French

Starman : Synopsis, Pictures, Photos, Trivia, Filming Locations

Your personnal space on Series-80> My account


Login | Register | Password ?

Series-80 > TV Shows > Starman

Starman

Starman Dates : 1986 - 1987
22 episodes of 46 min
First broadcasting : 1988
Creator(s) : Bruce A. Evans et Raynold Gideon
Producer(s) : James G. Hirsch
Music : Dana Kaproff
Web surfers's rate : 9/10 for 1 rates - Rate

French Traduire

Synopsis

Continuation of the eponymous film, this series features Starman, an extraterrestrial having taken human form which returns to earth to rescue the son he had fourteen years earlier.

Starman was an American television series broadcast between 1986 and 1987. The series was based on the film of the same name of 1984, in which an extraterrestrial took the form of a human to continue his journey through space. In the series, the extraterrestrial, which is called Paul Forrester, is accompanied by a human adolescent named Scott Hayden. Together, they travel through the United States to reach the extraterrestrial space station, while escaping the government agents who pursue them.

The Actors

Robert Hays - Paul Forrester

Robert Hays


(Paul Forrester)

Photos

Photos Starman n_0 Photos Starman n_1 Photos Starman n_2 Photos Starman n_3 Photos Starman n_4 Photos Starman n_5 Photos Starman n_6 Photos Starman n_7

Trivia

Starman does not put on special effects. Rather rare, these are always subject to history and not the opposite, as was already the case in the film. "We cannot compete with movie movies, or even with TV people who use [special effects]," said producer James Hirsch. “We don't want to try to do so. From the start, in fact, the idea of ​​producers is clearly to make the series a formula centered on the characters, where the extraterrestrial nature of the protagonist will, all in all, only one element among others. The memory of the fugitive is present in their mind as well as other series inspired by the same scheme, such as the incredible Hulk. The image of the Starman and his son on the roads, at the end of the pilot episode and several others afterwards, also immediately evokes in the mind of any phone that of David Banner taking up each Week his long wandering across the country, the shoulder bag and the thumb up. A few years later, the same image will conclude the pilot episode of another successful road movie, the man from nowhere, who will claim more openly than the others, perhaps, a kinship with one of the classics of " Master »Hitchcock, Death on the kits.

The Odyssey of Starman and his son, however, has the tragic, oppressive tone of those of a Kimble or a banner. Admittedly, they must flee so as not to fall into the hands of the Fox agent, who would havetens to entrust them to a horde of malicious scholars with mission to expose the secrets of "having come elsewhere" ( Here we recognize an intrigue at La Charlie, by Stephen King, also in the center of E.T.). But here, six good years before the big landing of the other Fox (Mulder, still a Martian ...), no threatening silhouettes dressed in combinations at the Strange World, nor of a great governmental plot orchestrated by disturbing men in Black. Agent George Fox, like his illustrious successor, is considered by his peers as a kind of monomaniac illuminated, obsessed with the capture of an alleged extraterrestrial (the journalist McGee, in Hulk, had the same problem), but as much phenomenon that he tirelessly tracks is perfectly harmless as much himself is anything but really dangerous.

Far from being a "simple" science fiction series, Starman is above all a family program, one of these humanist stories like the Americans know so well, from the little house in the prairie to the turbulent family Eight is enough. The difference is that this series does not speak of a united family but, in the words of C.B. Barnes, "rather of a relationship. She talks about emotional ties, the construction of a bridge "between a" man "and her son, which immediately puts her within the reach of a large audience.

We can only be surprised, suddenly, that the series did not have the expected success, but the curious ABC programming strategy is certainly not unrelated: the chain, indeed, programmed the series Friday evening, facing giants like Falcon Crest and the law of Los Angeles, then moved it to Saturday, opposing it in turn to Dallas, two cops in Miami or the sacrosaint Cosby Show. Enough to flow more than one series, whatever its qualities! "It was ridiculous," said C.B. Barnes. “In addition, we have been canceled several times. No one ever knew when he devil we could see us! James Hirsch, learning that the series would be opposed to the big shoes on Friday evening, says it might better change the title of the series into "the niche of death" and could only 'surprise that Abc broadcasts a resolutely family program like Starman, designed as a light and distracting product, one evening traditionally occupied by the luxurious Soap Operas. One of the episodes, moreover, will echo this co -fronstation by making a character say that she knows everything about the heroes of Soap Operas: "Krystle, J.R.", etc. (This is the blind Julie in the episode "Appearances")

Hirsch, however, will seek even further the causes of the failure of the series, a failure ultimately relative since Starman made a better score on Friday evening than many other ABC programs in the same time box. The problem, according to the producer, started with the presentation of the series to the press. In the absence of a single finished episode - and for good reason, since no scenario was still completed when Abc decided to present the program to the press - ABC showed criticism of a cassette of thirty minutes establishing the bases of the program. Of deplorable quality, filmed in video and climb to precipitation with various music (notably Jean-Michel Jarre), this cassette is a series of situations emphasizing the spectacular cheap through rather cheap pyrotechnic effects . Michael Douglas himself promotes his product, playing the role of Cicerone, but we can understand that many journalists have hardly been convinced by this awkward editing that Hirsch will call "amateur film" himself. According to Robert Hays, who embodied Starman, this cassette was not intended for the press but for channel officials and should never have been shown to journalists. Anyway, it was and a journalist was able to write, even before the broadcast of the series: "Starman will prove that science fiction cannot walk on television".

As if that were not enough, ABC almost encouraged the disaffection of the public by "forgetting" to properly promote its series. Even the double episode commissioned by the chain, where the heroes had to finally find Jenny Hayden, the very object of their quest, went almost unnoticed, suffering first of all from the ceremonial broadcast of the Oscars and, also, from the displacement of the series Saturday a few weeks earlier. The audience continued to decrease and the chain disinterested in the series, as well as the Columbia, which produced it.

Note that only the first 10 episodes were broadcast in France!

Filming

Filming locations:

Authors of the card

  • Creation date: 2010/02/08 by RadianSilver

. Source(s) : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starman_(s%C3%A9rie_t%C3%A9l%C3%A9vis%C3%A9e)

Stingray Stingray

It is the story of a mysterious man, without identity, without attachment, known only under the name of Ray, who crosses the country in a black corvette. His past is unkn...

Robert Vaughn Robert Vaughn

Robert Francis Vaughn was born at Charity Hospital in New York on November 22, 1932. The son of show-business parents, his father, Walter, was a radio actor and his mothe...