refreshed m memory on Youtube recently. I thought the show sucied back in the day and my refresher did nothing to change that opinion. My question then and now is this: Why was the series set on a futuristic high speed Atomic ultra-luxury train (which was super expensive to builde as sets and models) and then hardly ever reference that fact in any meaningful ways? I mean, except for the pilot episode, the rest of the stories could have taken place in a hotel, resort or even a "Love Boat." There was never any justification for this to be on a train of any kind! Why didn't they play up the sci-fi part of it? Why didn't the fact that the cast is hurtling along at tremendous speed ever enter into the stories? Sure, they mention this stuff, but it never really matters. Just boring stories that could be taking place anywhere. SO much money SO stupidly wasted on SUCH a boring show. Incredible.