Todd’s Serial Blog

“Danger hides in the stars!” With those opening words, kids of the Star Wars generation, like myself, were given a taste of old time cliffhanger serials on Saturday morning TV. Attempts had been made before to bring the Saturday matinee serial format to kid’s TV, most notably Danger Island on The Banana Splits, but Jason was the best and most beloved of those attempts, so popular it got a second season, which is a real rarity for a live action kid show in the seventies.

In the distant future, 3478, there is a massive space station built on an asteroid called Space Academy, which is a learning facility to teach the next generation of space explorers while also exploring the universe. in a secret section of the Academy is Star Command, who’s mission is to protect the galaxy from those who would disrupt the peace. Unknown to Star Command, evil dictator Dragos (Sid Haig) has set his sights on taking control of Star Command as part of his over all plan of conquest.

Aboard Star Command, Jason (Craig Littler), a soldier of fortune who is working for them in some unnamed capacity, is in Chief Science Officer Prof E. J. Parsafoot’s (Charlie Dell) lab being shown his latest invention. It is a miniture robot that has many diverse functions and can fit in a small compartment on Jason’s belt. The robot is designated W1K1, so Jason christens it Wiki.

Just then Dragos locates The Academy and fires a beam at it from his Dragon Ship, which is also built around an asteroid. The beam causes an explosion and a fire breaks out in the computer room, where Captain Nicole Davidoff (Susan O’Hanlon), computer expert, is working. Jason rushes to the room and finds the door stuck. Getting a running start, he crashes through the heavily paneled door and pulls Nicole to safety.

There is a hull rupture and Jason pushes the ripped wall panels together, then has Wiki use his laser to seal it shut. A quick check shows minimal damage to the Academy and Jason, Nicole and Parsafoot head to the control room to contact Academy Commander Canarvin (James Doohan), who is off on an exploratory examination of a new planetoid.

While speaking with the Commander, he is attacked by a strange beam and disappears. Checking for his locater, Nicole finds him floating out in space. Jason grabs a Starfire, and along with Parsafoot and Wiki, goes to effect a rescue. Locating the Commander, Jason switches on the life support module on his belt and goes out into space to pull the Commander, who also has his life support on, inside the Starfire and safety.

Before they can question the Commander about what happened, Dragos’ Dragon Ship appears and locks on to the Starfire with a tractor beam. Thinking quick, Jason gets Parsafoot and the Commander into an escape pod and successfully launches it on it’s way back to Star Command. The Starfire is pulled into the mouth of the Dragon Ship, while over his ships communicator Jason hears the most evil laugh in the universe…………..

Yeah ‘m taking another of my periodic detours from the classic movie serials of the first half of the 20th Century to highlight another TV show. I used to watch this when I was kid and it was awesome at that time. It had excitement, action, suspense, and a villain with a laser beam eye. What more could a kid ask for? When I got this on NetFlix, and watched it again for the first time in 30 years, I knew it was perfect to be spotlighted here and readjusted my scheduled serial The Fighting Marines (1935) for next month instead.

Jason of Star Command was a spin off of a popular Filmation show Space Academy, about teenagers learning to be space explorers on a huge space station.  While that show was more educational, teaching lesons about tolerance, teamwork and the value of friendship; Jason was all action.  The first season wa a sixteen chapter cliffhanger serial with each episode about fifteen minutes and was part of Tarzan and the Super Seven.  The second season was a half hour show with continuing story arcs over two or three episodes, and was more character driven than the first season, with a few life lessons thrown in for good measure.

This was the most expensive show done for Saturday morning at the time, differing figures have been put out, it cost $100,000 per half our, it cot $200,000 per half hour.  What ever the case, the show looks great with, for the time, special effects that hold up well today.  Not only do you get fantastic space battles with ships zipping all over the place shooting laser beams, you also get some impressive stop motion creatures that the cast interact with.

The Star Wars influence is very obvious, with Jason an obvious stand in for Han Solo (if he had suddenly become a member of the Enterprise crew), though the rougish aspect of his swashbuckling character is toned done to be more kid friendly than Ford’s was.  Also the climactic battle in the final episode of the first season is a scaled down version of  the trench run at the end of Star Wars, with the twist being that the good guys are on the station this time.

The biggest Star Wars influence is of course Wiki, the cute little beeping robot (in the second season he would be given a cutesy electronic sounding voice) who was obviously going to be a marketed as a tie in toy for the show.  Though cute and helpful, like R2D2, Wiki got overused though out the course of the first season, becoming a pocket sized deus ex machina. Any time they ran into trouble, Jason would pull out Wiki to fix it.  Whether trapped in a dungeon, stranded on an asteroid with no communicator or facing a nasty alien beast it was Wiki to the rescue.

The actual cliffhangers are less intense than the old ones from the thirties and forties.  Instead of seeing the hero about to be killed each week, you see the hero get captured, or his ship is damaged and he is drifting in space, or gets marooned on a hostile planet.  You come back to see how he solves the predicament instead of seeing how he escapes certain death.

The acting is all very good.  Littler is perfect as the daredevil hero, ready to jump into the fray at a moment’s notice.  Tall, with an easy going commanding presence, Littler easily dominates his scenes.  Which is hard to do when you’re sharing the stage with Sid Haig.  Haig is an awesome villain, with his equally tall stature, those crazy eyes and that evil laugh, Haig scared the crap out of everybody.  Add to that his laser beam eye, that doesn’t kill but only stuns and you have the most memorable villain to ever grace Saturday morning.  Though he comes off more Purple Monster than Ming the Merciless for most of the first season, his angry and maniacal speech in Chapter Sixteen would have warmed Charles Middleton’s heart.

Susan O’Hanlan is pretty, tough and smart, but tends to come off as helpless once you remove her from the space station.  The same goes for Charlie Dell, who is funny in a goofy sort of way, on the station he creates awesome inventions, off the station he can’t add two plus two without getting help from Littler.  Though he does add an endearing stutter when he gets scared but won’t back down when faced with Haig’s implied threats.

The real stand out performance is James Doohan’s dual role as the benevolent Commander and as his evil energy clone in the early episodes. His Commander comes off more as a kindly grandfather, giving advice and looking after everyone.  His evil clone is a subtle change, no evil cackle or malicious leer.  He seems to be the same person, just calmly doing evil deeds.  His matter of fact explanation to Dell  about destroying the space station is far scarier than any of Haig’s histrionics.  Sadly Doohan didn’t return for the second season due to getting a part in some movie  called Star Trek….meh.
And  Julie Newmar shows up for a few chapters as the evil Queen Medusa to torment the heroes and chew the scenery with her henchman Angelo Rossito.  Though only in about three chapters, her wild eyed demented performance with halting delivery, as if she’s talking to people only she can see, gives a nice little over the top campy touch to the later episodes.

Still beloved by fans today, Jason of Star Command was something special to grace Saturday mornings in the seventies, and it is good to see it out on DVD so that it can be enjoyed by both old and new fans alike.  Now if only Danger Island and all three segments of Cliffhangers would get released.

Tags: Reviews //