Forgotten Television: Otherworld 1985

The Sterling family consisting of father Hal (Sam Groom), mother June (Gretchen Corbett), oldest son Trace (Tony O’Dell), daughter Gina (Jonna Lee) and youngest son Smith (Brandon Crane and Chris Hebert) are staying in Egypt for Hal’s work.  While on a tour of the Great Pyramid of Giza during an alignment of planets that only happens once every 10,000 years, the family gets transported to another world called Thel.  This new world is inhabited by humans and some androids and is divided into provinces that are kept separate from each other and know little about each other.  Travel between the provinces is controlled by militant Zone Troopers. The family accidentally acquire an access crystal from Commander Kroll (Jonathan Banks Breaking Bad) which allows them to travel the zones between provinces.  Kroll chases them from place to place in hopes of getting his crystal back and getting his revenge on the family that humiliated him.  Each week, the family gets involved with the people, government and religion of a Zone and then must move on, following Egyptian obelisks that mark the path to Imar, a city which may offer them a way home.

Otherworld aired for eight episodes on CBS starting on January 26, 1985 and ending on March 16 of that same year.  The series was created by Roderick Taylor who also wrote or co-wrote and gave himself cameos in each episode.  He is also the narrator of the series. Otherworld was a midseason replacement for Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, after the lead of that show was arrested and sentenced to nine months. Taylor wanted something more edgy that put the average American family in more peril, saying, “I want them to confront their worst fears and fight for their lives”.  But CBS wanted a more family friendly show and made Taylor tone down the series.  The watered-down series never found an audience and after the initial run of eight episodes it was cancelled.

I was fifteen when this show had its original run, and I remember the show being on the air, but I didn’t watch it, and I am not sure why.  It was absolutely the type of show I normally would have watched.  In rewatching it now, I can see why it never found its audience.  Although the premise of the show has been done before, the fact that it was an All American wholesome 1980s family thrown into this strange new world had a lot of potential.  I found the writing to be, not bad and not good, but just ‘off”.  The family’s reaction to their situation was a bit too calm and collected and the dialogue just did not feel true and had no sense of realism.  The family was also a bit boring and why the hell does everyone speak English?  It would have been interesting to have seen Taylor’s original ideas taking a wholesome family to the edge and seeing how they hold together or fall apart.  Overall, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be and was still somewhat enjoyable especially for a mid-80s science fiction program.