Lost in Space

...Shalit, of course, is a litigious person I noticed when calling on him for advice that he has a sign over his office door that reads, "SUITS ?PRESSED WHILE YOU WAIT...

...The old concept of portraying good (human) vs bad (alien) no longer provides sufficient tension to keep a show alive, and that is what Galactica is heaviest on But as the Star Trek of the 1980s, it reminds me of writer Peter Stone's assessment of the statue of Venus de Milo in the Louvre "It will never fly " See, I told you how warped my mind had become from this space bug The worse thing about it is that the more new shows I watch, the sicker I become Waverly Wonders on NBC?dynamite" according to the promos?turned out to be Welcome Back Kotter —without Kotter Now it is without Joe Namath—or anything, having been cancelled even before I had a chance to tell anybody how rotten it was Flying High on CBS is a sickening combination of Charlie's Angels, Love Boat and Airport '77, starring these three stewardesses (or is it stewardae) named Winkin, Bhnkin and Nod American Girls on CBS is a nauseating tale of two girls who are supposed to work for a TV magazine Kegel on ABC is a story about Las Vegas If it is successful, it will lead to a new series called "Atlantic city " Since there is a good deal of juggling being done with these programs, apparently in search of the time slot that has the largest audience with the softest brains, consult your local newspaper listing if you want to watch them The networks should have quarantined all the critics after the previews, instead of allowing us to go back to our typewriters and possibly infect the whole world with our feverish views of the new season They ruined the health of one of the great minds of Western civilization, and they will pay for it My top legal adviser, Gene Shalit of the Today Show said if a network can be sued for instigating a rape (he was referring to the suit against NBC for "Born Innocent") "why can't they be sued for causing dysentery...

...On Television LOST IN SPACE by marvin kitman the new television season may be the product of a sick mind, for I have been suffering from some kind of virus since the day in early September when I attended the advance screening of Battle-star Galactica (ABC, Sundays, 8 p m ) The three-hour movie that launched the series was finished late out on the West Coast, and in order to show it to New York newspaper and magazine critics in time for deadlines, ABC arranged to bounce the show off the satellite (Talk about the constructive use of modern technology ) We were all locked up in a posh screening room at the network's corporate headquarters on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan, where I began to feel slightly queasy I'm still not sure what I have It could be one of those space illnesses we were always hearing about from Walter whenever Wally (Schirra) or Buzz (Aldrin) or Neal (Armstrong) came back from the galaxies But a better guess would be a TV bug, aggravated by an acute case of spastic conscience attributable to the new offerings generally 11 eahze it may be hard to believe that one could get anything from a television show Nevertheless, some programs in previous seasons made me sick to my stomach I remember Barbi Benton in ABC's Sugar Time, which four out of five doctors said was bad for my teeth, too Watching even quality material on public television's Masterpiece Theatre can have side effects From the BBC's The Mayor of Casterbndge—the Thomas Hardy novel about life in Dorset?one could have caught a cold or bronchitis The sun never seems to shine in any of those wonderful British series Sometimes I wish the BBC would stop going on location in Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, or Dorset—Britain is Britain—and make a show in the south of Spam for a change Or even in Nebraska I know, of course, that there are a lot of strange diseases floating around this fall that have nothing to do with TV A friend of mine, for example, has this illness that causes her to keep saluting She thinks it is Legionnaire's disease I told her to take some John Philip Sousa and go to bed Still, the TV germ theory is the only way I can explain why the idea ot Lome Greene vamping in outer space in blue tights and cape is not growing on me yet To the contrary, every Sunday night he looks more and more ludicrous It is upsetting to see one's father figure of so many years (Paw Cart-wright on Bonanza) lose his dignity by traipsing around in those party clothes Greene should have stuck to the Alpo commercials, and his role of Commander Adama should have been given to Mel Brooks, who would be a natural as a real 2,000 year-old man in outer space (Maybe Mel can do a takeoff on this genre after he does Francis Coppola, or whatever moviemaker he is parodying now ) John Belushi also would have been great in the part Can you imagine the star of Animal House shouting to the stars, "Toga, toga"9 But enough of this constructive criticism Commander Adama is stupid The first time the Cylons attacked (in the three-hour movie job), the leader of the humans should have ordered all the battlestars to form a circle and have the warriors fire their lasers at the bad guy Cylons If Adama knew any film history, he would recognize the method as tried and true For instance, by coincidence an old movie was shown the same weekend Galactica premiered where John Wayne did a variation on this classic defense and really messed up the Indians He continually moved the covered wagons around First they were in a circle, as the Indians expected, then out of the circle, then in the circle again These tactics upset the Indians, who finally got migraine headaches and went home Greene's poor military strategy unnecessarily prolonged the series into a second week Making it through the premiere w as tough enough It reminded me of World War LWII all over again As the great white father was leading his epic crew on an epic journey into the seventh millennium ot time, my thoughts kept going back to Sixth Avenue Did I put a quarter in the parking meter a thousand years ago' The basic plot—which I keep confusing with Mork and Mindy—has something to do with this guy named Travolta or Revolta, or Balta, who is working with the Cylons These evildoers have already destroyed Battle-star Atlantica and all the other 12 battlestars except Galactica and will stop at nothing to wipe out the human race (Boy, if it'snot one thing, it's another ) I knew there was something seriously wrong with this idea when I found myself rooting for the toys, or rather the Cylons (I call them toys because that's what they're going to be ) The Cylons are cute little robots that look like salt shakers And they have the most enchanting eyes, consisting of a red streak moving from right to left (the one whose eyes go from left to right is of a different religion) The Cylons may be the first robots not on news shows to have mastered reading the teleprompter Moreover, the bad guys are much more animated than the good guys, played by so-called real people The usual suspects were rounded up in casting Galactica, the typical collection of female and male Phyllis George look-alikes Maren Jensen as Athena, daughter of Lome Greene (at least he has a daughter) and Richard Hatch as his son, Captain Apollo There's also a subplot about a boy who loses a dog, replaced by a drone The kid is obnoxious, I hope the drone will bite him, as any real dog would As for the special effects, they are right out of the fourth reel of Star Wars, probably because they were done by the same fellow who did Stai ^^(JohnDykstra) While the spaceship is glorious, man does not live by special effects alone, especially when they're the same ones all the time The dogfights remind me not only of the old World War II movies, but of those machines in penny arcades where you used to shoot down planes with a spot of light For a nickel, you could be Baron Von Richthofen Mission Control at Houston, with Walter Cronkite and Shorty Powers of nasa, was more interesting than watching the goings-on at Galactica Control In fact, I'd rather see a series based on the old space flights We didn't appreciate them when they happened (see "Out to Launch," NL, August 18, 1969) One could start with Alan Shepard, go into John Glenn, then Gus Grissom, bless his memory, then Wally Schirra, a real superstar among spacemen because he is from New Jersey There would be far greater tension, action and drama in that than in Galactica And the scripts were better, even though, strictly speaking, the dialogue was all ad-libbed At least you didn't have Neil Armstrong saying stuff like "by your leave" on the way out the door By your leave, indeed Battlestar Galactica is a black hole of an epic Aside from its many unpleasant qualities, it fails because it lacks what Star Trek was smart enough to develop people You worried about the crew on the Enterprise They became real and part of your world This is very important in these science-fiction fantasies Otherwise who cares if some earthlings are having a problem with hostile reptiles...