Bingo. You beat me to it. Those themes were sometimes the best thing about the s how. I've always been fascinated by theme. Even as a very young child.
This was NOT a pilot film at all; it was a $100,000. presentation film just to show a TV network potential for a series. By necessity, it used as much existing sets as possible. Had a network been interested, a full pilot would likely have been commissioned. This occurred with "City Beneath The Sea; which was initially a low cost presentation film like this one and was later shot as a full pilot with a different cast.
Thing with Allen was he knew how to entertain audiences. He was pretty much about ACTION. Then stacking the cast with as many has been actors as possible dealing with disaster. He can be criticized, but basically Losti in Space drove Star Trek off the screen (as did Batman). Allen is to be commended for changing television forever .. however "scatter brained" he appeared to be , he UNDERSTOOD THE AUDIENCE.
@@SuperOmnicronsj44 If you notice, once he gained an "audience" for his shows, they then turned absurd with poor villains, very cheap FX, and crazy scenarios. Irwin built an audience fast but he could lose them just as fast. Lost in Space collapsing was probably the biggest example of this as was Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. They both started off very strong and then introduced silly characters, monsters, and plots. It's too bad as they were great shows. I think Land of the Giants could have really been a great one too but he tied down the characters to a certain mindset within the show and hardly deviated from it.
The biggest problem was that the stories were just so goddamn dumb. Regardless of the show, there was someone in a foam rubber suit who would pop in and out of existence while the cast walked around the ship/planet for fifty minutes. When it was time to end the show, they would reverse the polarity of the hull or something and the good guys won, yay! Irwin Allen had the same problem as Gerry Anderson, they would create great sets, get good music, hire great actors… then waste it all on whatever assortment of scenes they could afford to film.
Low budget? He had the highest budgets for his 1960s TV shows and it SHOWS (for the first season anyway)- "Star Trek" looks "low budget" compared to any of Irwin's 60s shows. The John Williams music also adds to Irwin's shows and movies.
For a pilot presentation, this was really good!! When I was a kid in the 80's and 90's there's a local channel on TV that played reruns of shows from the 60s and 70s. So I saw a lot of shows from then like Batman, Gilligan's Island, the Brady Bunch, and just about every western. Lol. So yes a little cheesy and a tad campy but wow it really pulled me in. I could have watched this if it had been a series. Ironically James Darren actually was on Star Trek In the 90's on Star Trek Deep Space Nine as Lounge (crooner)singer and advisor "Vic Fontaine".
The lab sunk deep into the ground with color-coded levels made me think of the wildfire Lab from the Andromeda strain. The atomic device at the lowest level, that could destroy the whole complex was also a feature of the wildfire lab. In the wild fire lab, as the levels got deeper the cleanliness levels got greater and virus precautions got higher. In this lab, the deeper it goes, he said the deeper the security levels are.
You can tell from this that Irwin recognized that the Lost in Space music was the best from all his shows - and he was right. There was something about that background music that still resonates.
That, the original Star Trek (the best), and Wild Wild West, were my favorites as far as soundtracks went back then. Although, in a different vein, Gilligan’s Island had some pretty good music, including some by JW, too!
there's a lot of love for these shows from kids of the time for what were essentially overblown primetime kid's shows. i could never understand why my folks never watched any of these shows with me. as an adult, now i know why. like william castle, irwin allen was a great showman and always came in under budget on his productions. it's also amazing to think that it was just a few years after this that he was nominated for an oscar!
@@speedmastermarkiii So? I am 72 and grew up on these and loved them as a kid and still do. Who cares? At that time English was what we knew and, by the way, I still speak English and they were tv shows NOT real life! Get over it. Don't get so offended.
@@phillipstephens4522 Lol. The Time Tunnel was a show about time travel in which ancient Greeks and Romans spoke perfect American English to American time travelers from the 20th century. It was so, so dumb. Even as a child I realized how dumb it was. At least Star Trek tried to explain aliens being able to spek and understand English by creating the "universal translator".
Irwin Allen was a known cheapskate, reusing props/monsters across several shows. The best Lost in Space was the B&W ones, where Dr. Smith was a true villain, before they turned him into a clown...
Actually, it was Jonathan Harris himself that did that. He expanded the character that wasn't suppose to last beyond Season 1. Remember, Guy Williams was the star of the show. At least that's how it was suppose to be. As for B&W to color, that was revolutionary. Likely the best use of the then new technology on TV at the time.
@@krane15 I've always wished it had worked out that way. I'd have loved to see what could have happened to the space family Robinson without the constant irritation of Smith. And although the addition of color was dazzling and new at the time, the black and white episodes of the first season had a moodiness and visual appeal that matched the eeriness of the stories.
The best thing Irvin Allen could have done (with any of his series) would have been to turn them over to someone else. His shows started off well but devolved into stupidity pretty quickly. Even as a kid, I recognized this.
It wasnt him. If you watched documentaries on his shows, it was the suits that required him to do things campy. Because parents at the time, i imagine only some, wrote in and said the shows were too violent/scary for their kids.
Yes I agree , stupid so called monsters on Voyage to The Bottom Of The Sea , a man dressed up like sea weed that grows fast, a fire alien.. how cheap can you get...They needed better writing.. at least Quinn Martin's "Invaders" was decent.
