Our ongoing look back at sci fi / fantasy TV shows that were cancelled way too soon or pilots that never made it to series.
In the late 60’s, U.S. television had the two live action space shows airing, Star Trek and Lost in Space, and British television flirted with one of its own evidenced by the failed pilot for The Solarnauts. The premise of this show was simple: in a future where we have colonized the solar system, the Solarnauts are a special force dedicated to keeping us safe from alien (and presumably non-alien) threats. The dashing young leads are named Power and Tempo (no idea if those are nicknames or not) and they fly around the system in a very Flash Gordon looking spaceship while taking orders from the leader of the Solarnauts Tri-S (I’ve got no explanation for that name). And former Bond girl Martine Beswick is onboard as well, though she’s not given much to do other than look pretty.
The pilot is definitely super cheesy with its artificial-looking model sfx, jazzy theme music, stilted dialog, poor acting, and avalanche of sci fi cliches. But at the same time, it is a ton of fun in a so-bad-it’s-good way and I would have loved to have seen more episodes from this show. It’s definitely much closer to Lost in Space than Star Trek, and actually a better comparison would be to consider it a modernized (for its time) Captain Video or Space Patrol.
Most interesting is the track record of the show’s creator Roberta Leigh which intersected with and paralleled that of Gerry Anderson (Thunderbirds, Space: 1999). Leigh, like Anderson, had got her start in television doing puppet shows, and she created The Adventures of Twizzle and Torchy the Battery Boy which were also the first two Anderson worked on (he was the producer/director). In the ’60s, she created the sci fi puppet show Space Patrol (not to be confused with the 1950’s live-action series mentioned above), and the pilot for another sci fi series titled Paul Starr (with the lead voice provided by Ed Bishop who later appeared in Anderson’s Captain Scarlet and UFO). Then she jumped to live action sci fi in 1967–beating Anderson’s UFO by three years–with the pilot for The Solarnauts. It didn’t fly and she later focused more on novel writing and less on television.
But the pilot for this show is still out there and well worth seeking out (you can watch it on YouTube at this link). Just prepare yourself before watching this because it delivers a Velveeta-overload cheese-fest but also some bad-but-good sci fi from a simpler era. (You can read more about The Solarnauts at this link.)
Aired: Never Aired
Created By: Roberta Leigh
Starring: John Garfield, Derek Fowlds, John Ringham, Martine Beswick
More from CancelledSciFi.com: Keep up with the ratings developments and the status of all the currently airing sci fi and fantasy shows with our Weekly Roundup posts. And be sure to follow the Cancelled Sci Fi Twitter Site for breaking news and updates.
Follow our Sci Fi TV Schedule for all the currently airing and upcoming sci fi and fantasy television shows, and keep up with what is airing/streaming each week with our Weekly Listings.
Tri-S gets his name from Solar System Security (SSS), the greater organisation of which the Solarnauts are a part.
I just looked on IMDB, and one of the minor characters was played by Jan Leeming, who went on to become one of the BBC’s main newsreaders.
Tempo was played by Derek Fowlds, better known in later years as the diffident Bernard in the brilliant ‘Yes Minister’ and ‘Yes, Prime Minister’.
And John Ringham, the actor who played Tri-S, has been in pretty much every long-running British TV series at some point, as well as ‘V for Vendetta’.
Thanks for the info.
In the picture of the astronauts, that does look like John Garfield but didn’t he pass away in 1951?
Apparently there were two actors name John Garfield. This is the one who died in 1952: http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002092/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1. This is the one who starred in The Solarnauts (and not much else): http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0307275/?ref_=fn_al_nm_2.