On 2026-04-17 15:18:59 +0000, Caleb Davies said:
weberm@polaris.net says...
When Star Wars arrived in 1977, it didn't just change cinema, it
quietly killed a $9 million Logan's Run sequel before it had a chance.
In this Golden Flicker investigation, we uncover the full inside story
of the Logan's Run TV series: the behind-the-scenes battles with
legendary sci-fi writers D.C. Fontana and David Gerrold, the erased
Lifeclocks, the blatantly recycled Carousel footage, and the brilliant
unfilmed ending that almost saved everything.
Television executives had gambled big. $9 million and a 14-episode run
to bring Logan's Run back to the small screen. But crippling budget
constraints, a fractured writers' room, and the cultural shockwave of
Star Wars turned this promising dystopian series into one of the most
magnificent failures in 1970s sci-fi history.
We expose the Star Trek connection that tried to rescue it, the lost
merchandise that never made it to shelves, and why this forgotten
series left a transatlantic legacy still echoing today.
Timestamps:
00:00 - The Ultimate Downsizing
01:24 - The $9 Million TV Gamble
03:04 - The Fugitives, the Pursuer, and the Android
04:54 - Erasing the Lifeclocks & Sanitising Dystopia
05:54 - The Star Trek Rescue Mission
06:59 - Sanctuary or Just Another Sunday?
08:35 - Crushed by Star Wars & Lost Merchandise
09:52 - The Transatlantic Legacy
#GoldenFlicker #LogansRun #SciFiHistory #CinemaSecrets
https://youtu.be/4VyZIad1JsM?si=mc0Fuf04YVfbtiTj
Heather Menzies summed it up. They didn?t spend enough money on special effects. The writing wasn?t bad, and there is one episode penned by
David Gerrald and another by Harlan Ellison, but they just couldn?t
sustain the suspense. Looking for Sanctuary and never finding it got
boring week after week. They kept making Heather?s skirt shorter each
week! Also, I thought Donald Moffatt?s character REM was kind of a
silly expository character. He didn?t add a lot to the storylines.
Star Wars released 25 May, 1977
Logan's Run (TV series) released 16 September, 1977.
It's doubtful Star Wars "destroyed" Logan's Run since the show didn't
even start until four months later. At worst, Star Wars raised the expectations of sci-fi fans and the general public's view of "sci-fi",
so Logan's Run likely seemed rather boring after seeing the Star Wars
movie. More likely, the Logan's Run TV series was simply rushed through
to try and cash-in on the Star Wars bandwagon.
Battlestar Galactica and Buck Rogers first aired a year later, 17 and
20 September, 1978 respectively, and were far better shows than Logan's
Run, although neither managed to get more than one proper season each
and then a pitiful follow-up series that also lasted only one season
each.
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