doctardis This as a TV movie of the week held was really not bad. How bad can it be with Lew Ayers? Glenn Corbett, Star Trek's TOS Zefrem Cochran, makes a good leading man. Sharon Archer is appealing as well. Cameron Mitchel make a great bad guy. The problem is that you can not see how this would make an interesting weekly TV show. Such a show would be set in a make believe police state that does not seem to have much of an philosophy. There are only two people out there to help him. And he does not want to end the police state. He just wants to get home. He does not seem to have any compassion for the people with the exception of Sharon Archer.

junk-monkey Stranded in Space (1972) MST3K version - a very not good TV movie pilot, for a never to be made series, in which an astronaut finds himself trapped on Earth's evil twin. Having a planet of identical size and mass orbiting in the same plane as the earth, but on the opposite side of the sun, is a well worn SF chestnut - the idea is over 2,000 years old, having been invented by the Ancient Greeks. In this version the Counter World is run as an Orwellian 'perfect' society. Where, for totally inexplicable reasons, everyone speaks English and drives late model American cars. After escaping from his prisonlike hospital, the disruptive Earthian is chased around Not Southern California by TV and bad movie stalwart Cameron Mitchell who, like his minions, wears double breasted suits and black polo neck jumpers - a stylishly evil combination which I fully intend to adopt if ever I become a totalitarian overlord. Our hero escapes several times before ending up gazing at the alien world's three moons and wondering aloud if he will ever get home - thus setting up one of those Man Alone in a Hostile World Making a new Friend Each Week but Moving on at the End of Every Episode shows so beloved of the industry in the 70s and 80s ('The Fugitive', 'The Incredible Hulk', 'The Littlest Hobo' etc.) The curiously weirdest bit though was the title sequence. Somewhere between 'Stranded in Space' first airing (under the title 'The Stranger') in 1972 and the MST3K version in 1991 it somehow acquired some footage from the 1983 movie 'Prisoners of the Lost Universe'. So in 1991 the opening credits for 'Stranded in Space' run under a few shots of three people falling into a matter transmitter and vanishing. It's a sequence that has nothing to do - even thematically - with anything that is going to follow.Just to add to the nerdy B movie confusion, one of the actors in this nailed on footage, Kay Lenz, later appeared in a 1994 movie called 'Trapped in Space'. Knowing this fact could never save your life but it might score you very big points and admiring looks from fellow trash movie enthusiasts - if you could ever work out a way of manoeuvring the conversation round to the point where you could casually slip it in without looking like a total idiot...

SanDiego Remake of the much better produced theatrical film JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN from 1969 (available on DVD) about an astronaut who lands on a twin Earth on the other side of the sun. This TV film has a good B-film cast including such sci-fi buff favorites as Cameron Mitchell (FLIGHT TO MARS available on DVD), Lew Ayres (1971 TV film EARTH II as well as Dr. Kildare in a series of films from the forties), Dean Jagger (X THE UNKNOWN available on DVD), and Sally Field's mom, Margaret Field (MAN FROM PLANET X available on DVD) to name just a few. Credits go out to the casting but isn't as fun as any of the other films mentioned and tries to start a TV series in the vein of 60's TV show THE INVADERS. By the way if you liked THE INVADERS, star Roy Thinnes is the star of JOURNEY TO THE FAR SIDE OF THE SUN. THE STRANGER is more for sci-fi buffs than sci-fi fans.

dubnut HERE WE GO... Featuring several actors from an amazing array of b-movies and made-for-tv flics, this turkey might appeal to the die-hard fan of velveeta cheese, spam and/or atari 2600, but not to the masses (except perhaps those watching a uhf channel at 3 in the morning after a binge at the local pub). Seemingly a failed pilot for a pre-doomed series, the only thing going for this movie is the sheer ability to crack jokes about the plot. Come on...An astronaut, adrift in space, wakes up to find himself in a hospital bed surrounded by slightly-paranoid medical staff. Later he finds out (through the silliest of methods) that he's actually on a twin planet to earth (on the other side of the sun where we can never see). He wanders off (actually, it's supposed to be an escape, but my grandmother's escape from the nursing home would be more exciting to watch, not to mention more challenging), and the government wants him back (of course), to pry from him certain details (I won't spoil it). Later we find out that their space technology is slightly better than ours, as he manages to steal a shuttle for the trip back home (anyone doped up on sleeping pills could have been more sneaky, and why would they have to pry in the first place. Didn't they get his ship too?). And to top it all off, he crashes into the ocean, only to find himself....(sorry, not allowed to spoil it. Too bad, because the truly pathetic"twist, climax," whatever you'd prefer to call it, proves just how much of a groaner this film is). the end.And thank heaven they didn't make the series! Great flick for drunkenbouts, cheese-fests and late-night viewing, but nothing I'd want to suffer through again.I can't even believe I went on about this turkey for more than a few sentences.Watch it on one of those mondo, make it funny shows late at night, but please don't watch it alone. 'Tis not proper to be a closet cheese-aholic!