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The Starlost

1973

Seasons & Episodes

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EP1 Voyage of Discovery Sep 22, 1973

Devon discovers his people live on a huge spacecraft and is sentenced to death for heresy when he states this. He escapes, and his betrothed Rachel and friend Garth follow him on his journey.

EP2 Lazarus from the Mist Sep 29, 1973

The segment begins with Devon, Rachel and Garth at the ARK's communications board trying in vain to contact other parts of the earthship. A sudden ""Emergency"" signal flashing from the Medical Center sends the trio In search of the trouble. Just as they reach their destination, they are ambushed by a club-wielding mob of raged-looking tube-dwellers who scream threats of death to the ""thieves"" who dare to invade the forbidden ""Dome of the Dead."" Devon and Rachel narrowly escape by barricading themselves in the Medical Center, but Garth, arriving too late, is forced to flee into the darkness.

EP3 The Goddess Calabra Oct 06, 1973

Devon, Rachel and Garth are exploring one of earthship Ark's huge freight chambers. Pushing past loud radiation warnings, they are suddenly lifted to the surface of the dome Omicron and find themselves in a strange city of geodisic domes and angular buildings. A siren sounds as the trio is bathed in a hot, blinding light and surrounded by soldiers demanding identification. But the moment they see Rachel, they drop reverently to their knees and hail her as the goddess Calabra. The dumbfounded visitors are escorted to a palatial building where the Governor interrogates them as an awed court watches. Rachel's attempts to explain her origin are in vain, for the Governor indicates a portrait of the goddess Calabra who bears an extraordinary resemblance to Rachel and orders that arrangements be made at once for their wedding.

EP4 The Pisces Oct 13, 1973

Devon Rachel and Garth are awakened by a voice announcing the arrival of the ""Pisces."" As the craft's crew complete their linkup, a man and two women emerge and identify themselves as Commander Garroway, Captain Janice and Navigator Teale. They explain that they were launched from the ARK ten years ago to search for settling places for the ARK's population. They are shocked to return to find the ARK off-course, her crew vanished.

EP5 Children of Methuselah Oct 20, 1973

Devon reports back to Rachel and Garth that he's found the ARK's backup bridge. The trio attempt to enter the restricted computer area, but are temporarily thwarted by an electronic security system. When they do get through, they are shocked to see a group of children efficiently operating the complex navigational consoles. The youngsters also demonstrate the ability to ""think pain"" upon others and use this device on Devon and Garth. Rachel and the two men are taken to their commander, a fourteen-year-old boy who immediately orders that the intruders be placed under arrest.

EP6 And Only Man is Vile Oct 27, 1973

This episode is set in a lavishly appointed spa in a dome called New Eden Leisure Village. At first it seems completely deserted, but Garth hears someone moaning. He finds a young girl seemingly in a state of shock and attempts to find out what's happened. The girl will not speak. However, Rachel is able to gain her confidence and determines that something horrible frightened everyone else away, and she was left behind in the confusion. The trio decide to stay and try to solve the mysterious evacuation.

EP7 Circuit of Death... Nov 10, 1973

An electronics engineer, Sakharov, despairing of the slow death which he believes in store for all inhabitants of the Ark, bypasses the fail-safe mechanisms in order to activate the Ark's self-destruct system. In doing so, he inadvertently trips the fail-safe alarms, alerting Devon, Rachel and Garth. Sakharov, with his daughter Valarie (who opposes his plan) intends to escape the Ark at the last moment aboard the rocket designed to jettison the Ark's logs and cassette recordings of Earth history prepared, 'for the benefit of other life in the universe'. But when the rocket fails to leave, Sakharov, with Devon and Garth's help, undertakes to rewire the fail-safe and stop the self-destruct. Since all the mechanisms are in micro circuits, they must be projected miniaturized into the circuits through an astounding electronic procedure. It is a race against time to re-connect the minute circuits before the whole Ark blows.

EP8 Gallery of Fear Nov 17, 1973

In one of the service modules of the Ark, Devon, Rachel and Garth come upon a bizarre pop-art museum. of the future where circuit-breakers, plastic cubes and the common incunabulia of the future is preserved in silent, empty grandeur stretching as far as the eye can see. Without warning, ""people"" begin to appear; but special people -- friends and relatives of Garth and Rachel with whom they enjoy emotional reunions. The final person to appear is a beautiful girl, the ""curator,"" Doris, in whom Devon is instantly attracted. But the girl reveals that all the ""people"" were recreations of Magnus, the most talented and sophisticated computer ever made. Doris assists Devon In his desire to recreate,through Magnus, the original Captain of the Ark in order to learn its secrets. But the recreation of the captain warns Devon that Doris is a creation of Magnus, too, and that she is part of Magnus' plan to get himself re-programmed for totally independent existence.

