The Starlost

The Starlost had the potential to be a classic science fiction series as it was created by the superb writer Harlan Ellison. The premise was intriguing: earth is abandoned by the humans that have poisoned it in various ways. A great spaceship arc is constructed and a series of domes house various cultures. At some point in their journey an accident occurs killing the crew, the domes are sealed off, and in time the different societies within them come to believe only in their own world and are unaware they are part of a massive starship.3 individuals from a dome with an agrarian community discover the truth, along with the fact that the ark is on a collision course with a g-class star.The series revolved around their attempts to save the ark. unfortunately Ellison came into conflict with the producers & writes extensively about this in an intro into the book based on the series, Phoenix Without Ashes.The fact that the show had a shoestring budget did not help either.This would be a wonderful premise to revive with Ellison on board, and the state-of-the-art special effects now available.

Of course I was only 8 years old at the time. But in retrospect, the storylines, weird synthesizer music and general atmoshphere were wonderfully creepy. Yes it had super-cheap production values but what could you expect from Canadian TV in the early 70s? The highest budgeted entertainment of the day would have been Hockey Night in Canada or the Irish Rovers Show (remember that one?).

The Starlost is a giant Ark ship hurtling through space on a collision course with a star. The earth has long since been destroyed and the ark ship itself was crippled by a meteor collision several generations into it's long journey. The technical people are dead. What is left are multitudes of biospheres, each with different sub-cultures of human "tribes", all cut-off from one another. These descendents of the original travellers have lost all knowledge of their journey and history. None of them even know they are on a space ship. Their biosphere is simply their home. You have to admit there is something mythic about that premise. I thought it was a nifty idea.

The series follows the adventures of 3 inhabitants, Devin, Rachel and Garth, who escape their biosphere, slowly find out the truth of the Ark, and travel from dome to dome.

I remember catching a few reruns of The Starlost in the early 80s and it was still as good (relatively speaking) as I remembered it. The use of those super-cheesy chroma effects did add a certain other-worldliness to the production that is hard to describe. It was as if it was so bad that it was actually effective (or almost). Certainly if this was redone today with a bunch of flashy, overblown, modern cgi, all the spookiness and creepyness of the original series would be diminished.

I think the reason why this series actually worked for me is because it had that "Space 1999" theme of being disconnected, alienated and lost, while scrambling like mad to get back to "somewhere" more connected. There is something metaphysical and tragic about that set-up which I guess appeals to introspective individuals.

I also liked the way that almost every episode ended on a down note, with the trio jumping to yet another Dome filled with raving madmen of one sort or the other.

Anyway, too bad this series seems to have disappeared. It would have been cool to watch a few episodes again. But I guess the original videotape that it was shot on has since decayed! :)

Harlan Ellison's first and only attempt to create a science fiction television series, The Starlost was doomed to failure almost from the start. Ellison had his name removed from the series when the producers decided to make a number of knuckleheaded decisions about the show and its direction.

It's too bad as the series premise itself would make a fascinating weekly series or movie. Science fiction author Ben Bova wrote a parody of the situation that occurred to Ellison with a novel (I believe it's now out of print)entitled Starcrossed.

You know, I was just sleeping and having a dream about a huge generational spaceship, with separate hanging living complexes, which carries most of the population of Earth away to a distant world. Then I realized, I'd seen this concept before on TV, when I was a kid. Reaching through my own memory banks to the distant past, I could only come up with the words: "lost", "ark", and "Walter Koenig" (Chekov from Star Trek). Did the search for Koenig through IMDb, and sure enough found this entry. If I had instead done a search for "lost" and "ark", I'd have probably ended up in "Raiders of The Lost Ark", so it's a good thing I didn't do that search. :-)

Wow, now that I'm looking at the list of stars of this show, I am surprised by how many of them are well-known. Walter Koenig was just a guest star on it. I didn't realize that one of the stars was Keir Dullea, Dave from 2001: A Space Oddessy. Also Robin Ward, I remember he used to be a weatherman or something later on. Ah, ancient Canadian memories.

Koenig seems to have a knack for memorable guest appearances on sci-fi shows. He also had a memorable turn as Bester on Babylon 5.

OK, so everyone thinks the production values were terrible, then why after 35 years, does this series still exist as clear as a bell in my mind? It was amazingly thought out and the possibilities for plots were infinite like any good sci-fi series. Of particular interest were the "bounce tubes". A travel method that involved jumping into a tunnel that had no gravity and being sucked to the other end. I couldn't wait for each time the characters did that! The show was filled with "wow" moments like the view of the destroyed command center, and the view out the the window at the incredible length of the ship. Note: The ship in this series was recycled a few years later as the ship in the movie, "Silent Running".

I desperately hope that there is a television producer out there that is looking for an idea to remake. With modern computer animation and a cast of a few talented young stars this could easily be the Star Trek of the new century.