From the Editor’s Desk: Both of these “hard science” TV movies were produced, in part, by ABC-TV as weekly series pilots — which the network, passed. Regardless of the twenty-years difference between the films, fans have confused the two films — as result of mistaking Gary Lockwood starred “in a TV movie about miners on the moon.”

So, lets review Earth II . . . and examine the elusive, out-of-print and distribution Plymouth.

You wanna see a movie directed by Uncle Rico’s dad, you know from Napoleon Dynamite . . . well, since we just finished off “James Bond Month,” Lazlo Hollyfeld from Real Genius?

Then this is your movie.

Earth II is directed by Jon Gries’s pop, Tom, whose bat-shite crazy TV series resume lead him to directing Jim Brown and Burt Reynolds in 100 Rifles, Charlton Heston in Will Penny, Charles Bronson in Breakout and Breakheart Pass, along with with the ultimate Charles Manson document, 1976 Helter Skelter. Tom Gries died on January 3, 1977, shortly after — and amazingly, somehow, making Muhammad Ali not look completely incompetent — completing 1977’s The Greatest (but it’s still pretty bad, even with Ernest Borgnine of Marty in it).

But let’s get back to Earth II.

As we all know, 2001: A Space Odyssey was a game changer and everyone wanted back in the sci-fi game. So here we have Gary Lockwood — Frank Poole from Kubrick’s classic — as well as Mariette Hartley from Gene Roddenberry’s endless cycle of post-Star Trek endeavors, mainly Genesis II. Yep, that’ s Anthony Franciosa (Tenebre), Lew Ayres (Battle for the Planet of the Apes), and Hari Rhodes (Malcolm MacDonald from Conquest of the Planet of the Apes) along for the interstellar intrique.

As with most all U.S. TV movies, Earth II was an overseas theatrical feature, known as Killer Satellites, and it pushed its 2001, Apes, and Star Trek connections (Mariette Hartley was in one of that series’ popular episodes as Spock’s love interest) in its marketing materials. And it worked. But the foreign box office was better than the U.S. TV ratings; as result, Earth II wasn’t picked up for a weekly series as intended. But Gary Lockwood didn’t mind; he’s on record as saying he hated working on the production, eschewing it overly complex, sociopolitcal plotting.

Since this is very easily obtained as a still-in-print DVD and VOD stream, the reviews on this (rife with plot spoilers) are many. The basic gist of the story, if you haven’t guessed, is about a “second Earth,” that is, an orbital international space station. When things go amiss in Communist Red China and a nuclear missile comes to threaten the station’s 2000-strong pacifist inhabitants, they search for a way to solve the problem — without violence.

So, is Lockwood right?

Yeah. This is a bit slow to the point of boring. And it is complex, way too much for the young minds sci-fi-on-TV was geared for. And that complexity also resulted in the cancellation of the Planet of the Apes TV series and for Roddenberry’s Genesis II (and its reboots as Planet Earth and Strange New World) not going to series. Natch for Rodenberry’s The Questor Tapes.

But in terms of science accuracy, Earth II is stunning and the special effects are effective — just remember: in 1970 years. One can’t help but wonder if the creators behind TV’s Babylon 5 and the later SyFy Channel Battlestar Galactica reboot pinched from this classic TV movie (and we all know the debates regarding Babylon 5 vs. Star Trek: Deep Space 9). If you enjoy your sci-fi with intelligence, without the Lucasian Flash Gordon trimmings, then this “Before Star Wars” romp is for you.

This one is widely available on DVD and all the usual VOD platforms, but we found a free version — a really clean rip — over on You Tube.

Earth II was one of the many films we didn’t get around to reviewing during our month-long Star Wars ripoffs and galactic droppings month. You can catch up on those films with our Before and After Star Wars explorations. And since there’s a little bit o’ post-apoc in Earth II, be sure to check out our two-part post-apoc blowout with our Atomic Dustbins, Part 1 and Part 2. And since were on the subject of both Star Wars and 2001: A Space Odyssey, be sure to check out our “Exploring (Before “Star Wars”): The Russian Antecedents of 2001: A Space Odyssey” featurette.

Plymouth (1991)

“Remember that TV movie about miners on the moon?”

Did you hear the one about the 8 million dollar TV movie — the most expensive ever made, in part by ABC-TV — that no one watched? Well, they watched, but forgot all about it, soon after. Then they wracked their brains years later trying to remember the film, scouring the Internet to find it?

Well, it wasn’t a tween-teen fever dream. The film is real. And it was made a lot later than you remember, because you’re remembering Earth II (1971), itself another, well-made TV movie pilot (and overseas theatrical) produced by MGM-Warner Bros. for ABC-TV. So, yes, in 1990, you really did read an article about Plymouth’s production in Starlog Magazine — complete with that memory-haunting, (now, easily Googled) black and white production still of miners decked out in Alien (1979)-styled miner-space suits exiting a pressure hatch (also, the lead, here isn’t Gary Lockwood, but the always likable Dale Midkiff).