EP9 Mr. Smith of Manchester Nov 24, 1973

Devon, Rachel, and Garth are lured into a dome where the inhabitants are trapped in a highly industriaiized, hell-bent-for-leather society which is choking itself to death on its own noxious effluents; the purification and filtering system of the dome simply cannot keep up with the mad pace these people have set for themselves. The leader of the Liverpudlians is Mr. Smith, an absolute ruler who knows his people would displace him if he took the hard but necessary decision to simplify their lifestyle. Smith is finally overthrown and the poliutive machines stilled as our three push onward.

EP10 The Alien Oro Nov 03, 1973

Rachel, Devon and Garth come to an uninhabited dome where they find Oro (Walter Koenig), an alien from the planet Xar who has been living a Robinson Crusoe style existence on the Ark for several years. Oro,has acquired the services of Ydana as his' girl Friday. Ydana is an inteligent but fickle woman, a wanderer from another dome. She has been helping Oro repair his space ship in the hope that she might find a "paradise" on Xar. By trickery, Oro commnands the services of Devon, Rachel and Garth to aid him in repairing his ship.

EP11 Astro-Medics Dec 01, 1973

Devon, venturing unknowingly into a quarantine area, is stricken by radiation sickness and is near death when a father-son medical team from a nearby shuttle clinic -- Isolated since the Ark's disaster -- rescue him. They literally bring him back from the dead -- but tell Rachel and Garth that sensitive, sophisticated neuro surgery will be necessary to restore Devon as a reasoning human being. And there is no time or this surgery: the shuttle clinic is about to cast off from the Ark, to answer a distress signal from a nearby planet threatened by a plague. The doctors are persuaded to stay long enough to try the operation -- and while the window for their escape is still open, leave the Ark having restored Devon to life and health.

EP12 The Implant People Dec 08, 1973

The trio happen on a dome (after Garths crossbow is stolen) inhabited by people ruled by fear via electronic brain implants.

EP13 The Return of Oro Dec 15, 1973

Oro returns, offering to repair the Ark's faulty systems and fly them all to settle on Exar, which he claims is much like earth. Devon discovers he's lying, but can only prove it in a debate in which the loser will be killed.

EP14 Farthing's Comet Dec 22, 1973

A spacewalk is undertaken when a comet threatens the ark.

EP15 The Beehive Dec 29, 1973

Rachel, Garth and Devon are trapped inside a giant food production center for the ark. It is a giant beehive where some sonic experiments are causing the natives to become restless.

EP16 Space Precinct Jan 05, 1974

Garth plays detective when some visiting space cops stop by.
6.2| 0h30m| NR| en
Synopsis

A huge generational colony spacecraft called The Ark has gone off-course. Many of the descendants from the original crew and colonists are unaware that they are aboard a ship.

