Defenders of the Cosmic
Note: I've gone about this one in a slightly different way to the usual - just the way the inspiration struck me. (And also because I don't know enough about second-rate American character actors of the 1970s to be able to cast this using real people.)
Prompt: (from ironychan) An early 70's 'Star Trek' ripoff that plays for deadpan absurdity, ala the Adam West 'Batman' series!
Type: Half-hour episodes (well, 25 minutes with space for ad breaks), 24 episodes in a season. Ran for three seasons between 1972 and 1975 on CBS.
How it came about: After Star Trek and Lost in Space, but before Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers and Star Wars, a budding scriptwriter called Gordy Newman saw a gap in the market and rolled into town with a pitch for a series notable only in its astonishing lack of originality. The series would likely have never seen the light of day were it not for famously maverick producer Charles 'Kit' Kattowitz, who with the help of failed comic-book writer Lorenzo Smith, turned Newman's leaden scripts into camp classics.
Synopsis: It is the year 2424. Humanity has conquered the stars, and all live peacefully under the benevolent rule of the Pan-Cosmic Alliance. However, peace comes at the price of eternal vigilance. Thousands of spacecraft patrol the edges of the galaxy, keeping its citizens safe from criminals, tyrants and evil-doers who threaten the Alliance. They are the few. The proud. The Defenders of the Cosmic.
MAIN CHARACTERS AND CAST
The Captain
"For the integrity of the Alliance!"
Captain Lancelot Thrust is the blond-haired, square-jawed, all-American captain of the Excelsior, who never rests in his quest to keep the galaxy safe from harm.
Growing up in small-town Missouri, he lost his father at a young age in the Martian Wars of 2400. From that day on, he vowed to never let such wars happen again. The Defenders are his passion and his life, and he will stop at nothing to defend the Alliance - even bending the rules, if he has to. He is a fearless leader, a seducer of women of all species, and also a capable player of trans-dimensional football. He also has a finely developed philosophical side, and is much given to making pronouncements on the futility of war and the power of friendship.
The actor: Sam Stockwell was an unknown when cast in the role of Captain Thrust, his previous experience limited to a handful of walk-on roles in soaps and TV movies. Not a good actor by any means, he was cast precisely because of his limited emotional range and bizarre enunciation; it was halfway through the shooting of the first season when the producers realised he wasn't putting it on and he genuinely believed he was doing a good job. From then on, the rest of the production team were given express instructions to never let him found out that the show wasn't to be taken seriously, as his deadpan performance was key to the show's entire conceit.
Stockwell believed Defenders of the Cosmic would be his breakout role - in reality, he found himself typecast in various shoddy B-movies before deciding to make a living through the chatshow and convention circuit; his last onscreen appearance was his six-week stint in reality show House of Nonentity. Debate has long raged among fans as to how far his current persona is self-parody or reality; consensus seems to lean towards the conclusion that yes, he really is that arrogant.
The Second-in-Command
"I calculate that we have a six million, four thousand, six hundred and fifty-seven to one chance of survival. Recommended course of action: hide under nearest table."
All Defender craft are required to carry a ship's robot, which serves both as back-up and voice of reason to the captain. The Excelsior's robot, X-22, is as coldly emotional and rational as any of them, though fellow crew would also swear he has an unusually pessimistic streak. The Captain has spent many long afternoons trying to teach X-22 human emotion, in direct contravention of standard Alliance operating procedure, in order to make him more companionable.
The actor: Frank Robbins-Robinson was already a veteran of genre features by this point, particular famed for his role as the villain Malevolo in the 1967 classic They Came From Space And Ate Our Bologna and his scene-stealing perfomance as the irascible principal Mr Wilkins in Hotpants High. Cast as X-22, he thoroughly embraced the hamminess of the role, and continues to speak about his involvement in the series with fondness.
The Doctor
"This is madness, Captain! Madness!"