Plymouth — which debuted on Sunday, May 26, 1991 — was a co-production between ABC-TV, Walt Disney Studios (their Touchstone PIctures arm), and Italy’s Rai uno radiotelevisione. As result of Rai’s involvement, Plymouth played as a theatrical feature (?) in the Eurasian marketplace. It eventually turned up on European television (in the U.K. in July 2001), and as a Spanish-language Argentinian VHS. After its stateside debut on ABC-TV, Plymouth replayed once more as part of ABC-TV’s “The Wonderful World of Disney” that aired on Sunday nights (which ended production in 1997).

Then, Plymouth vanished from stateside television. It’s never been syndicated for UHF-TV nor for the retro-channels, such as the sci-fi-centric Comet. While DVDs are in the market, they’re grey market DVDr, since Plymouth has never officially been issued to VHS or DVD in the United States.

During a 1998 interview regarding the 30th anniversary of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), actor Gary Lockwood, who starred in Earth II, said he hated working on the ABC-TV project due to “its complexities.” And that’s the problem with Plymouth: too complex (expensive) for its own good. Lockwood, of course, was referring to Earth II’s plotting — and Plymouth has its plot complexities. So, yeah, this isn’t Gerry Anderson’s Space: 1999 or its predecessor, U.F.O: so no goofy aliens, here. But Plymouth is dangerously close to Battlestar Galactica territory via its plot and character departments.

Sure, Plymouth, like Earth II, is a “hard science fiction” piece that deals with the physical and psychological challenges facing the first moon base colony populated by the citizens of a Northwestern U.S. mining-timber town displaced by a corporation’s Chernobyl-Love Canal-styled disaster. UNIDAC, the company responsible, also operates a financially-failing helium-3 mining operation on the moon. A deal is stuck: the citizens of Plymouth, Oregon, will move to the moon and run the operation.

Plymouth completed production in 1990, remained shelved for year, and then was passed over as a series replacement. ABC-TV declined to purchase the series because, “It just didn’t meet our needs.” (And they probably knew another BSG flop when they saw one.)

While the production values are stellar (Lockheed served as tech advisors), and the writing (from director Lee David Zlotoff of TV’s MacGyver fame) and acting are on equal: this is all too “Battlestar Galactica on the moon,” with little action and too much human yakity-yak drama: e.g., a UNIDAC worker and Plymouth citizen (the town’s female doctor) engage in forbidden love that leads to an outlawed pregnancy, teen-bickering love, a souped-up moon buggy prototype (no, not Brad Pitt’s Ad Astra!), and the mischievous son of the town’s now pregnant doctor as the series’ resident “Boxey,” skirting (weekly, if this went to series) security protocols, as he finds himself (and a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt) trapped in a construction-mining tunnel. Oh, and a solar flair hits the moon, which increases cancer risks. You see where this is going: no space battles, no aliens. But, eventually: juvenile delinquent moon buggy racing.

If Plymouth did go to series — as did NBC-TV’s 1993 to 1996 Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea reimaging, seaQuest DSV (by producer Steven Speilberg and writer Rockne S. O’Bannon) — it would have, in order to survive in the ratings, ditch its “hard science” trappings for aliens, etc. (and SQV brought on a talking dolphin!), which caused Roy Scheider quitting that show. Yeah, Plymouth probably would have gone “Daggit,” too, for the kids, and brought on the eventual human androids kerfuffles.

You can learn more about the production of Plymouth at the “Say, Hello Spaceman” blog in a discussion about the impressive space suits’ creation, as well as the suits’ repurposing in Unearthed (1991), The Outer Limits: The Voyage Home (1995), and Star Command (1996). The “Beamjocky” blog on Live Journals also delves into the suits and the “hard science” of helium-3.

There are more TV movies to be had with our “Week of Made for TV Movies,” “Lost TV Week,” “Son of Made for TV Movie Week” and “Grandson of Made for TV Movie Week” tribute spotlights to those films that, in many cases, are even better than the movies that played in theatres.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Editor’s Note, January 2023: Lance Kerwin passed away on January 24, 2023, at the age of 62. Lance got his start in acting by way of his mother, who worked as a booking agent, and his father, who worked as an acting coach. Kerwin, who came to prominence for his work in the Michael Landon TV movie The Loneliest Runner (1976), the NBC-TV series James at 16 (1978), and the Stephen King adaptation, Salem’s Lot (1979), left Hollywood in the late ’90s to serve the Lord as a Christian youth minister.

Thank you for the films, Lance. You were loved and you will be missed.

If you read our reviews for the ABC Afterschool Special: Hewitt’s Just Different, along with the CBS Schoolbreak Special: Portrait of a Teenage Shoplifter, and the NBC Special Treat: New York City Too Far from Tampa Blues, then you’re up to speed on the backstory of the “Big Three” network’s competition for a slice of the young adult audience during the late afternoon school days during the ’70s and ’80s. So let’s jump right into the review!

