 305 - STRANDED IN SPACE
Genre: ’70s TV Drama (1973, Color)
Synopsis: This “movie” is actually a failed TV-series pilot also known as
The Stranger that never got picked up by a network (I think they picked up “Fish” instead).
It opens as a space capsule with three astronauts is thrown off course.
Only astronaut Neil Styker survives and he wakes up in a hospital with no
windows, and where no one speaks Russian.
Styker gets suspicious when his doctor not only doesn’t know
who Paul Revere is, he doesn’t even know his batting average either! So Styker escapes the hospital,
although with no help from the ratfink woman, Dr. Bettina
Cooke, a character who will figure in again later.
Once outside the hospital, Stryker finds out that he is on another planet called Terra
that’s on the other side of the sun,
has three moons, and where everyone is left-handed!
Luckily, everyone there also speaks English and drives ’70s era American cars (I guess they would be imports up there),
with the
Plymouth Fury being especially popular.
The totalitarian Perfect Order runs the planet Terra and its main henchman, played by Cameron Mitchell, is after the alien Styker and wants to send him to “Ward E”!
What is the terrifying Ward E? Why, it’s a brightly lit white room where they make a person sit on a stool!
So the fugitive Styker ends up in a bookstore in which the ancient owner allows him to sleep in an upstairs room.
(Yes, I know this sounds vaguely familiar to a plot-point in the
novel 1984 which also featured a totalitarian government, but
that’s as close as
this “movie” gets to being good). The decrepit old bookstore owner then calls for medical aid for the stranger, and who shows up?
Why, the ratfink Dr. Bettina Cooke! Styker forces her to help him, but then she willingly helps him for some reason when the subject of her brother comes up.
Bettina takes Stryker to the anti-Perfect Order and smack-addicted Prof. Dylan MacAuley to hide.
The Professor agrees to help Styker sneak into one of Terra’s spaceships to try to return to Earth.
But Bettina turns back into a ratfink and, given that this was
intended to be a series pilot, it’s pretty predictable that Styker
doesn’t escape Terra.
The “movie” ends as Styker gets away from Cameron Mitchell and meets up with more people who would have, presumably, helped him in the next episode of the
show if the series had been picked up.
Don’s Review: A ’70s era Made-For-TV movie
(aka failed pilot) is the subject of this experiment.
If you think the premise sounds like actual Sci-Fi, think again – it comes across as nothing more than a typical
’70s era TV show, a fact that is hilariously pointed out by J&tBs.
The riffing on this is great and some of the host segments really stand out.
Especially good are the segments in where J&tBs pretend to be ’70s TV detective show bad guys, and the one in which Tom and Crow discuss disgusting things that are like Ward E.
So a great episode overall that, if you’re a fan of any of the old
’70s
detective shows, is
an absolute
must-see.
Don’s Rating: 
Related Link:
(1) Mighty Jack’s MST3K Review (Episode Review)
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