Yet another guilty pleasure. If you're looking for state-of-the-art special effects, snappy dialogue, or a plot that's original or logical, you'll have to look elsewhere. Otherwise, Danger Island is a best watched for its lush locations, a little suspense and leggy lovelies Kathy Ireland and Beth Toussaint. Future sex kitten Nikki Cox is also here, but won't reach her potential for another three years. There are worse ways to kill two hours, as long as you turn your brain off.
Danger Island follows in the grand tradition of campy shows with a group of people marooned on a isolated tropical island. Sort of like Gilligan's Island meets Lost In Space. As if to reinforce the analogy, here's June Lockhart reprising her sweet, motherly role from Lost In Space. With Kathy Ireland as a Gingeresque supermodel who presumably would never run out of cosmetics even after years on the island. Lisa Banes is a female "Professor." Vic the Marine stands in for Major Don West. Christopher Pettiet is the Will Robinson replacement. And Richard Beymer's oily, enigmatic Ben is reminiscent of the early, not very cowardly Dr. Smith. Irwin Allen would have been proud. Or he would have sued for plagiarism.
Interestingly, the music is quite similar to the original score for "Nightmare Cafe." What makes it uncanny is that this was written by Peter Manning Robinson while that was written by J. Peter Robinson. (No relation as far as I can tell.)
This was made by NBC as a pilot for a series that never materialized. Danger Island bears more than a passing resemblance to the 1951 movie Mysterious Island, from the motley crew thrown together by circumstance to the fateful flight through a violent storm to the abandoned habitat they find and make their own and the monsters they have to fight. During the 1992 TV season, NBC seemed to like sci-fi groaners, as four months later they showed Journey to the Center of the Earth, a remake of another movie based on a Jules Verne story. That also never found a spot on NBC's regular schedule.
As a failed pilot, Danger Island laid out numerous loose ends meant to be tied up in later episodes. What tentacled menace attacked Rick and Frank? What was done to the island's natives? Who was watching them when they first made it to the beach? What does Ben know about the MK-Naomi project? The secrets of Danger Island were limitless. Perhaps it's best that they remain hidden. This way, the MK-Naomi research station will be forever shrouded in mystery, as it should be.