@@philipwilliams7947 - I've read multiple times that Allen liked the pyrotechnics but cared little for story or character development. I don't think you can blame this on the corporate-types.
I love this the networks were stupid to pass on this it would have been fantastic had it gone to series it had everything you want from an Irwin Allen show.
Reminds me a little of the Gary Seven episode of the original Star Trek. This would be 2 years after that episode. Kept waiting for one of the aliens to say "Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!"
I would have liked to have seen a closeup of Janes Darren’s doppelgänger getting fried. To a kid growing up on a farm in Australia these Irwin Allen productions were a great escape and seemed so exciting and futuristic. We used to see them as after school tv. Loved Kand of the Giants and the Time Tunnel, this man from the 25th century could have been pretty entertaining.
Irwin Allen had a chronic case of "Over the Topism". He cut corners where he didn't need to and he underestimated the intellegence of his audiance. No person could watch that and not see the recycled props and set pieces. He was too infatuated with blinking lights and explosions. I'm not saying I don't like his work, I'm just saying he had a vision that belonged in the world of CGI. If he had todays SFX and a better understanding of what is believable, he would have gone down as one of the greatest Sci-Fii creators ever.
it was never intended for a regular person to watch it. This was a network pitch/presentation reel; if accepted by the network, it would likely have gone to pilot which would have been airable.
This would have been interesting but it was like a child trying each day to make a new game with the same toys he's been using all year, Allen spent so much on his warehouse of props he had to reuse them with all the projects & show because the money wasn't there for anything else.
When you compare this and the other "monster of the week" sci fi shows of the time period, Gerry Anderson, working with just puppets, was FAR ahead of all of them. It's too bad Hollywood never funded him to create something amazing. Space 1999 became, sadly, a boring disappointmen. His earlier show U.F.O. was wild and had amazing potential. It was a bit bizarre like "The Prisoner" and just as intense, but canceled when US networks rejected it.
I believe Space 1999 was a remarkable show. It introduced profound philosophical themes to science fiction television and featured visually impressive effects, especially considering the time it aired. Its visual style even influenced Star Wars in certain scenes. I'm referring specifically to the first season; let's forget about the second.
This Irwin Allen/20th Century Fox Television presentation film was produced for CBS, and it would've been an interesting series, considering CBS's decision to cancel "LOST IN SPACE" in Spring 1968, it would've made a unique difference! Actor Ford Rainey was later cast as "Dr. Barnett" on NBC-TV's "SEARCH"(1972-73), and some of the computer props used in "THE MAN FROM THE 25 CENTURY" was also used on Search, which Warner Bros. produced.
Maybe it's a good thing that Irwin Allen's work has been overshadowed by Star Trek and all that. Imagine the damage the studios would have done to his work if he was as popular as, say, Roddenberry. Thank you for posting this.
Roddenberry became popular in retrospect. At the time, his show was too mature for TV as well. Which is why they were all cancelled. In effect, they were too far ahead of their time.
In many ways there's a good argument that Irwin Allen was a far more successful television creator/producer than Roddenberry ever was. STAR TREK was and still is his only creation to get past the pilot stage. Obviously, having your one successful series be STAR TREK doesn't suck legacy-wise but it does kind of expose him as a one-trick pony. Just because I know someone will try to make the following argument, I'll preemptively respond the subject of EARTH: FINAL CONFLICT and ANDROMEDA being Roddenberry creations. I had more input on the creation and development of those two series than Gene did. Majel Barrett became a master at wringing every bit of publicity and money out of Gene Roddenberry's name, fame and the near-religious levels of fandom devotion that surrounded the man since TOS premiered on NBC. It's no surprise as she learned from the man himself and ratcheted it to levels Roddenberry could have only dreamed of while alive. Of course, neither Roddenberry or Allen can hold a candle to the SF television successes that came to our screens thanks to the mind & vision of GERRY ANDERSON. UFO & SPACE:1999 (Series One) still stand out as some of the most unique SFTV series of all time, particularly given that they existed during that post-2001: A Space Odyssey and pre-Star Wars time period where anything was still possible when it came to science fiction storytelling for television. Space:1999 S1 is still the only series to ever further explore the kinds of concepts and style that Stanley Kubrick used in 2001: A Space Odyssey and we're long overdue as far as seeing another series running with that ball is concerned.
God bless irwin Allen for providing me with all of the best show for me as a young child to enjoy. Everyone of his shows too me is a work of art . And his shows have been inspirational for remarks. From the show of the man from the 25th century, this is good. This is in need of a remake, It would be brilliant .
As a fan of his shows growing up (the big three and less so Land of the Giants), I was surprised I'd never seen this before. I agree with the comment that Allen should have turned them over to someone else after the kickoffs. Both Voyage and Lost in Space had promising starts but quickly devolved. This one, however, looks like it would have been a disaster from day one.
The story writing from Irwin Allen was put together nicely, but probably the reason it did not sell it had more of a Lost In Space type of look than the show having a more style of it own. Some of the music from Lost In Space music was fine but the show should have it own current music, and the set designs on stage was the same as Lost In Space.
I watched all Irwin Allen shows when I was a kid. if they would have made this show into a TV series I would have watched it. I thought this pilot show was pretty cool.
Wow, I can look back onto Many of his shows with fondness even though they really are cheesy by today's standards... But I can see why this never went anywhere, it was horrible to start with...
