Gene Roddenberry tried three times to launch a concept of John Saxon, usually named Dylan Hunt, awakening after a period of suspended animation to a post apocalyptic world, where he tries to restore civilization with an organization called PAX. Some characters and concepts finally made it to series decades later in Andromeda, with Kevin Sorbo in the role.
After a lightning fast introduction, we start right in. Looking for a missing doctor, Saxon allows himself to be captured by an amazonian tribe, where women rule and men, called "dinks" live in chattel slavery.
I know Star Trek is supposed to be all big idea hard scifi, but this is part William Moulton Marston femdom kink and part Saxon trying to stud his way through things while women catfight for the honor of breeding with him. We get profound lines like "Women's lib? Or women's lib gone mad?" without a trace of irony.
I like Saxon, but there's nothing here worth the constant recycling. I remember watching this as a young child and being strangely affected by it, mostly the slave pen scenes. Fun to see Ted "Lurch" Cassidy play an often shirtless mystic savage.
Roddenberry seriously had problems trying to get lightning in another bottle... And, if you think about it, Genesis II/Planet Earth is just Star Trek on a smaller scale. The idea was to have the landing party/away team arrive each week at a new isolated location and interact with a new civilization. By this version he'd even re-invented the Klingons (So that's where the STTMP Klingon makeup came from). But it's vastly more limited and I'm afraid it would only have looked a lot like Logans Run the series.
ReplyDeleteRoddenberry seriously had problems trying to get lightning in another bottle... And, if you think about it, Genesis II/Planet Earth is just Star Trek on a smaller scale. The idea was to have the landing party/away team arrive each week at a new isolated location and interact with a new civilization. By this version he'd even re-invented the Klingons (So that's where the STTMP Klingon makeup came from). But it's vastly more limited and I'm afraid it would only have looked a lot like Logans Run the series.
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