Dr Franklin McKenzie is the ship's doctor, a loudmouthed Bostonian with a take-no-prisoners attitude. He is a man with many problems, battling alcoholism, a tendency to fall in love with inappropriate people at the drop of a hat, and worst of all (especially for a doctor) a debilitating phobia of blood. However, under his hard-bitten, abrasive exterior lies a heart of gold, and he can always be relied upon to do the right thing. He and Captain Thrust have been the best of friends since they first met in the Defender Academy, and although often disagree, are always inseparable.
The actor: Ken Gurewich blamed this show for ruining what was, until that point, a promising career. While in the show, his character was best friends with the Captain, in real life, he and Stockwell detested one another with a passion. Gurewich found it hard to handle the sudden attention the show brought him, and like his character, struggled with alcoholism. After a breakdown and a spell in rehab, he quit acting together in 1979. He now runs an auto repair business in Tacoma; when asked by curious customers if he's that guy from that show, he always answers in the negative.
The Scientist
"Why, it's just a simple matter of transubstantiating the proton assembler and infiltrating the myoclonic valve. Even a girl could do it!"
Trixie Bambera is the ship's head Science Officer, tasked with the job of recording and analysing any new phenomena the Excelsior encounters on its travels. She has a genius-level IQ, multiple doctorates and a photographic memory, but can sometimes be ditzy and over-emotional, particularly when it comes to the Captain's welfare. She often acts as the ship's conscience, her education and intuition giving her special insight into the ethical dilemmas that are a common part of the job. She also gets kidnapped a lot.
The actor: The character of Trixie was one of the last to be cast. Nearly a hundred women were whittled down to three final candidates in a punishing series of auditions, when suddenly Kattowitz announced he'd found the perfect Trixie in the form of Pammy Maxwell, a showgirl he'd met while on holiday in Vegas.
A former Playboy Playmate, Pammy's only prior acting experience was as an extra in Hula Hula Holocaust, a grindhouse flick that was banned in 17 states. As Trixie, she frequently struggled with the complex lines she was given, and ended up reliant on cue cards throughout the show's production.
The Navigator
"Gee whillikers, Captain, that is a big one!"
Thirteen-year old Chip Chesterton is a boy genius with a natural gift for piloting spacecraft. The youngest navigator in the entirety of the Defenders, he's always plucky and optimistic, and his plans, while sometimes not always the best-thought-out, often play a big part in saving the day. When he's not hard at work on the bridge, he likes nothing better to absorb himself in a big book of advanced calculus, or a few friendly games of hypercheckers with X-22.
The actor: Child star Bucky Thompson's career was waning at this point; he probably wouldn't have agreed to join the cast of Defenders of the Cosmic if he hadn't been drunk at the time. All involved found it a struggle dealing with the hugely arrogant, often drug-addled teenager, and Thompson notoriously required huge numbers of takes to get his scenes right, but the producers insisted the character was necessary to retain appeal to their core audience of prepubescent boys. They were proved wrong when, after a scandal involving a women's volleyball team and a mountain of cocaine, Thompson was sacked from the show and his character written out halfway through season 2 - expecting letters of outcry, they instead got sacks full of letters expressing relief and gratitude.
The Engineer
"You gotta treat your ship like you treat your woman - you gotta be attentive, you gotta be tender, and you gotta oil her up as often as possible."
Shawn Rockwell is the jive-talking, laid-back, effortlessly cool Chief Engineer of the Excelsior. He adores his job and his ship more than anything else, and frequently gets somewhat exasperated at the Captain's attempts to push the ship beyond its limits. That aside, though, it takes a hell of a lot to get Rockwell in a panic, and he's always got a backup for any emergency.
The actor: For much of the programme's early development, the character of Rockwell was intended to be a goofy, wisecracking Canadian, but somewhere along the line somebody suggested they cash in on the popularity of blaxploitation and increase their appeal to a minority audience by including an African-American character.
In the role they cast Robert Jameson, star of Black Mamba of Memphis, who later described the role as 'the most embarrassing thing I've ever done - and I was the spokesman for a VD campaign'. The character was initially controversial, but after lobbying from the NAACP and Jameson himself, stereotypical aspects were toned down, the character's personality bulked out, and a rule put in place that the word 'honky' was to be used no more than twice an episode.
