Logan’s Run:
The Complete Series (1977 –
1978/Warner DVD Set)
Picture:
C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C- Episodes: C+
In the
1970s, despite having a big hit with Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey in 1968, MGM had a tenuous relationship with
science fiction. Their #1 box office hit
for 1973 was Michael Crichton’s Westworld,
yet they let another studio (American International, whose catalog the current
MGM now owns, while old MGMs are owned by Warner) do
the sequel in 1976, a hit in the same year they had passed on Star Wars at least once and had a hit
with Michael Anderson’s film of Logan’s
Run. Despite two sequel novels,
instead of more movies, they decided to make the film into a TV series and Logan’s Run: The Complete Series (1977
– 1978) is finally on DVD.
With a
limited budget, MGM and CBS decided to make the series into a chase show like The Fugitive, but also in the mode of
their successful Saturday Morning hit Ark
II and in many ways their not as successful TV version of Planet Of The Apes (all reviewed
elsewhere on this site) where the leads travel through a post-apocalyptic
America trying to help survivors while dealing with evil parties and other dire
situations.
As a
substitute for an Ark II vehicle, a
solar powered futuristic car/van would substitute. Then came who to cast as substitutes for the
stars of the feature film. For starters,
they cast a then-unknown Gregory Harrison as Logan 5 replacing Michael York, a sandman
who starts to become self-aware and goes outside of the City of Domes (known
simply as The Dome City if that in the feature film) and is encouraged by
Jessica 6, Heather Menzies replacing Jenny Aglitter to run.
Runners
are those who do not participate to be “renewed” in Carousel and take their
chances to find the mythical Sanctuary.
Sandmen kill these people (there are no sandwomen in the film or series)
for violating that arrangement. Logan was one of the
best, partnered with Francis 7, played in the film by Richard Jordan and played
well here by Randy Powell. No one reprises
the Farrah Fawcett role of Holly, but story editor and Star Trek alumni D.C. Fontana created a robot with feelings and
intelligence named REM (played here well by the underrated Donald Moffett) and
served as a major forerunner of the Data character on Star Trek: The Next Generation, which Fontana also worked on.
14
hour-long episodes were produced and the makers had big plans that this would
be a big hit, but ratings did not work out and CBS only broadcast 10 of the
shows before pulling the plug. However,
the series had some interesting stories, guest stars and did what it could with
its budget, though the pilot badly remakes the feature film to fit the show and
all the episodes feature bad pan & scan footage from the feature film. The episodes are as follows, including name
guest stars:
1)
The
remake pilot (Keene Curtis, Anthony De Longis, Gary Davis, Michael Biehn as an
unnamed Sandman in one of his first credited acting roles)
2)
The
Collectors (Linden Chiles, Angela Cartwright (Lost In Space))
3)
Capture
(Mary Woronov (Death Race 2000),
Horst Buchholz)
4)
The
Innocent (Lisa Eilbacher, Brian Kerwin, Lou Richards)
5)
Man
Out Of Time (Mel Ferrer, Paul Shenar (De Palma’s Scarface))
6)
Halflife
(Kim Cattrall, William Smith, Len Birman, John Gowans)
7)
Crypt
(Ellen Weston, Christopher Stone, Soon-Tek Oh, Liam Sullivan)
8)
Fear
Factor (Jared Martin, William Wellman, Jr., Ed Nelson, Peter Brandon)
9)
The
Judas Goat (Nicholas Hammond, Spencer Milligan, Andrew Masset)
10) Futurepast (Mariette Hartley, Michael
Sullivan)
11) Carousel (Melody Anderson, Regis Cordic,
Rosanne Katon, Ross Bickell)
12) Night Visitors (Paul Mantee, Barbara Babcock,
George Maharis)
13) Turnabout (Nehemiah Persoff, Gerald McRaney, Harry
Rhodes)
14) Stargate (Eddie Firestone, Paul Carr, Darrell
Fetty)
Besides
the arrival of Star Wars during its
run, why were the last three shows not originally shown besides sliding
ratings? One episode has creatures that
look like they are out of that hit’s Cantina scene. Others were at least ambitious and the show
was trying, but not always succeeding.