Repurposed props, repurposed music, cheesy storyline… all boxes checked for Irwin Allen trash. I too watched many of these shows, because there wasn’t much other half decent sci-fi.
I've seen worse! Main problem with this is it came out a decade too late, allways thought that Irwen Allen production values never really moved on from the early sixties and I'm including Towering Inferno in that as well.
Gosh, I never knew The Man From the 25th Century existed! Land of the Giants was cancelled in 1970, so this pilot must've been filmed shortly after. Irwin Allen's TV series often recycled props, backdrops, and used repetitive or even stock footage--all in the name of saving money! The scripts were often inane and absurd as more episodes were produced, but otherwise fun to watch. Could you make available the 1967 pilot of City Beneath the Sea? I've only seen a preview of it. Clearly, it also had potential, but was turned down by the ABC-TV bigwigs. Another might--have--been series. . . 👽🤖🤓
The premise might have worked better in a 1950s black-and-white TV series with all of the paranoia you'd expect in science fiction then. The day-glo 1960s colors and the campy sets and effects throw off the tone here. It just seems like the wrong subject matter for an Irwin Allen project.
I had never heard of this one, but I’d have watched it for sure with Allen’s name attached to it. Looks like a cross between Mork & Mindy, and Stranger in a Strange Land!
I had never heard of this, not surprising since it was never picked up. Only saw a mention of it on James Darren's Wiki page and I only read it as I learned of his passing. Interesting premise, I certainly would have watched this show as I did other Irwin Allen shows.
I really enjoyed these shows as a kid, but my are they hard to take seriously as an adult, or even as a tween. Lost in Space clearly had no idea about what kind of show it wanted to be, starting out as semi serious sci-fi, with Dr. Smith as an actual villain, who murders someone while stowing himself on the ship, but then transforming him into a selfish, effete, screw up. At some point, the whole show devolved into nothing more than than the adventures of Will, Smith, and the Robot, with Will constantly having to boy genius his way into saving everyone from the consequences of Smith's buffoonery. Even as a kid, I felt sorry for the other cast members, particularly Marta Kristen, who all became increasingly lucky if they got more than five lines to deliver per episode. And the sets! I remember a scene in which Penny and Will are walking through a "mine field " where the mines were clearly just some colored beach balls, half buried in some play sand, and which was small enough that they could have just walked around it. But Lost in Space was Citizen Kane, relative to The Time Tunnel, which not only had stupid plots, but also often didn't even get the history right, which might have provided it some redemption.
I'm sure he used his go to guys to write that pilot, ether William Welch or Peter Packer. I'm sure the only top notch writer to work on his shows (S.Bar-david/Simon Wincelberg) had moved on to better things. Packer didn't bother me like some people but Barney Slater was way better. As to Voyage it really should have been cancelled after season 2. And in the 1970s times had changed. No producer was bowled over by Irwin Allen's precious cuteness. Lol!!😮😮😮
@@nunyabizness6595 Great details, thanks! I just read this about Allen: Writer Jon Abbott described Allen as paradoxical. "Here was a man who, when told the cost of a spaceship for a Lost in Space alien, snapped, 'Let him walk!' ... and then let the show be cancelled rather than take a cut in the budget" (from Wikipedia). I respect anyone who can make a go of it in the entertainment industry. But that's quite a cavalier attitude toward his creations being killed :(
Please remake this concept to a video game, or RUclips animated movies. Keepting music,and sound effects but take everything Irwin did and animate it. So we have old,and new content mixed together.
He wasn’t as talented as people thought he was. There was no heart in his programs. The writers got some in in lost in space. But just a bit. The man didn’t like feeling or loving relationships. You can’t sustain a show for long without emotion.
I'm in a pinch with a ton of conflicting emotions right now. You see, I really liked all those Irwin Allen's series back then, specially Lost in Space and The Time Tunnel but... at the same time, I also feel ashamed that I ever liked such cheesy low budget and crappy special effects tv series while still having fond memories of them when I was a child. What a dilemma!!
It would have been interesting to see what "Mr. Prentis" would have learned about Earth and other humans in the 1960s. About women [since it looked like he was only among male-presenting being in the 25th century], among different cultures, among different social classes and the like. Granted that sounds more like a Gene Roddenberry type thing, exploring social problems through science fiction. But even Voyage On the Bottom of the Sea found a way to put a woman or 2 in the sub every once in a while, so I'm sure Irwin could find a way to point a woman in his protagonist's direction. A secretary, a nurse, someone like that.
It probably developed from a wish to convert the dangers of high voltage electricity into visual effects and then was applied to whatever used electricity, while being poorly understood by general audience.
That's where "Buck Roger's in the 25th Century" came in the 80's. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was my Show. This sounds like "Star Trek" combined with "Lost in Space" soundtrack.
He kinda had it all going it this one. I saw sets from all of the other shows. The clip with the guys running down the corridor from The Time Tunnel killed me...still, I would take any of it over the garbage that is out there today.
Land of the Giants is the best show ever and Irwin's best. I think Man was being filmed DURING Land of the Giants. BTW this was awful but truthfully this stuff was only given to studios and networks to show what it might be like, not what it will be like.
