curtismartinlegal

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.

I remember folks were mystified by Under the Cherry Moon, Prince's film directorial debut back when it came out. Everyone thought it was so weird, shoddy, idiosyncratic and incomprehensible. I had the Parade album --kid of the soundtrack-- and couldn't undestand how the movie could really suck with such great music. But the film came and went so quickly i never saw it in the theater. But when I finaly saw it on DVD about 10 years ago (and streaming recently) the reason for it's failure was glaringly obvious -- with one exception, Prince doesn't actually perform any of the "Parade" music in the film. It just plays in the background. There is one scene in which Prince performs the song "Girls and Boys," and that scene really comes alive. It left me mystified as to why ALL the songs hadn't been worked up into full musical numbers.

I mean, it's so obvious that's how it should have been done. Anyone who's honest about it will admit that Purple Rain was also "weird, shoddy, idiosyncratic and incomprehensible." BUT it had lots of electrifying musical sequences by Prince and The Time-like every few minutes. There are very few musicals that actually make sense. And they're not meant to, really. Plot, dialog, etc, are just used to link the musical numbers. If Under the Cherry Moon had actually given the audience much more of what Prince did best - ie, singing, playing and dancing - then the movie's odd, idiosyncratic look, "plot" and "dialog" wouldn't have put anyone off. As it is, it seems like a musical with most of the musical numbers cut out.

It could have been a big hit. But the filmmakers couldn't see the obvious.

I just watched the series, and to me the problem with it is obvious. It wasn't the actors--tgey all did fine. It wasn't the special effects--they were all good for the day. It wasn't production value --for the 70s, this was a fairly lush production. It was the lame plot elements! Every episode was just a pastiche of plot elements from sci-fi, western and war series from the 50s and 60s. And most were all cliche and old back then! I mean, really--one of the early episodes used that old Most Dangerous Game plot. Seriously? That again!? Others mix-and-match much-used plot elements from various genres ("Hey, we just put in a little Forbidden Planet mixed with Rio Bravo plus a dash of an old Combat episode, and--bingo! Here's this week's Logan's Run! "). The result was a science fiction show with no sense of surprise or wonder. In other words, kinda boring. If the had let the writers cone up with something fresh each episode, it might have had a chance.