L'âge de cristal

I saw "Logan's run" (the movie) yesterday and it reminds me of this TV series I used to watch a long time ago.The movie which I saw in a movie theater drastically wandered from the novel:for instance the part of sandman Francis would amaze people who only know the movies and the TV series.

The TV episodes kept only Jessica,Logan and Francis and added REM ,a robot (but a human one ,not the nasty robot who freezes the fugitives).It roughly followed the pattern of "the fugitive" of the sixties ,although Francis did not appear in all the episodes.My favorite one was based on "the most dangerous game" and featured German actor Horst Buchholz as the hunter,Jessica and Logan being the preys.Unlike the movie,neither Jessica nor Logan showed love feelings and when REM hinted at it ,the heroine simply answered: "He's only a friend" .

Correct me if I'm wrong ,but the last episode was not really an "end " :they probably intended to make more episodes.They did not,and it was too bad.

Does anyone else remember this series, which was something of a cult among my circle of teenage friends in London, England, in the late 70s? I can see from the IMDb entry that it only ran to 14 episodes, so I imagine the plug was pulled on it pretty quickly. (This often seems to be the case with shows that are too good.) I've no idea how it would hold up now, since it has never, to my knowledge, been repeated on British TV, but I have fond memories of this series. My friends and I thought that Heather Menzies was very pretty, but we were especially impressed by the android, Rem. If "Lost In Space" and "Land Of The Giants" were my preferred viewing in the late 60s, "Planet Of The Apes" and "Logan's Run" (in their TV-series manifestations) were my shows of choice in the late 70s.

A show I recall enjoying in my teen years, it was nice to track down the feature length pilot episode. I hadn't then but have since seen the parent film and obviously to make a multi-episode series, numerous changes have to be made to allow the show to develop. That was the case here as two on the run on the big screen became three on the run on the small screen with the addition of android Rem as Logan and Jessica start out their no doubt extended search for a place called Sanctuary, pursued all the while by Logan's former friend, fellow Sandman, Francis.

I have to confess a youthful crush way back then for Heather Menzies which it was pleasant to recollect with this viewing but better yet was the story itself which seemed to condense two strands into one, the first being Logan and Jessica's escape from the City Of Domes and the second their strange encounter with a bunch of androids determined to pamper them to death in a neat inversion on the hoary old lunatics taking over the asylum plot-line, along the way bumping into their soon-to-be new ally Rem.

Viewed critically today, from over 40 years since its first broadcast, I can now see the budget restraints manifested in the locations, costumes, machinery and special effects deployed and sure the acting isn't of the highest standard either but overall I still enjoyed the storyline for this extended introductory episode and will try to catch the rest of the series to see if it matches up to my younger self's fond remembrance of it.

Logan's Run, based on the 1976 movie of the same name, was a good show. Gregory Harrison was Logan, a Sandman, Heather Menzies was Jessica. A Runner. Runners are people who want to live beyond the age of 30. In the futuristic society that Logan and Jessica live, it's against the law. When you reach your 30th

birthday, you're a dead man, or woman. Donald Moffat played the android Rem. Logan's Run originally aired on Friday nights at 9:00 pm, but was bounced around the time slots so much by CBS that when it finally ended in 1978, CBS didn't care whether it survived or not. It was never on the Sci-Fi Channel. It would also make a good DVD presentation.

This could have been one of the finest science fiction show's of the seventies if it had been allowed to stay on longer and allowed the characters to develop. Gregory Harrison was perfect as Logan and Heather Menzies was great as Jessica. Also, Donald Moffat was great as the android Rem. Too bad this show was bounced around all over the schedule. I would have loved to have seen them encounter all sorts of societies in the post-apocalyptic world of this show.