Thats a matter of opinion. I thought LOTG was his worst show. The Time Tunnel was his most imaginative. And the sets were enormous and incredibly impressive
I saw the Jupiter 2 from Lost in Space used here, with excerpts from the 2nd episode, the first planet they landed on I still remember that scene. Here they tried to create a following episode which creates the need for the series to fly. So they reused already built sets, to save building costs. sort of a prequel to Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. But I don't think Earth's going to live that long. What I thought was chilling was the Brit series The Prisoner, from 1969. That was more plausible, cameras in people's homes, everything's controlled.
This is so corny they probably had to husk the script before shooting! If this was a "proof-of-concept" presentation, I can see why no one bought the concept. It's so campy, the only thing lacking is narration by Dick Tufeld! (Bless him) Audiences had grown too sophisticated, too "clued in" for stuff like this, plus the production cost probably scared the natural body fluids out of the bean counters, not to mention the outright hatred of sci-fi from certain network executives. Sitcoms were cheaper and stupider, Those shows could be knocked out like lead slugs and were essentially disposable. Shows like LIS and TT not to mention ST:TOS represented major "risks" in the pea brains of most of these networks. So they played it safe, and when the ratings dipped, these more expensive shows were the first ones on the chopping block. In a sense, This show is not a bad premise. Technology and a bit of talented writing (Think DC Fontana and or Harlan Ellison) might have been able to lift this up and make it something. As it is, it's another example of why audiences can't have nice things, and are forced to settle for disposable tripe on a stick so much of the time these days.
One thing Irwin Allen *did* have going for him: music by John Williams.
I agree, and when you have great special effects with a great story and directing to go along with the great music you get Steven Spielberg.
And he had to pay, big time.
@@paulymac5513 No, SS came along much later. They simply had better tech by his time.
Bingo. You beat me to it. Those themes were sometimes the best thing about the s how. I've always been fascinated by theme. Even as a very young child.
And he also made extensive use of Bernard Herrmann music tracks from 20th-Century Fox films from the 1950s.....
This was NOT a pilot film at all; it was a $100,000. presentation film just to show a TV network potential for a series. By necessity, it used as much existing sets as possible. Had a network been interested, a full pilot would likely have been commissioned. This occurred with "City Beneath The Sea; which was initially a low cost presentation film like this one and was later shot as a full pilot with a different cast.
Thing with Allen was he knew how to entertain audiences. He was pretty much about ACTION. Then stacking the cast with as many has been actors as possible dealing with disaster. He can be criticized, but basically Losti in Space drove Star Trek off the screen (as did Batman). Allen is to be commended for changing television forever .. however "scatter brained" he appeared to be , he UNDERSTOOD THE AUDIENCE.
@@SuperOmnicronsj44 If you notice, once he gained an "audience" for his shows, they then turned absurd with poor villains, very cheap FX, and crazy scenarios. Irwin built an audience fast but he could lose them just as fast. Lost in Space collapsing was probably the biggest example of this as was Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. They both started off very strong and then introduced silly characters, monsters, and plots. It's too bad as they were great shows. I think Land of the Giants could have really been a great one too but he tied down the characters to a certain mindset within the show and hardly deviated from it.
@@SuperOmnicronsj44 ....until he switched to making disaster movies in the 1970s until that ran its course in the late 1970s.
Irwin Allen is awesome I love his crazy shows way more fun than what's on TV today
No, not really.
@@davidhoward4715There's nothing on now that's simultaneously as campy/absurd yet as weirdly entertaining as Irwin's best shows.
But for voyage I thought all the show sucked!
That's just the nostalgia in you. Relatively speaking, they're pretty corny.
The biggest problem was that the stories were just so goddamn dumb. Regardless of the show, there was someone in a foam rubber suit who would pop in and out of existence while the cast walked around the ship/planet for fifty minutes. When it was time to end the show, they would reverse the polarity of the hull or something and the good guys won, yay!
Irwin Allen had the same problem as Gerry Anderson, they would create great sets, get good music, hire great actors… then waste it all on whatever assortment of scenes they could afford to film.
Irwin Allen is to TV what Roger Corman is to movies. Low budget but highly entertaining.
Low budget? He had the highest budgets for his 1960s TV shows and it SHOWS (for the first season anyway)- "Star Trek" looks "low budget" compared to any of Irwin's 60s shows. The John Williams music also adds to Irwin's shows and movies.
For a pilot presentation, this was really good!! When I was a kid in the 80's and 90's there's a local channel on TV that played reruns of shows from the 60s and 70s. So I saw a lot of shows from then like Batman, Gilligan's Island, the Brady Bunch, and just about every western. Lol. So yes a little cheesy and a tad campy but wow it really pulled me in. I could have watched this if it had been a series. Ironically James Darren actually was on Star Trek In the 90's on Star Trek Deep Space Nine as Lounge (crooner)singer and advisor "Vic Fontaine".
And on TJ Hooker with William Shatner!
And Time Tunnel
The lab sunk deep into the ground with color-coded levels made me think of the wildfire Lab from the Andromeda strain. The atomic device at the lowest level, that could destroy the whole complex was also a feature of the wildfire lab. In the wild fire lab, as the levels got deeper the cleanliness levels got greater and virus precautions got higher. In this lab, the deeper it goes, he said the deeper the security levels are.