The Nemesis
"Taste the six sides of my wrath!"
The crew of the Excelsior faced many threats over the show's 72-episode run, but by far the most frequent and notorious were the nefarious, hexagonal Galactagons, lead by the megalomanical Gromblox. Gromblox has an insatiable desire for power and has no compassion for non-Galactagons (or fellow Galactagons, come to that). He also has a particular personal vendetta against Captain Thrust, the roots of which were laid when they were roommates at college; between Thrust bringing a different woman home every night and Gromblox's bizarre personal hygiene, a deep animosity was kindled that can only be resolved through combat.
The actor: John Wentworth was, at one point, a respected stage actor in Britain. On moving to America to seek better prospects, he found himself only able to get roles as villainous characters in genre movies and shows. After desperately fighting this through the 60s, by the time Defenders was being cast, he had resigned himself to it, and became the series' most-loved antagonist as the outrageously over-the-top Gromblox. He and Frank Robbins-Robinson remain good friends to this day, and worked together on tongue-in cheek thriller Revenge of the Return of the Cosmonoids.
A SELECTION OF GUEST STARS
Bea Arthur as Admiral Meriwether - The series' most often recurring and most memorable guest role was Bea Arthur's turn as their wise and long-suffering superior, turning in a gloriously wry performance.
Leslie Neilsen as Captain Scorch - His appearance as a rival captain in episode 1x21, The Divaxamol Betrayal, is fondly remembered, particularly due to the (allegedly) unscripted sequence where he knees Captain Thrust in the groin.
Donald Pleasence as the Squamiform Hivemind - His single, five-minute cameo in the episode of the same name provided one of the series' most remarkable and terrifying villains, enhanced by the fact he was genuinely suffering from flu at the time.
Farrah Fawcett as Coco Deluxe - Her appearance as the leader of the Seductaneers in the episode 2x12, The Planet of Pleasure, is still wistfully recalled by many sweaty-palmed middle-aged men as their introduction to the concept of arousal.
McLean Stevenson as Lieutenant Prufrock - Initially intended to have a fundamental role in the episode 2x22, The Paradox Cataclysm, commitments to filming M*A*S*H ended up leading to his part being cut down to five lines and a comedy faint. The fact the rest of the episode was not rewritten to reflect this makes it one of the series' low points.
Orson Welles as Dread Lord Grablathon - A real casting coup for the series, legend has it that the only reason he was ever involved was that he was meant to visit the studios to do an advert for frankfurters, but accidentally took a wrong turn and was roped into performing before he could resist.
Reception:
On initial launch, Defenders of the Cosmic was given a mixed reception by critics, not all of whom immediately understood what the show was trying to do. Viewing figures dipped sharply after the pilot, but slowly built up over the first series, and remained consistently high until midway through the third series, where the show's abrupt turn for the psychedelic started to alienate viewers.
After cancellation, the show was quickly forgotten by the general public, but retained a hardcore of fans who continue to hold the show in deep affection. Numerous fans still discuss favourite characters and episodes on newsgroups and message boards, and gather at the annual CosmiCon in Toledo. A fan-made 'Season 4' has been gained a huge following on Youtube, including huge numbers of fans completely unaware of the original show it's based on.
The show has also always had a small but dedicated fiction-writing fanbase. By far the bulk of stories revolve around self-insertion fantasies or exploring the homoerotic undertones of the friendship between Thrust and McKenzie, with a small but consistently disturbing number of stories centred around Trixie, Gromblox, or both. (Of particular notoriety is the epic Gromblox Takes A Holiday, reknowned amongst connoisseurs of bad fanfiction for consisting of a series of increasingly unsettling and improbable sexual acts being performed by, lest we forget, a genital-less hexagon.)
Traditionally, the show has always had a strong gay following, inevitable given the show's deliberately camp aesthetic. In certain areas, 'Defender of the Cosmic' is still used as a euphemism along the lines of 'Friend of Dorothy'.
The show has also found a new lease of life in Japan, where it is known as Team Space Excitement Force and has been redubbed with entirely different plotlines. For a while in the 90s, it was massively popular among the teen demographic, inspiring its own line of dolls, keyrings and strawberry-flavoured snacks.