Director

Producted By

Glen Warren Productions

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Reviews

Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
SparkMore n my opinion it was a great movie with some interesting elements, even though having some plot holes and the ending probably was just too messy and crammed together, but still fun to watch and not your casual movie that is similar to all other ones.
WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.
Kamila Bell This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
mhlong I discovered StarLost when it was first broadcast, late at night. Recognizing Keir Dullea immediately from 2001: A Space Odyssey, I found the plot interesting, the acting fairly stiff, the sets basically cheaply done. Yet, here was a 'live'-action television series post-Star Trek about space and had what looked like an interesting plot (and didn't seem as pretentious as Space1999) .Basically, Earth had been destroyed and near the end, the world (at least the US, for most the people seemed to speak the same language), built this gigantic space 'ark' with spheres connected by tubes. Each sphere held a community that seemed to be plucked and plopped into this sphere and shut off with no outside contact. I suppose the plan was to move as much of Earth culture in-tact to another habitable world and start anew with a significant part of the various cultures little affected by space travel and ready to continue the human experience.The story starts with Keir Dullea's character (Devon) in one of the spheres, some fundamentalist religious community (like Amish). He wonders about something more outside the sphere and thinks there must be a way to find out. (no concept of stars or galaxies exists to these people). Being at odds with the elders who seem to have dictatorial control over the peoples' lives, he also loves this young woman, Rachel, who is promised to someone else, Garth. It's decided he's a trouble maker and should be restrained (or worse). He escapes and starts his search for a way out.Stumbling upon a hatch door by accident, he makes his way into one of the connecting 'bounce' tubes, learning to 'bounce' to the next sphere. Along the way, he comes across a computer monitor that has a man's image who occasionally answers some but not all of his questions.Going back to his sphere, he tries to convince the others of what he has found but is considered a real problem and is not believed. He gets Rachel to join him and Garth goes after them to bring our hero back to 'justice'. The remaining episodes are their adventures as they go from sphere to sphere trying to find out what's going on.I saw a few episodes again about 5-10 years ago when it was re-broadcast somewhere, seeing about 10 or 12 of the 16. I had several problems with the show and even more when I read Harlan Ellison's (aka Cordwainer Bird) account in one of his books and his original script.First, the three characters eventually team up as Garth begins to understand what is going on. Garth went from antagonist to just a hanger-on. I assumed the reason for him was for tension – two men competing for a woman. But that plot device disappeared rather quickly. Mostly he just glowered, doing little to further the plot.Each sphere these characters visited was similar in many ways to the one they came from, totally self-contained and basically unaware of any other sphere or the space ship (apparently there had been more generations of lives during the space travel then expected). Part of the plot revolved around the fact that the computer monitor was constantly saying that the space ship was on a course to plunge into a star and be destroyed but it never said how long until that would happen. Also, the command bridge apparently had been destroyed at some time and the secondary bridge was uninhabited causing the space ship to wander.Our characters went from sphere to sphere and came upon problems that needed to be solved. At the end of each episode, they left each sphere a better place, but with that sphere still practically cut off from any other. Not once did anyone say, Hey, what IS out there? Can I join? Nor for the most part, did our trio ever seem to find someone smart enough to maybe find the controls and divert the space ship from possible catastrophe.One episode had our trio coming upon a docking port - and a small scout ship with several people on board - which at that moment returned from some expedition. You would think the ship's commander of that would want to know the situation, forget whatever issue was the 'problem d'jour' and go immediately to the secondary bridge and take control. Nope. Our trio had to help them solve some very mundane problem, and I think the scout ship left again. Our trio even came across a highly advanced society who had gone nuts over schematics and things, but eventually left them to solve their own little problems and pushed on.Finally, the real issue I had was with Harlan Ellison's whine about the show, which can be found in several places, i.e. Strange Wine. I read his original script which he seemed to believe was the best ever written, which really wasn't much better then anything else on TV at the time. Also, he whined that the TV representation of the space ship was laid out in a grid like pattern, but his idea of something like a grape cluster was so much better. Please, who really cares.Actually if you want to read a better story (which Ellison must have read but never gave any mention of), read Heinlein's novella, Universe. Almost exactly the same plot, but handled a little better and far more believable (and written much earlier).I have fond memories of The StarLost because so little else in the SF genre was available as the impetus from the success (or buzz) of 2001:A Space Odyssey was now in serious decline. However, with the cheap budgets, mediocre acting, and behind the scenes fighting, I'm sure the show did nothing to help further the cause. We had to wait for Star Wars to put SF back in popular standing.
jfhadden I definitely enjoyed Keir Dullea's performance in The Starlost TV series episodes.It seemed to me at time a plausible scenario being a teenager at the time.Now I know that travel to a nearby star will not happen anytime soon,the last estimate I read to travel to our neighbor Mars was $130,000,000,000.oo US, and that won't happen soon, either.Using Starlost as a metaphor though,I think that the people of Earth are like the inhabitants of the Ark,in that,in our near future, disaster looms,there are too many people on our little planet already, polluting the environment beyond repair,with too many being born every day.Trying to feed billions of people,farmers are polluting the land and water with pesticides,herbicides,and fertilizers;not to mention all the people-made chemicals from our automobiles,trucks,and buses putting excess greenhouse gases into the air.I believe we should start building enough Arks to take most people off the Earth,now.To see how, please go to www.permanent.com.Sincerely,John Hadden.
DJWyce Along with Space 1999, Buck Rogers and the original Battlestar Galactica, one of the worst TV SF series ever made.It seems that the age of the viewer when these things premiered is an important factor. They remember it as adults, through the unsophisticated and uneducated filters of the child they were when they saw it. The same is true over on the Battlestar Galactica boards.I was a young adult when it came out, not a kid, and that makes all the difference in how I remember it.Pee Yoo. Period.It tried to be more than it was, its attempts at depth and substance were dull and vague, its plots silly, its SFX while good efforts for the era, were as bad as rear-projection dinosaurs in 50s b-SF movies.
powersroc 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.