I was thinking the exact same thing 😎👍
If only you were a chronic drunk or a screaming baby you might actually get more recognition for your comment.
You can tell from this that Irwin recognized that the Lost in Space music was the best from all his shows - and he was right. There was something about that background music that still resonates.
That, the original Star Trek (the best), and Wild Wild West, were my favorites as far as soundtracks went back then. Although, in a different vein, Gilligan’s Island had some pretty good music, including some by JW, too!
there's a lot of love for these shows from kids of the time for what were essentially overblown primetime kid's shows. i could never understand why my folks never watched any of these shows with me. as an adult, now i know why. like william castle, irwin allen was a great showman and always came in under budget on his productions. it's also amazing to think that it was just a few years after this that he was nominated for an oscar!
I don't care what anyone says I love Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and The Time Tunnel.
Sure, just ignore that everyone in the Irwin Allen's version of the past spoke American English, no matter where or when they were.
@@speedmastermarkiii So? I am 72 and grew up on these and loved them as a kid and still do. Who cares? At that time English was what we knew and, by the way, I still speak English and they were tv shows NOT real life! Get over it. Don't get so offended.
@@phillipstephens4522 Lol. The Time Tunnel was a show about time travel in which ancient Greeks and Romans spoke perfect American English to American time travelers from the 20th century. It was so, so dumb. Even as a child I realized how dumb it was. At least Star Trek tried to explain aliens being able to spek and understand English by creating the "universal translator".
@@speedmastermarkiii The Babel Fish in Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy were far superior to the universal translator.
@@speedmastermarkiii Its called the suspension of disbelief. Especially necessary in sci-fi movies.
Irwin Allen was a known cheapskate, reusing props/monsters across several shows.
The best Lost in Space was the B&W ones, where Dr. Smith was a true villain, before they turned him into a clown...
Actually, it was Jonathan Harris himself that did that. He expanded the character that wasn't suppose to last beyond Season 1. Remember, Guy Williams was the star of the show. At least that's how it was suppose to be.
As for B&W to color, that was revolutionary. Likely the best use of the then new technology on TV at the time.
@@krane15 I've always wished it had worked out that way. I'd have loved to see what could have happened to the space family Robinson without the constant irritation of Smith. And although the addition of color was dazzling and new at the time, the black and white episodes of the first season had a moodiness and visual appeal that matched the eeriness of the stories.
The best thing Irvin Allen could have done (with any of his series) would have been to turn them over to someone else. His shows started off well but devolved into stupidity pretty quickly. Even as a kid, I recognized this.
It wasnt him. If you watched documentaries on his shows, it was the suits that required him to do things campy. Because parents at the time, i imagine only some, wrote in and said the shows were too violent/scary for their kids.
Yes I agree , stupid so called monsters on Voyage to The Bottom Of The Sea , a man dressed up like sea weed that grows fast, a fire alien.. how cheap can you get...They needed better writing.. at least Quinn Martin's "Invaders" was decent.
@@Darvada The Invaders was terrifying. For mature audiences only.
@@krane15 - The Invaders was not an Irwin Allen show. It was a great show but they too started to run out of storylines toward the end.
@@philipwilliams7947 - I've read multiple times that Allen liked the pyrotechnics but cared little for story or character development. I don't think you can blame this on the corporate-types.
I love this the networks were stupid to pass on this it would have been fantastic had it gone to series it had everything you want from an Irwin Allen show.
Boy, the Chariot on the Jupiter 2 sure got an upgrade!!😁
Reminds me a little of the Gary Seven episode of the original Star Trek. This would be 2 years after that episode. Kept waiting for one of the aliens to say "Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!"
That's just what I thought after watching only three minutes of this video.
I would have liked to have seen a closeup of Janes Darren’s doppelgänger getting fried. To a kid growing up on a farm in Australia these Irwin Allen productions were a great escape and seemed so exciting and futuristic. We used to see them as after school tv. Loved Kand of the Giants and the Time Tunnel, this man from the 25th century could have been pretty entertaining.
I was a kid growing up in very rural southeast Missouri watching these shows after school...so far apart but so similiar.
This character seems like a darker spin on Star Trek's Gary Seven
It was The Day the Earth Stood Still.
Irwin Allen had a chronic case of "Over the Topism". He cut corners where he didn't need to and he underestimated the intellegence of his audiance. No person could watch that and not see the recycled props and set pieces. He was too infatuated with blinking lights and explosions. I'm not saying I don't like his work, I'm just saying he had a vision that belonged in the world of CGI. If he had todays SFX and a better understanding of what is believable, he would have gone down as one of the greatest Sci-Fii creators ever.
it was never intended for a regular person to watch it. This was a network pitch/presentation reel; if accepted by the network, it would likely have gone to pilot which would have been airable.
No he didn't. The audiences were simpleton back then. And are even more so today.
I loved all of Irwin Allen's shows. I never even heard about this one.
This would have been interesting but it was like a child trying each day to make a new game with the same toys he's been using all year, Allen spent so much on his warehouse of props he had to reuse them with all the projects & show because the money wasn't there for anything else.
"Destroy without conscience, destroy without thought! DESTROY!"
Irwin Allen's favorite word!
The GOP agenda
Kill! Crush! Destroy! How could any fan forget.
IDAK
thank god that now, in the 25th century, we can all dress alike in our favorite shiny silver and gold tunic sets! yay foil!