Prompt: (from ironychan) An early 70's 'Star Trek' ripoff that plays for deadpan absurdity, ala the Adam West 'Batman' series!
Type: Half-hour episodes (well, 25 minutes with space for ad breaks), 24 episodes in a season. Ran for three seasons between 1972 and 1975 on CBS.
How it came about: After Star Trek and Lost in Space, but before Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers and Star Wars, a budding scriptwriter called Gordy Newman saw a gap in the market and rolled into town with a pitch for a series notable only in its astonishing lack of originality. The series would likely have never seen the light of day were it not for famously maverick producer Charles 'Kit' Kattowitz, who with the help of failed comic-book writer Lorenzo Smith, turned Newman's leaden scripts into camp classics.
Synopsis: It is the year 2424. Humanity has conquered the stars, and all live peacefully under the benevolent rule of the Pan-Cosmic Alliance. However, peace comes at the price of eternal vigilance. Thousands of spacecraft patrol the edges of the galaxy, keeping its citizens safe from criminals, tyrants and evil-doers who threaten the Alliance. They are the few. The proud. The Defenders of the Cosmic.
MAIN CHARACTERS AND CAST
The Captain
"For the integrity of the Alliance!"
Captain Lancelot Thrust is the blond-haired, square-jawed, all-American captain of the Excelsior, who never rests in his quest to keep the galaxy safe from harm.
Growing up in small-town Missouri, he lost his father at a young age in the Martian Wars of 2400. From that day on, he vowed to never let such wars happen again. The Defenders are his passion and his life, and he will stop at nothing to defend the Alliance - even bending the rules, if he has to. He is a fearless leader, a seducer of women of all species, and also a capable player of trans-dimensional football. He also has a finely developed philosophical side, and is much given to making pronouncements on the futility of war and the power of friendship.
The actor: Sam Stockwell was an unknown when cast in the role of Captain Thrust, his previous experience limited to a handful of walk-on roles in soaps and TV movies. Not a good actor by any means, he was cast precisely because of his limited emotional range and bizarre enunciation; it was halfway through the shooting of the first season when the producers realised he wasn't putting it on and he genuinely believed he was doing a good job. From then on, the rest of the production team were given express instructions to never let him found out that the show wasn't to be taken seriously, as his deadpan performance was key to the show's entire conceit.
Stockwell believed Defenders of the Cosmic would be his breakout role - in reality, he found himself typecast in various shoddy B-movies before deciding to make a living through the chatshow and convention circuit; his last onscreen appearance was his six-week stint in reality show House of Nonentity. Debate has long raged among fans as to how far his current persona is self-parody or reality; consensus seems to lean towards the conclusion that yes, he really is that arrogant.
The Second-in-Command
"I calculate that we have a six million, four thousand, six hundred and fifty-seven to one chance of survival. Recommended course of action: hide under nearest table."
All Defender craft are required to carry a ship's robot, which serves both as back-up and voice of reason to the captain. The Excelsior's robot, X-22, is as coldly emotional and rational as any of them, though fellow crew would also swear he has an unusually pessimistic streak. The Captain has spent many long afternoons trying to teach X-22 human emotion, in direct contravention of standard Alliance operating procedure, in order to make him more companionable.
The actor: Frank Robbins-Robinson was already a veteran of genre features by this point, particular famed for his role as the villain Malevolo in the 1967 classic They Came From Space And Ate Our Bologna and his scene-stealing perfomance as the irascible principal Mr Wilkins in Hotpants High. Cast as X-22, he thoroughly embraced the hamminess of the role, and continues to speak about his involvement in the series with fondness.
The Doctor
"This is madness, Captain! Madness!"
Dr Franklin McKenzie is the ship's doctor, a loudmouthed Bostonian with a take-no-prisoners attitude. He is a man with many problems, battling alcoholism, a tendency to fall in love with inappropriate people at the drop of a hat, and worst of all (especially for a doctor) a debilitating phobia of blood. However, under his hard-bitten, abrasive exterior lies a heart of gold, and he can always be relied upon to do the right thing. He and Captain Thrust have been the best of friends since they first met in the Defender Academy, and although often disagree, are always inseparable.
