Serial of the Month: The Secret Empire
Back in ‘79 this was my favorite of the three Cliffhangers! segments. I have often wondered if that had anything to do with Phantom Empire being one of my favorite serials. They both are a wild combo of western action and sci fi intrigue. I’ve also wondered if it had anything to do with NBC premiering Buck Rogers in the 25th Century later in the fall, both dealt with a man from the past dealing with intrigue in a futuristic setting.
The serial starts with Chapter Three. Masked Raiders have been stealing gold that is being shipped out from the local mines. Marshall Jim Donner (Geoffrey Scott) attempts to stop them. After one such attempt, Jim takes a strange key off of one of the Raiders, they chase him, firing a strange ray gun. Jim is chased off a cliff, but luckily lands in a lake.
Getting back to town, Jim gets himself patched up by Doc Millie Thompson (Carlene Watkins). Just then local kid Billie (Tiger Williams) burst in and says he saw where the Raiders hideout is. Billie takes Jim to a mountainous area and tells him they went inside through a hidden door. Jim finds a hole in the rock face that matches the shape of the key he stole.
Inserting the key, part of the rock wall rises and reveals a hidden stable that holds the horses of the Raiders. Jim investigates a strange chamber that turns out to be an elevator which activates and starts descending with Jim aboard. At the same time the rock wall closes back up, trapping Billie in the stable.
Jim descends into a futuristic city. He has little tiime to marvel at the sights as two guards chase a woman (Pamela Brull) past him, and Jim immediately steps in and rescues her. Hiding, the woman reveals her name is Maya, and she and others are fighting the evil dictator Thorval (Mark Leonard) and his daughter Tara (Diane Markoff), who have enslaved her people with a machine that deadens the will. Even worse, the gold raids are for the purpose of powering an even bigger machine to be used on the surface world.
Jim has little tiime to ponder this information as they are discovered and chased. Jim is shot with a ray gun and falls over, frozen solid…..
Of course what everyone remembers about this segment, besides it being a “coincidental” reworking of Phantom Empire (sans singing), is the simple, but clever, bit of having the futuristic scenes being in color, while the western scenes were in sepiatone. The announcer would open every episode with the grandios statement that “Portions were filmed in glorious black and white!” Another funny running gag was that everyone in the underground city would call the hero Donner Jim because that is how he started to introduce himself.
This is the most complexly plotted of the three Cliffhangers! segments. Not only is there a rebellion brewing in the underground city and gold raids on the surface, but unscrupulous mine owner Keller (Peter Breck) is using the raids to take over control of the smaller mines. Evetually he is contacted by the Raiders and enters an agreement to run the surface for them since they can’t go above ground without special breathing masks.
There are also two love triangles. Tara shows a lustful interest in Jim, which raises the ire of Captain of the Guards Roe (Peter Tomarkin) who is in love with the Princess. Plus there is a more genial friendly rivalry between Maya and Millie for Jim’s affection.
Also added to the mix is a cute, but ferocious creature called Taz, friendly to the heroes and nasty to the vilains. So of course he ends up becoming devoted to to both Jim and Billie. Taz was a typical sci fi TV convention of the ’70’s that could be marketed for kid toys.
Geoffrey Scott makes a typical flippant hero, he has a wise crack for every dangerous situation. Carlene Watkins is good as Millie, tough and smart. Tiger Williams makes a bland juvenile. Pamela Brull is an uninteresting heroine.
Peter Breck is great as he sneers nastily through the proceedings. Mark Leonard is regal and cruel, while David Opatoshu pops up as Leonard’s adviser Hatur, and makes for a sly and clever compliment to Leonard. Meanwhile Tomarkin spends all his time glowering.
Diane Markoff comes off as regal but wooden. Then something weird happens at about the two thirds mark. The Princess goes to a salon to have her face made over. Suddenly she is played by Stephanie Kramer and also gets a personality, snapping out threats like whip cracks and outsneering Breck.
All and all it was a strange, amusing and exciting experiment for TV and should have been a bigger success than it was.