Cryo suits Timmy. As you recall, they didn't wear those daily.
You always know they’re from the future when they have the huge collars.
When you compare this and the other "monster of the week" sci fi shows of the time period, Gerry Anderson, working with just puppets, was FAR ahead of all of them. It's too bad Hollywood never funded him to create something amazing. Space 1999 became, sadly, a boring disappointmen. His earlier show U.F.O. was wild and had amazing potential. It was a bit bizarre like "The Prisoner" and just as intense, but canceled when US networks rejected it.
I believe Space 1999 was a remarkable show. It introduced profound philosophical themes to science fiction television and featured visually impressive effects, especially considering the time it aired. Its visual style even influenced Star Wars in certain scenes. I'm referring specifically to the first season; let's forget about the second.
When small scale explosions were not longer enough for TV moguls he turned to destroying an entire high-rise into a towering inferno. I miss this guy!
And a couple years previously he capsized a luxury liner with a huge tidal wave in "The Poseidon Adventure." 🛳
When I was a kid I watched all of Irwin Allen shows brings back memories
I love that fist fights in computer labs result in explosions every time someone bumps a monitor
This Irwin Allen/20th Century Fox Television presentation film was produced for CBS, and it would've been an interesting series, considering CBS's decision to cancel "LOST IN SPACE" in Spring 1968, it would've made a unique difference! Actor Ford Rainey was later cast as "Dr. Barnett" on NBC-TV's "SEARCH"(1972-73), and some of the computer props used in "THE MAN FROM THE 25 CENTURY" was also used on Search, which Warner Bros. produced.
Maybe it's a good thing that Irwin Allen's work has been overshadowed by Star Trek and all that. Imagine the damage the studios would have done to his work if he was as popular as, say, Roddenberry. Thank you for posting this.
Roddenberry became popular in retrospect. At the time, his show was too mature for TV as well. Which is why they were all cancelled. In effect, they were too far ahead of their time.
In many ways there's a good argument that Irwin Allen was a far more successful television creator/producer than Roddenberry ever was. STAR TREK was and still is his only creation to get past the pilot stage. Obviously, having your one successful series be STAR TREK doesn't suck legacy-wise but it does kind of expose him as a one-trick pony.
Just because I know someone will try to make the following argument, I'll preemptively respond the subject of EARTH: FINAL CONFLICT and ANDROMEDA being Roddenberry creations. I had more input on the creation and development of those two series than Gene did. Majel Barrett became a master at wringing every bit of publicity and money out of Gene Roddenberry's name, fame and the near-religious levels of fandom devotion that surrounded the man since TOS premiered on NBC. It's no surprise as she learned from the man himself and ratcheted it to levels Roddenberry could have only dreamed of while alive.
Of course, neither Roddenberry or Allen can hold a candle to the SF television successes that came to our screens thanks to the mind & vision of GERRY ANDERSON. UFO & SPACE:1999 (Series One) still stand out as some of the most unique SFTV series of all time, particularly given that they existed during that post-2001: A Space Odyssey and pre-Star Wars time period where anything was still possible when it came to science fiction storytelling for television. Space:1999 S1 is still the only series to ever further explore the kinds of concepts and style that Stanley Kubrick used in 2001: A Space Odyssey and we're long overdue as far as seeing another series running with that ball is concerned.
That was awesome I wish it had actually been made
Never heard of this. This must be pretty obscure considering how much old tv I've seen.
Driving an Alpha Romero out of the Jupiter 2 was pretty freekin funny. I'm surprised it didn't get high-centered
It was a Lotus Elan actually.
Really? That's Emma's ride!
@@johnmarx3919 That's right, hers was a 66.
with Tesla self driving capabilities yet-truly 25th century...
CBS said in effect, "We'll pass on this one."
"Is this the beginning? Is this really the beginning...?"
"No, I'm afraid it's over."
Basically its the Gary Seven premise from Star Trek TOS season 2
I’ll always remember Allen by remembering Voyage to the bottom of the sea season 1&2 and Lost in space season 1&2.
Thank you for uploading this.
You're welcome
God bless irwin Allen for providing me with all of the best show for me as a young child to enjoy. Everyone of his shows too me is a work of art . And his shows have been inspirational for remarks. From the show of the man from the 25th century, this is good. This is in need of a remake, It would be brilliant .
They were all coney and predicable. But I like them anyway.
As a fan of his shows growing up (the big three and less so Land of the Giants), I was surprised I'd never seen this before. I agree with the comment that Allen should have turned them over to someone else after the kickoffs. Both Voyage and Lost in Space had promising starts but quickly devolved. This one, however, looks like it would have been a disaster from day one.
The story writing from Irwin Allen was put together nicely, but probably the reason it did not sell it had more of a Lost In Space type of look than the show having a more style of it own. Some of the music from Lost In Space music was fine but the show should have it own current music, and the set designs on stage was the same as Lost In Space.
They should have a different design for his Spaceship than the Jupiter 2
Everything in his shows exploded.
I watched all Irwin Allen shows when I was a kid. if they would have made this show into a TV series I would have watched it. I thought this pilot show was pretty cool.
What? They were all TV shows.
Lets not forget his ultimate triumph - "The Poseidon Adventure"!
