Strange New World

• Directed by Robert Butler
• July 13, 1975
• ABC

Nearly two centuries after the Earth is devastated by asteroids, a trio of astronauts kept in suspended animation return to Earth to find their headquarters to revive their colleagues.

Strange New World is the third iteration of Gene Roddenberry’s idea for a series and the only one of the trio without much if any of his actual involvement. Unlike the previous Planet Earth, it is difficult to construe this as a sequel to either of the predecessors because while John Saxon returns, he’s not Dylan Hunt anymore. Rather than a lone survivor on Earth, it is a trio orbiting Earth in a space station though no idea what their mission was. It was not because of the pending disaster.

Capt. Anthony Vico (John Saxon), Dr. William Scott (Keene Curtis), and Dr. Allison Crowley (Kathleen Miller) are safely on a space station when disaster strikes. The sound effects on the station are certainly Star Trek TOS noises replete with the door slide sound. Funniest moment in the movie was when I picked up on that!

Each character has their part. Vico is sexy action man. Crowley is the smart, independent female providing info who regularly gets in distress. And then we have Scott for role of the fatherly doctor scientist type. Not an unusual trio for something like this but unlike TOS it is decidedly pale.

‘70s science fiction could have weird moments or just get weird throughout yet not campy. The strange feel of Strange New World gives a surreal nature to some things while making whatever writers Ronald F. Graham, Alvin Ramrus, Walon Green, and director Robert Butler concoct go down smoothly. If this had been one continuous story that would have been a bonus but it is two separate narratives.

What sets this apart from other post-apocalyptic stories is that rather than disease or nuclear war bringing humanity to the brink of extinction, it’s a meteor shower that peppers the planet. Our heroes survive because they are in a space station whose orbit is adjusted just in the nick of time to save them where they snooze on tables for the next 180 years.

In the past some shows had a few episodes stitched together and released as a movie to make a few bucks either in syndication or as a cheap feature film. That might be fine here if this had ever made it to series, but Strange New World was just a TV movie with two independent stories. My guess is to meet some executive(s) felt they needed to make it longer for whatever reason.

The first story takes place in a colony of clones which is just extremely weird. Butler gets an uneasy atmosphere going immediately which helps make up for the thin budget. More importantly the ‘villains’ are not necessarily evil or perceive themselves as such. They are just trying to survive. Very Trek there.

Yet not much really happens. At least not a great deal to talk about. It does create a few questions in my opinion while setting up the world of the potential series. Vico and pals are brought to Earth by a signal they believe from their organization called PAX. Turns out it is from the clones. Not sure how broadly known PAX was but to fake a signal would imply some level of knowledge that might be able vaguely point the trio in a direction. This logical line of inquiry never occurs.

A man called Surgeon (James Olson) who has used some techniques developed by Scott to create clones for a form of immortality runs the colony in the first story. The impacts from space made humanity sterile. These ones anyway so this was the only option. Thus when the clones start failing it is time to call in some help. There is some horror and revulsion at the scenario by our 20^th century characters but why is open to interpretation.

The people in this settlement are defeated and presumably killed though not sure how. Our heroes flee with the following story showing they did no research to understand how the clones faked the signal or obtained the knowledge. No commentary on the genocide of an entire civilization either. Even in an episodic adventure of the week story that reestablishes the status quo by the end, you can’t leave illogical loose ends.  Attentive viewers (and they’ve always existed) will pick up on them.

The second story finds Vico and pals moving about some unidentified area of North America and having been doing so for a considerable amount of time. I get that the impacts changed the landscape, but they have no idea where to go? What was their search pattern based on or were they heading off in random directions? The latter sounds like the case.

In the deuce story they come across descendants of some game wardens that have made the job their cultural identity. An interesting idea but one that would work much better if this was farther in the future. 180 years from then present day doesn’t seem like an awful lot of time for society to completely forget something. A few people should have been around for someone who was within living memory of civilization and what they were originally doing. 

These wardens protect and live off of the forest while leaving outsiders to starve and scavenge. It’s to the point where the poaching turns extremely violent. If I thought this was a message movie, I might take it as overzealous resource management, but I don’t think they were going that deep.

Individually, I like both parts but not paired. They just don’t have a flow. One doesn’t lead into the other, and that’s my problem with it. Both are weird, but each in their own way, and neither connects directly.

Strange New World certainly leans into the strange and in that it’s very effective but having two distinct stories causes it to lose something. If you watch it, don’t watch them together. Not necessary viewing but if you come across this and your options are limited, it might hit the spot.