The actor: Ken Gurewich blamed this show for ruining what was, until that point, a promising career. While in the show, his character was best friends with the Captain, in real life, he and Stockwell detested one another with a passion. Gurewich found it hard to handle the sudden attention the show brought him, and like his character, struggled with alcoholism. After a breakdown and a spell in rehab, he quit acting together in 1979. He now runs an auto repair business in Tacoma; when asked by curious customers if he's that guy from that show, he always answers in the negative.
The Scientist
"Why, it's just a simple matter of transubstantiating the proton assembler and infiltrating the myoclonic valve. Even a girl could do it!"
Trixie Bambera is the ship's head Science Officer, tasked with the job of recording and analysing any new phenomena the Excelsior encounters on its travels. She has a genius-level IQ, multiple doctorates and a photographic memory, but can sometimes be ditzy and over-emotional, particularly when it comes to the Captain's welfare. She often acts as the ship's conscience, her education and intuition giving her special insight into the ethical dilemmas that are a common part of the job. She also gets kidnapped a lot.
The actor: The character of Trixie was one of the last to be cast. Nearly a hundred women were whittled down to three final candidates in a punishing series of auditions, when suddenly Kattowitz announced he'd found the perfect Trixie in the form of Pammy Maxwell, a showgirl he'd met while on holiday in Vegas.
A former Playboy Playmate, Pammy's only prior acting experience was as an extra in Hula Hula Holocaust, a grindhouse flick that was banned in 17 states. As Trixie, she frequently struggled with the complex lines she was given, and ended up reliant on cue cards throughout the show's production.
The Navigator
"Gee whillikers, Captain, that is a big one!"
Thirteen-year old Chip Chesterton is a boy genius with a natural gift for piloting spacecraft. The youngest navigator in the entirety of the Defenders, he's always plucky and optimistic, and his plans, while sometimes not always the best-thought-out, often play a big part in saving the day. When he's not hard at work on the bridge, he likes nothing better to absorb himself in a big book of advanced calculus, or a few friendly games of hypercheckers with X-22.
The actor: Child star Bucky Thompson's career was waning at this point; he probably wouldn't have agreed to join the cast of Defenders of the Cosmic if he hadn't been drunk at the time. All involved found it a struggle dealing with the hugely arrogant, often drug-addled teenager, and Thompson notoriously required huge numbers of takes to get his scenes right, but the producers insisted the character was necessary to retain appeal to their core audience of prepubescent boys. They were proved wrong when, after a scandal involving a women's volleyball team and a mountain of cocaine, Thompson was sacked from the show and his character written out halfway through season 2 - expecting letters of outcry, they instead got sacks full of letters expressing relief and gratitude.
The Engineer
"You gotta treat your ship like you treat your woman - you gotta be attentive, you gotta be tender, and you gotta oil her up as often as possible."
Shawn Rockwell is the jive-talking, laid-back, effortlessly cool Chief Engineer of the Excelsior. He adores his job and his ship more than anything else, and frequently gets somewhat exasperated at the Captain's attempts to push the ship beyond its limits. That aside, though, it takes a hell of a lot to get Rockwell in a panic, and he's always got a backup for any emergency.
The actor: For much of the programme's early development, the character of Rockwell was intended to be a goofy, wisecracking Canadian, but somewhere along the line somebody suggested they cash in on the popularity of blaxploitation and increase their appeal to a minority audience by including an African-American character.
In the role they cast Robert Jameson, star of Black Mamba of Memphis, who later described the role as 'the most embarrassing thing I've ever done - and I was the spokesman for a VD campaign'. The character was initially controversial, but after lobbying from the NAACP and Jameson himself, stereotypical aspects were toned down, the character's personality bulked out, and a rule put in place that the word 'honky' was to be used no more than twice an episode.
The Nemesis
"Taste the six sides of my wrath!"
