Quark & Starlost

[johnmiic]

Not sure if anyone has noticed but Amazon has been advertiesing Quark & Starlost on DVD right up there in the corner ads. from time to time. I didnt even know they were coming out!

[thunderbolt]

Quark's been out. Its available on Netflix. never heard of Starlost.

[UnderdogDJLSW]

They have both been out for a few months now. I have the Quark one, kinda disappointed that there are no commentaries or anything, but that's the way it goes with things like these shows.

[david_b]

The Quark site had the QT files to download/watch, which were great.

Ah, Ficus.. He was my favorite!! Shame to hear he died so early, just a year or two after this series..

[palitoy]

I don't think I can ever watch StarLost again. It was on all the time in the eighties and it's so poorly paced, great concept, terrible execution.

Quark is still funny.

[Captain]

Carefull what you say about StarLost. You might make Harlan Ellison mad.....you wouldnt like him when hes mad.............On second though...He's always mad.

I wouldnt mind seeing some episodes of StarLost again. Especially some of the early ones when they were still trying to make a decent show. Otherwise, yah...Canadian content laws forced CTV and CBC to beat this dead horse to a bloody pulp in the seventies and eighties....and it just didnt have the charm of Rocket Robin Hood or Spiderman to rise above that fate.

[palitoy]

Carefull what you say about StarLost. You might make Harlan Ellison mad.....you wouldnt like him when hes mad.............On second though...He's always mad.

He is always mad, I love reading his rants but meeting him wasn't so good.

Also, I think the only way to upset him is to give the series undying praise, he hates the living heck out of it. I think his original premise is excellent and it should be revisited.

[Mikey]

I never seen Starlost and only heard of it through reading some Starlog articles in the late 70's.

I don't think it was ever shown around here.

The premise kind of reminds me of the For the World is Hollow episode of (Star Trek)

[Captain]

It was a Canadian series produced by the CTV network, so I kinda doubt it aired in the US. As Brian mentioned it had a good underlying premise, but the 40 dollar budget didnt really allow that premise to shine through. Essentially, humanity fled the Earth in a huge Ark ship composed of hundreds of massive domed environments. Each dome evolved its own society, that our heroes would have to interact with, while they tried to figure out how to "right the ship"...of course all the different dome societies were unaware they were on a ship.
The closest thing I could compare it to is the short lived Otherworld tv series from about 1986.

It quickly turned into three people running around a cheapo set, doing a whole lot of nothing for about half an hour. I seriously think they made it up as they went during some of the episodes.

They did attract some minor sci fi stars of the time as guest stars---John Colicos, Walter Koenig........errr....Did I mention Walter Koenig was in it?

Actually, I seem to recall reading that William Shatner and DeForest Kelley were signed up for different episodes, but the series was canned well before that came to be. A few short years later DeForest Kelley did appear in an extra special episode of another Canadian series The Littlest Hobo--Another 40 dollar per episode Canadian series that sadly wasnt about a midget hobo, but rather a dog. Think Lassie with a different Timmy every week. (I would have watched a midget hobo gettin' into mischief every week...a dog.....not so much.)

[palitoy]

The show originally was supposed to be shot in the UK, then it switched to Canada but it was to be a Fox production. It had a huge budget and was going to have really state of the art effects. That's how they signed Keir Dullea.

Then the US backing fell through and Glen Warren shot it on video with lousy chroma key effects. it DID air in the US in syndication but who knows how far it really went.

It kind of looked like Doctor Who but suffered from really rotten pacing, Barry Morse was another guest star. The series kind of degenerated into that formula of "visit society-fix their problems in 60 minutes-and don't find sanctuary/Evoland/Back Up Bridge/Earth thing you're looking for because the series would be over"

Ellison's book as I recall had Garth in pursuit of Devon.

I always liked the model of the ship:

[mego73]

Tell us about your meeting with Ellison.

[Captain]

If they ever did redo it, I think a better ship design might be a series of Dyson spheres (ala star trek) connected together to make it a little more plausible that these societies dont remember they are on a ship anymore.
A little more violence (ie ACTION) would be welcome too....Maybe Garth could lose his teeny tiny little crossbow and find some kinda kickbutt blaster or something. I know they were supposed to be peacefull farm folk, but if I wanna watch that I'll go to Ontario and heckle the Amish people.

[Captain]

"Ellison's book as I recall had Garth in pursuit of Devon"

....there was a book? Was it based on the original idea then, or on the finished product?

[palitoy]

"Ellison's book as I recall had Garth in pursuit of Devon"

....there was a book? Was it based on the original idea then, or on the finished product?

It's called "Phoenix from the Ashes" and it's an interesting read, the UK version has Ellison's thoughts on the series (hr swears)

Ben Bova (consultant on the series) wrote a parody of the making of the show, the title evades me.

[ctc]

HEY!

I never thought of it before; but this is the same basic idea as the "Metamorphosis Alpha" rpg.

Coincidence....?

Don C.