Steven Spielberg's Amblin Studios
produced this rather slow-moving cross between a soap opera and Lost In Space.
It was set 200 years in the future, a time when earth's pollution had
forced humans to live in confining space stations and produced a generation
of children who were sick from the lack of a normal environment. Hoping
to help her young son Ulysses (who already had to wear clumsy life-support
apparatus), courageous scientist Devon Adair hijacked
a spaceship and with an intrepid group of adventurers set off for an unspoiled
Earth-like planet that promised a new beginning. Devon's
little band included John, a high-tech mechanic, and his resourceful preteen
daughter, True; Julia, the group's physician, who turned out to be a spy;
Yale, a cyborg; Alonzo, a cocky but gifted pilot; Morgan, a conniving,
cowardly government agent; and Morgan's young wife, Bess.
Unfortunately, they
crash-landed on the wrong side of the planet, so the pioneers patched together
their remaining equipment and set off in their big red Hummer vehicle on the long journey
to their target destination, New Pacifica, where other humans were supposed to
be waiting. Along the way, they encountered a variety of bizarre life forms, who
looked threatening but were not necessarily unfriendly. Among them were the Terrians,
corpselike dwellers of the underground who communicated with them through
Alonzo's dreams; Grendlers, raggedy, slobbering scavengers; and little Kobas,
who were cut but potentially lethal. Most of the stories were moralistic, about
caring, trusting, and how Earth 2 and its denizens will be good to us if we can
only be good to them.