Wow, I can look back onto Many of his shows with fondness even though they really are cheesy by today's standards...
But I can see why this never went anywhere, it was horrible to start with...
Repurposed props, repurposed music, cheesy storyline… all boxes checked for Irwin Allen trash. I too watched many of these shows, because there wasn’t much other half decent sci-fi.
Fist fights in every scene... I miss 60's TV!
And we can thank Irwin Allen for having John Williams on hand to do his music. I wonder if he 'discovered' him?
The end of the Irwin Allen era brought with it the collapse of the global fireworks industry... 😁
In the future, the use of circuit breakers and ground fault protection will no longer be used due to cost cutbacks.
In an interview, Dr. Smith (Jonathan Harris) said he liked blowing things up. Which he did.
I've seen worse! Main problem with this is it came out a decade too late, allways thought that Irwen Allen production values never really moved on from the early sixties and I'm including Towering Inferno in that as well.
Wow, I had never heard of this before. Wish it had gone to series.
Of COURSE Irwin got John Crawford to do this "pilot" - that guy was in EVERYTHING in the '60s...
Gosh, I never knew The Man From the 25th Century existed! Land of the Giants was cancelled in 1970, so this pilot must've been filmed shortly after.
Irwin Allen's TV series often recycled props, backdrops, and used repetitive or even stock footage--all in the name of saving money! The scripts were often inane and absurd as more episodes were produced, but otherwise fun to watch.
Could you make available the 1967 pilot of City Beneath the Sea? I've only seen a preview of it. Clearly, it also had potential, but was turned down by the ABC-TV bigwigs.
Another might--have--been series. . .
👽🤖🤓
The premise might have worked better in a 1950s black-and-white TV series with all of the paranoia you'd expect in science fiction then. The day-glo 1960s colors and the campy sets and effects throw off the tone here. It just seems like the wrong subject matter for an Irwin Allen project.
I had never heard of this one, but I’d have watched it for sure with Allen’s name attached to it. Looks like a cross between Mork & Mindy, and Stranger in a Strange Land!
I had never heard of this, not surprising since it was never picked up. Only saw a mention of it on James Darren's Wiki page and I only read it as I learned of his passing. Interesting premise, I certainly would have watched this show as I did other Irwin Allen shows.
Wow what did these TV producers 'SMOKE"??
I would have dug this if it was started in a limited market. Campy as most of Mr. Allen's shows can be,his imagination for the 1960's was impressive.
Hey, it's Vic Fontane!!! (Star Trek DS9)
Haha!
I was waiting for him to sing. 😄
I really enjoyed these shows as a kid, but my are they hard to take seriously as an adult, or even as a tween. Lost in Space clearly had no idea about what kind of show it wanted to be, starting out as semi serious sci-fi, with Dr. Smith as an actual villain, who murders someone while stowing himself on the ship, but then transforming him into a selfish, effete, screw up. At some point, the whole show devolved into nothing more than than the adventures of Will, Smith, and the Robot, with Will constantly having to boy genius his way into saving everyone from the consequences of Smith's buffoonery. Even as a kid, I felt sorry for the other cast members, particularly Marta Kristen, who all became increasingly lucky if they got more than five lines to deliver per episode. And the sets! I remember a scene in which Penny and Will are walking through a "mine field " where the mines were clearly just some colored beach balls, half buried in some play sand, and which was small enough that they could have just walked around it.
But Lost in Space was Citizen Kane, relative to The Time Tunnel, which not only had stupid plots, but also often didn't even get the history right, which might have provided it some redemption.
4:10 Nevermind the recycled sets; my god, the writing. _Thankfully_ this never got made.
LOL "We're superpowerful aliens bent on destroying humanity. Let's start with a gas station in the middle of nowhere."
I'm sure he used his go to guys to write that pilot, ether William Welch or Peter Packer. I'm sure the only top notch writer to work on his shows (S.Bar-david/Simon Wincelberg) had moved on to better things. Packer didn't bother me like some people but Barney Slater was way better. As to Voyage it really should have been cancelled after season 2. And in the 1970s times had changed. No producer was bowled over by Irwin Allen's precious cuteness. Lol!!😮😮😮
@@nunyabizness6595 Great details, thanks! I just read this about Allen: Writer Jon Abbott described Allen as paradoxical. "Here was a man who, when told the cost of a spaceship for a Lost in Space alien, snapped, 'Let him walk!' ... and then let the show be cancelled rather than take a cut in the budget" (from Wikipedia). I respect anyone who can make a go of it in the entertainment industry. But that's quite a cavalier attitude toward his creations being killed :(
That was truly bonkers.
Wow, even back in the 1960's they'd already perfected the hyper atomic furnace. Amazing!!
Please remake this concept to a video game, or RUclips animated movies. Keepting music,and sound effects but take everything Irwin did and animate it. So we have old,and new content mixed together.
He even recycled the Lost in Space background music!!
For a moment, I actually thought I was watching a 'lost episode' (if you'll pardon the expression) or 'deleted scene' OF "Lost in Space" . . . .
This is Irwin Allen parodying himself.
He wasn’t as talented as people thought he was. There was no heart in his programs. The writers got some in in lost in space. But just a bit. The man didn’t like feeling or loving relationships. You can’t sustain a show for long without emotion.