The crew of the Excelsior faced many threats over the show's 72-episode run, but by far the most frequent and notorious were the nefarious, hexagonal Galactagons, lead by the megalomanical Gromblox. Gromblox has an insatiable desire for power and has no compassion for non-Galactagons (or fellow Galactagons, come to that). He also has a particular personal vendetta against Captain Thrust, the roots of which were laid when they were roommates at college; between Thrust bringing a different woman home every night and Gromblox's bizarre personal hygiene, a deep animosity was kindled that can only be resolved through combat.
The actor: John Wentworth was, at one point, a respected stage actor in Britain. On moving to America to seek better prospects, he found himself only able to get roles as villainous characters in genre movies and shows. After desperately fighting this through the 60s, by the time Defenders was being cast, he had resigned himself to it, and became the series' most-loved antagonist as the outrageously over-the-top Gromblox. He and Frank Robbins-Robinson remain good friends to this day, and worked together on tongue-in cheek thriller Revenge of the Return of the Cosmonoids.
A SELECTION OF GUEST STARS
Bea Arthur as Admiral Meriwether - The series' most often recurring and most memorable guest role was Bea Arthur's turn as their wise and long-suffering superior, turning in a gloriously wry performance.
Leslie Neilsen as Captain Scorch - His appearance as a rival captain in episode 1x21, The Divaxamol Betrayal, is fondly remembered, particularly due to the (allegedly) unscripted sequence where he knees Captain Thrust in the groin.
Donald Pleasence as the Squamiform Hivemind - His single, five-minute cameo in the episode of the same name provided one of the series' most remarkable and terrifying villains, enhanced by the fact he was genuinely suffering from flu at the time.
Farrah Fawcett as Coco Deluxe - Her appearance as the leader of the Seductaneers in the episode 2x12, The Planet of Pleasure, is still wistfully recalled by many sweaty-palmed middle-aged men as their introduction to the concept of arousal.
McLean Stevenson as Lieutenant Prufrock - Initially intended to have a fundamental role in the episode 2x22, The Paradox Cataclysm, commitments to filming M*A*S*H ended up leading to his part being cut down to five lines and a comedy faint. The fact the rest of the episode was not rewritten to reflect this makes it one of the series' low points.
Orson Welles as Dread Lord Grablathon - A real casting coup for the series, legend has it that the only reason he was ever involved was that he was meant to visit the studios to do an advert for frankfurters, but accidentally took a wrong turn and was roped into performing before he could resist.
Reception:
On initial launch, Defenders of the Cosmic was given a mixed reception by critics, not all of whom immediately understood what the show was trying to do. Viewing figures dipped sharply after the pilot, but slowly built up over the first series, and remained consistently high until midway through the third series, where the show's abrupt turn for the psychedelic started to alienate viewers.
After cancellation, the show was quickly forgotten by the general public, but retained a hardcore of fans who continue to hold the show in deep affection. Numerous fans still discuss favourite characters and episodes on newsgroups and message boards, and gather at the annual CosmiCon in Toledo. A fan-made 'Season 4' has been gained a huge following on Youtube, including huge numbers of fans completely unaware of the original show it's based on.
The show has also always had a small but dedicated fiction-writing fanbase. By far the bulk of stories revolve around self-insertion fantasies or exploring the homoerotic undertones of the friendship between Thrust and McKenzie, with a small but consistently disturbing number of stories centred around Trixie, Gromblox, or both. (Of particular notoriety is the epic Gromblox Takes A Holiday, reknowned amongst connoisseurs of bad fanfiction for consisting of a series of increasingly unsettling and improbable sexual acts being performed by, lest we forget, a genital-less hexagon.)
Traditionally, the show has always had a strong gay following, inevitable given the show's deliberately camp aesthetic. In certain areas, 'Defender of the Cosmic' is still used as a euphemism along the lines of 'Friend of Dorothy'.
The show has also found a new lease of life in Japan, where it is known as Team Space Excitement Force and has been redubbed with entirely different plotlines. For a while in the 90s, it was massively popular among the teen demographic, inspiring its own line of dolls, keyrings and strawberry-flavoured snacks.