They also had some good writers in Fontana,
Harlan Ellison, John Meredith Lucas, David Gerrold, Shimon Wincelberg, Michael
Michaelian, Alfred Hayes and Producer Leonard Katzman, plus directors in Michael
O’Herlihy, Gerald Mayer, Paul Krasny, Irving J. Moore, Alexander Singer, Curtis
Harrington, Michael T. Caffey and Robert Day.
Talent was not at issue.
So here
is to guessing. Night Visitors was a supernatural episode (the Satanism aspects too
strong for its audience?) and Stargate
was about aliens from outer space, which stretches the bounds of what realism
the series had to offer and also looks like the makers were not finding new
directions to take the show, though rumor has it that Francis would have joined
Logan in his run if a second season happened.
The switch to an all-automated city from the film to one with a panel of
hidden old men running it in the long run might have also hurt the show.
Then
there is the Turnabout episode in
which Logan, REM and Jessica are captured by religious-like extremists headed
by Gerald McRaney very convincing in his role as a mean politically Right Wing
extremist type, down to suppressing women explicitly. MGM had already made political cuts in the
feature film before it went out and that alone could have put this show on the
shelf, but it is as bold as any episode they made. Save REM, who I never totally thought worked
and got in the way of harder science in the show’s science fiction, not much
new ground was broken and Ark II had
really beat the show to the punch in concept.
Still,
the show was ambitious for its time and worth revisiting in this set. Of course, Harrison moved on to become Gonzo
Gates in the tremendously successful M*A*S*H
spin-off Trapper John, M.D.,
Menzies continued her career and became a power couple in Hollywood marrying
Robert Urich, Moffat moved onto more hits and this show was mostly
forgotten. With Warner Bros. trying to
get a remake of the original movie and novel going, it makes sense for them to
issue this set now. That project has had
a bunch of false starts, but might eventually get made. Hope it works out this time.
The 1.33
X 1 image is somewhat consistent throughout and the worst shots are those with
bad matte work, bad visual effects, bad reused footage from the feature film
and a few frames that could use some work.
Otherwise, these shows look as good overall as you would expect for a
show this age. The lossy Dolby Digital
1.0 Mono has not been upgraded to stereo or surround despite the music being
issued a few years ago in a high quality, high fidelity CD soundtrack that
demonstrated that a simple stereo upgrade would be possible. Still, it is not too aged from show to show
and plays just fine for what it is.
The only
extra is a paper pullout with a brief episode guide and a few pictures, but I
had hoped for more. As a fan of the film
and what did work on the show, I wanted to add some links for us all to
enjoy. First, my review for the CD soundtrack
of this TV show:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/1114/Logan%27s+Run+TV+Series+(Limited
Next, a link
for my review of the 1976 feature film on Blu-ray:
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/9203/Logan%E2%80%99s+Run+(1976/Warn
And proof
that MGM and CBS thought this could be a hit; links to the story and three
prototypes for a series of 10-inch action figures by the now-defunct Mego Toys,
innovators of action figures and tie-ins that changed the industry forever. First, the general link on the toy line that
did not make it:
http://www.megomuseum.com/teevee/logansrun.html
And
finally, links to images of the three prototypes of the main three male leads
as action figures that were only very recently discovered after decades of
searching:
Logan
http://www.megomuseum.com/teevee/loganfive.html
REM
http://www.megomuseum.com/teevee/loganrem.html
Francis
http://www.megomuseum.com/teevee/loganfrancis.html
They did
a good job on the face sculpts and each prototype is worth big money. No sign of a Jessica figure or any
accessories like vehicles, but it would have been a great collection (and now
would be fetching high prices like all major Mego action figures of the period)
if it had been made.
Logan’s Run: The Complete Series was one of the original MGM’s
last attempts at a big hit TV series (CHiPs
was the last before they merged with United Artists to become MGM/UA) and even if
it did not work out, the show was at least intelligent and ambitious for its
time. As compared to Universal’s Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers series, it more than holds
its own.
- Nicholas Sheffo
