1967’s The Solarnauts delivers a throw-back sci fi adventure with high levels of cheesiness and plenty of xenophobia and sexism.
[Updated]
What Is It?
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 (unclear 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.
Aired: Never Aired
Created By: Roberta Leigh
Starring: John Garfield, Derek Fowlds, John Ringham, Martine Beswick
Why Didn’t It Fly?
In the late 60’s, U.S. television had 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. This one 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.
As cheesy as the pilot looks, it still would have been expensive to produce for its time because of its high reliance on special effects. And I assume that may be one of the reasons it never got the greenlight to series–especially considering the low budgets of British shows at that time–because I can’t find much more information on the show. And it does not appear that the pilot was ever aired. (You can read more about the show at this link.)
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.
Should It Be Rebooted?
A retro-reboot of this show could be a lot of fun. They could go full-on cheesy with all the xenophobia and sexism carried over from the pilot, and that could work as a sly satire on our current socio-political environment. Or they could do it as more of a straightforward Space Patrol type of show. But if they are going that route, it would probably make more sense to reboot that franchise because it has better name recognition.
Where Can You Watch It?
The pilot never received home video release, nor is it streaming on any of the major services. But you can find it on YouTube (see above), and it is a fun watch. Just prepare yourself in advance because The Solarnauts delivers a Velveeta-overload cheese-fest as a bad-but-good sci fi entry from a simpler era.
Read about more Sci Fi TV pilots that did not fly at this link.
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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.