The Starlost

The Starlost was a Canadian-produced science fiction television series devised by writer Harlan Ellison and broadcast in 1973 on CTV in Canada and on NBC in the United States.

Problems in development and production

Problems began when Fox was unable to sell the show to the networks, and decided to do it in syndication. With the show not being in prime time, Fox started trying to find ways of cutting the budget, moving production to Toronto - there was also a writers' strike in the US at that time, which did not help. Most of the Toronto production team had never done television drama. As the filming went on, Ellison grew increasingly disenchanted with the progressive dumbing down of the story, budget cuts, and crucial details changed.

Related Topics:
Toronto - Dumbing down

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

By the end of production, Ellison had invoked a clause in his writers' contract to force the producers to use his alternate registered writer's name of "Cordwainer Bird" on the end credits: this was a signal to anyone who knew him to show how disgusted he was with the whole business (see Alan Smithee for the motion picture industry equivalent).

Related Topics:
Alan Smithee - Motion picture industry

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The show aired, to uniformly bad reviews. Sixteen episodes had been made, but NBC decided not to pick up the options for the remainder of the series after seeing how badly it was doing in the ratings. Bova, having gotten increasingly frustrated as his advice was ignored, saw the first show when it was broadcast, and immediately quit. He asked the producers to take his name off the credits of all the shows, but unfortunately did not have a clause like Ellison's in his contract, so his name remained on the credits.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~