Sir Griffin's Nostalgia: Logan's Run

Back in the day, before it was so popular to turn old TV shows into movies, it was fairly common to have a popular movie turned into a weekly TV series.  This rarely worked, but there are some notable exceptions such as M*A*S*H and Alice.  But for every one of those there are dozens that littered the TV landscape.  The problem was that most of those cinematic features did not really translate well to a television audience.  No one was really interested in watching Animal House get watered down to a weekly series called Delta House.  Some shows took the film’s original premise, tweaked it a bit, ignored the film’s ending and started over.  Such was the case with the 1977 series Logan’s Run.

A little background for those who have forgotten:  Logan’s Run was a 1976 science fiction film about a dystopian society in the 23^rd century.  The people live in a “perfect world of total pleasure” with only one catch.  No one is allowed to live past the age of 30.  The people are told that by going to “Carrousel” on their 30^th birthday they will be renewed, when in fact they are simply vaporized.   Michael York (Logan 5) and Richard Jordan (Francis 7) play Sandmen, the de facto police force that are there to prevent anyone from trying to escape their destiny.   Eventually Logan meets Jessica 6 (played by the lovely and occasionally naked Jenny Agutter who can be seen in theatres right now in The Avengers) and they escape to find Sanctuary.  What they find is an old man living in the US Senate chambers with about a million cats.  Francis follows them and is killed before Logan and Jessica (and the old man) return to the city to set everyone free. 

The film was a big hit and even won the Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.  If you watch the film now you will find the effects to be horrible and completely laughable.  However, for the time they were state of the art.  You will also find that the director’s vision of the 23^rd century absolutely reeked of the 70’s.  Something to look forward to if you’re into that style I guess. 

The TV show took

things in a slightly different direction.  The pilot episode essentially retold the initial story, albeit with much less detail, and an entirely different world outside the domed city.   Logan (now played by Gregory Harrison) and Jessica (Heather Menzies) still escape the city and are still chased by Francis (Randy Powell), but Francis does not get killed thus setting up a weekly series that was basically The Fugitive in the 23^rd century.  Logan and Jessica are joined on their quest for sanctuary by an android named REM (Donald Moffat).  Now why there is an android running around outside a domed city I have no idea.  And why he has any desire to join this two is also kind of odd, but I went with it. 

Throughout the one season run of the program our runners, as they were called, ran into aliens, time travelers, hunters and scientists.  They even found themselves in a haunted house.  So instead of the original story with just one old man and a bunch of cats, we had a post-apocalyptic world in which there were all kinds of nuts running around.  Now why none of them were ever curious about this giant domed city I have no idea, but then again I was a kid at the time and such questions never occurred to me.  Oh and they also had this goofy looking hovercraft that they used to get around in.  Seems to me the outside world was not that bad.  Well, except for all the kidnappers and aliens I guess.

Despite the ridiculous premise and the unwelcome changes from a film that I loved (and still do) I was completely enthralled by this show.  It lasted less than one season and I saw every episode.  The episode that stands out in my mind is one where Logan and Francis had to team up to save Jessica and REM from some evil guy.  Now one would think that after that Logan and Francis would have made nice, but no.  The next week they were back to running from Francis and staying just out of his grasp. 

Logan’s Run initially had high ratings when it premiered on CBS in September of 1977, but over the next few months the ratings continually dropped and the show was canceled in February 1978 after just 14 episodes.  It would take several years before the science fiction genre would return to its rightful place on TV. 

So is Sir Griffin the only one to remember this show or are there more “Runners” out there?  If you have memories of Logan’s Run, good or bad, I’d like to hear them.  Feel free to comment.