Sci Fi TV Flashback: Looking back at notable sci fi and fantasy television entries from years past.
What Is It? This series follows a scientific expedition that gets lost in the Bermuda Triangle on a mysterious land comprised of multiple “timezones” that travelers can pass through via hidden gateways. Several survivors from the expedition team up with a traveler from the future named Varian in search of “Evoland” where they can finally find the portal back to their own timelines.
Aired: NBC, 1977, 1 Season Totaling 10 Episodes
Starring: Jared Martin, Ike Eisenmann, Carl Franklin, Katie Saylor, Roddy McDowall
Created By: Bruce Lansbury
Is It Must-Watch Sci Fi? Not necessarily. It is an interesting relic of its time (with plenty of ’70s cheesiness) that showed promise, but it never had the chance to explore its potential.
The Skinny: This show debuted at a time when tolerance for sci fi among the broadcast networks was at an all-time low. While the ’60s had seen the networks add quite a number of genre shows to their schedules (with 1966 proving to be a banner season), that had changed dramatically by the ’70s with typically only quasi-superhero shows like The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman finding much acceptance. The Fantastic Journey was full-on sci fi with its exploration of the Bermuda Triangle, and it quickly adopted the “Earth Trek” format that Gene Roddenberry had previously attempted with his failed pilots Genesis II and Planet Earth. Those took the core premise of Star Trek–visiting different societies each week–and grounded the travelers on Earth rather than having them flying through the cosmos (more on those at this link). And The Fantastic Journey‘s showrunner D.C. Fontana was familiar enough with the basic premise as she had previously worked with Roddenberry on Trek (as a story editor and writer, penning the scripts “The Ultimate Computer”, “The Enterprise Incident” and more). Unfortunately, the show was rushed into production and suffered from the dreaded network tinkering.
The Fantastic Journey did have a decent cast with the underappreciated Jarred Martin taking on the series lead while the always-fun Roddy McDowall had a great time chewing up the scenery. And the beautiful Katie Saylor fought through some poor scripts to show signs that she could step up as a strong female lead. Had the show received more support from the network and been allowed to continue into a second season, it might have been able to hit its stride and turn into a sleeper genre series. Fans certainly appreciated that the show delivered sci fi stories–even if they were often quite hackneyed–because there was little else on television at the time similarly dedicated to the genre. And it did have some talented writers working behind the scenes that had the ability to produce good scripts given sufficient time and less network intervention. But sadly the show was never given the time to fully develop and disappeared after a brief run in early 1977.
>Buy The Fantastic Journey on DVD from Amazon.com
Cancelled Too Soon? Yes. Network execs liked the pilot (though they did tinker with it) and rushed the show into production, but they did it no favors by scheduling it on Thursday nights. It aired against popular shows Welcome Back Kotter on ABC and The Waltons on CBS and it was also subjected to frequent preemptions. The ratings were low and the show was cancelled by season end with its episode order cut from thirteen to ten. On May 25th of that year, Star Wars debuted at the box office becoming a surprise hit and suddenly generating massive interest in sci fi across the entertainment industry. But the timing was wrong for The Fantastic Journey and it was squashed before it could ride the wave of Star Wars popularity.
Should It Be Rebooted? Sure. The premise is solid and there is quite a lot that you can do with it. A reboot could follow the episodic formula of the original while also building a larger mythology for the Bermuda Triangle in order to introduce the story arcs that genre fans tend to prefer these days. This one could provide a good mix of old and new storytelling and could actually deliver a decent sci fi series. But since the show never found much of an audience in the first place, and it really has not developed too much of a cult following either, it seems unlikely that this one would get in the reboot queue.
Interesting Fact: The very next season, a Logan’s Run TV series would debut on CBS with several of the same writers from The Fantastic Journey jumping onboard, including D.C. Fontana. It followed a similar story structure in which the lead characters encountered a new society each week, only in this case it was a post-apocalyptic setting. That series also suffered from network interference and preemptions and it was cancelled after a fourteen episode run. You can read more about that one at this link.
Where Can you Watch It? The entire series has been released on DVD and it is still available for purchase. It is currently availabel for streaming for free (with ads) on the Crackle service.
Read More About the Show: Wikipedia | IMDb.com
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If you listen to the sound effects closely, you will recognize a lot of them from Star Trek. D.C. Fontata was on Star Trek production as well as Fantastic Journey. Close your eyes and you can hear Kirk and Scotty.