This movie that aired on February 4, 1976, is simply too special to casually mention in passing amid some of the other notable young adult flicks aired during the ABC anthology series, which we pointed out in our review of Hewitt’s Just Different.

Why?

Because during that spring, and into the summer of 1976, anytime we faced a challenge, e.g., scaling a particularly tall tree, a knee-scraping bike stunt, or a dive off the pool house, someone would inevitably say, “You can do it, Duffy Moon!”

Yeah, to hell with J.J, Rerun, The Fonz, and Gary Coleman (please tell me you know your ’70s television characters) and their tired catch phrases. We had Ike Eisenmann fueling our kiddie vernacular.

And besides: How can you pass up a young adult flick starring Jim “Thurston Howell III” Backus and Jerry Van Dyke (Luther Van Dam from ABC-TV’s long-running Coach), and Lance Kerwin? (Yes, the epic Lance Kerwin* from TV’s James at 15, the Robbie Benson-starring TV movie The Death of Richie, the Michael Landon’s biographical The Loneliest Runner, Salem’s Lot with David Soul, and Wolfgang Petersen’s Enemy Mine.)

You don’t.

Ike Eisenmann (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, Escape to Witch Mountain) is the undersized sixth-grader Duffy, and he’s sick and tired of being called “shrimp” by the other boys in his class. Then, one day, he buys a mysterious, magical book, “Cosmic Awareness,” which enables him to “Think Big,” not just figuratively—but literally. And with the puff of his cheeks, he chants the self-motivational mantra “You Can Do it, Duffy Moon!” in his head and develops powers that enable him to beat life’s challenges.

As with the previously reviewed New York City Too Far from Tampa Blues, everybody check-out this book by Jean Robinson from the school library. Yeah, those were the days. Today, young adults are shilled Twilight and The Hunger Games. And we in the pre-Internet epoch got this. And we became better adults because of it. And that was the whole point of young adult fiction in the ’70s.

They just don’t write ’em like this anymore. To say this carries the B&S About Movies’ “Seal of Nostalgic Approval” is an understatement. Watch it!

“You can do it, Duffy Moon!”

Well, that concludes our fourth and final review of the afternoon anthology movie programming offered by the “Big Three” networks during the ‘70s and ‘80s. You can relive those days with this pretty cool catch-all playlist we found on You Tube that features a mix of the ABC Afterschool Break, CBS Schoolbreak Special, and NBC Special Treat young adult films. Enjoy! You can watch the full episode, here.

* Lance did five ABC Afterschool Specials in all. He also starred in 1974’s Pssst! Hammerman’s After You! and The Bridge of Adam Rush, and 1976’s P.J. and the President’s Son and Me and Dad’s New Wife. Looks like you’re surfin’ You Tube!

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

After ABC-TV found late-afternoon, weekday rating success with their Afterschool Special, NBC quickly followed with their weekday Special Treat anthology series that debuted in October 1975 and ran for eleven seasons until its 1986 cancellation.

While not as popular ABC’s trailblazer or CBS-TV’s Schoolbreak Special knockoff, Special Treat had its share of standout episodes.

Sunshine’s on the Way (November 1980; You Tube) starred Amy Wright (The Amityville Horror ’79) as a musician and nursing home volunteer who tries to boost the spirits of a legendary jazz musician portrayed by Scatman Crothers (The Shining).

Another was December 1975’s The Day After Tomorrow, aka Into Infinity, which concerned the interstellar mission of the Altares. Produced by Gerry Anderson between the first and second seasons of Space: 1999, it starred Brian Blessed (Flash Gordon) and Nick Tate from that show, along with Ed Bishop from Anderson’s UFO. (Trailers on You Tube/You Tube.)

But it’s this musical entry from November 1979 during the fifth season, based on the book by award-winning young adult author T. Ernesto Bethancourt, that’s best remembered by the wee-rockers.

Alex Paez (as an adult, he returned to acting to star on ABC-TV’s NYPD Blue and CBS-TV’s CSI: Miami) stars as Tom, a 14-year-old Puerto Rican kid who moves from Florida to Brooklyn with his family. He finds solace—to the dismay of his hardworking father—in an acoustic guitar he was taught to play by his Uncle Jack. Along with a 12-year-old bongo-playing Italian kid, Aurelio, they become the “Irish” Griffith Brothers. With costumes made by Tom’s mother based on Greg Guiffria’s Angel, they win the local church talent show with their original composition “New York City Too Far from Tampa Blues.”

Everybody checked-out the book from the school library (Kirkus Reviews)—and everybody watched the movie. Then we all went out and bought our first Angel albums. And we were drawing griffins in pastels-on-velvet in art class alongside our portraits of Eddie, Iron Maiden’s mascot. Pair that with our Black Sabbath and Nazareth tee-shirts and long hair . . . to say “Mr. Hand” was a bit concerned is an understatement.

Of course, the full movie is on You Tube.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.