Haha, some of the props from Time Tunnel made it into the security center in the movie Towering Inferno.
I'm going to have to look at that!
I'm in a pinch with a ton of conflicting emotions right now. You see, I really liked all those Irwin Allen's series back then, specially Lost in Space and The Time Tunnel but... at the same time, I also feel ashamed that I ever liked such cheesy low budget and crappy special effects tv series while still having fond memories of them when I was a child. What a dilemma!!
Something that Ed Wood would have made if they gave him a budget and an opportunity to do a TV show
It would have been interesting to see what "Mr. Prentis" would have learned about Earth and other humans in the 1960s. About women [since it looked like he was only among male-presenting being in the 25th century], among different cultures, among different social classes and the like. Granted that sounds more like a Gene Roddenberry type thing, exploring social problems through science fiction. But even Voyage On the Bottom of the Sea found a way to put a woman or 2 in the sub every once in a while, so I'm sure Irwin could find a way to point a woman in his protagonist's direction. A secretary, a nurse, someone like that.
A reverse Buck Rogers. Might have succeeded but most of the costs would of gone into all the explosions.
I wonder were the idea that electronics would explode if you bumped into them? It certainly has no basis in reality.
It probably developed from a wish to convert the dangers of high voltage electricity into visual effects and then was applied to whatever used electricity, while being poorly understood by general audience.
True that!
That's where "Buck Roger's in the 25th Century" came in the 80's. Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea was my Show.
This sounds like "Star Trek" combined with "Lost in Space" soundtrack.
They were nothing alike. Although ST did copy a couple plot from LIS.
That was a dumpster fire….
"It's beyond your ability to comprehend." It's certainly beyond mine! But I've got to admit that I couldn't stop watching the dratted thing.
This was as tacky as lost in space. Irwin Allen's run was over. It was really over!
More of the same when it was really time to move on.
It's like reverse Buck Rodgers.
Thankfully Irwin didn’t have cheap access to special effects like today or omg it would be a nightmare 52 minutes of exploding everything
What no lettuce monster?
If the atomic cycle were to cease for a moment… we would be destroyed. Yeah that sounds like a design flaw to me.
Carl needs to lay off the coffee😂
Recycled music, recycled pyrotechnics staff, I would have loved to have watched this become a series way back when I was a kid.
I watched them all as a kid, and enjoyed them all...
Vaporizing people when they are late on an assignment. A little harsh.
He kinda had it all going it this one. I saw sets from all of the other shows. The clip with the guys running down the corridor from The Time Tunnel killed me...still, I would take any of it over the garbage that is out there today.
Man, who did Delphi or whatever hire to build their super secret control panels? A light touch and they short out, some bad component standards there.
The only thing Irwin Allen devices did well was explode! Every time you used them...
Not to be confused with "The Delphi Bureau".
Everything in Project Delphi seems to be made of *explodium.*
the music is so hilarious
Do you know why "Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea" got canceled? Because it turned in to "Voyage to the Bottom of the Ratings."
Love old sci-fi
Liked and subscribed! Thanks for sharing this gem.
So every week he would have fought an un feeling copy of himself?
Land of the Giants is the best show ever and Irwin's best. I think Man was being filmed DURING Land of the Giants. BTW this was awful but truthfully this stuff was only given to studios and networks to show what it might be like, not what it will be like.
Thats a matter of opinion. I thought LOTG was his worst show. The Time Tunnel was his most imaginative. And the sets were enormous and incredibly impressive
This is where Smart Beavis and Butthead came from
And yet, still better than the final season of GOT.
Hard to find hats that fit for these guys.
I saw the Jupiter 2 from Lost in Space used here, with excerpts from the 2nd episode, the first planet they landed on I still remember that scene. Here they tried to create a following episode which creates the need for the series to fly. So they reused already built sets, to save building costs. sort of a prequel to Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. But I don't think Earth's going to live that long. What I thought was chilling was the Brit series The Prisoner, from 1969. That was more plausible, cameras in people's homes, everything's controlled.
I believe he was also the master of disaster. Poseidon Adventure, Towering Inferno…
He was indeed!
This is so corny they probably had to husk the script before shooting! If this was a "proof-of-concept" presentation, I can see why no one bought the concept. It's so campy, the only thing lacking is narration by Dick Tufeld! (Bless him) Audiences had grown too sophisticated, too "clued in" for stuff like this, plus the production cost probably scared the natural body fluids out of the bean counters, not to mention the outright hatred of sci-fi from certain network executives. Sitcoms were cheaper and stupider, Those shows could be knocked out like lead slugs and were essentially disposable. Shows like LIS and TT not to mention ST:TOS represented major "risks" in the pea brains of most of these networks. So they played it safe, and when the ratings dipped, these more expensive shows were the first ones on the chopping block. In a sense, This show is not a bad premise. Technology and a bit of talented writing (Think DC Fontana and or Harlan Ellison) might have been able to lift this up and make it something. As it is, it's another example of why audiences can't have nice things, and are forced to settle for disposable tripe on a stick so much of the time these days.
The Pilot is allowed to utilize old sets and the Jupiter 2 lol. If he'd gotten the go ahead likely would have put some new pieces in as backdrop
These were TV shows people. Their budgets were mostly what killed them.
fireworks budget for the season in one episode.
Lets count how much recycled content in just one show.