It’s a famous legend of television that the original Star Trek was cancelled because its audience demographic skewed too young for NBC at the time. There have been other shows throughout TV history that suffered similar fates: Maybe they aired in the wrong decade; maybe they had a time slot that just could never allow them to break out. Maybe they’re Firefly. In any event, some of those short-lived series are still beloved and remembered by fans decades later, even if the number of available episodes may be limited.
One of my personal favorite short-lived shows was Starman, a TV sequel to the Jeff Bridges movie that premiered 30 years ago today, on September 19, 1986. The series starred Robert Hays (Airplane, Angie) as Paul Forrester, an ill-fated photographer whose body the alien “Starman” duplicated and adopted as his own. With an alien sphere that had unique qualities, “Paul Forrester” was back on Earth to find his love from the movie, Jenny Hayden, with whom it turns out he has a son, Scott, played by later Brady Bunch actor and Spider-Man voice Christopher Daniel Barnes.
Pursued by government UFO investigator George Fox (Michael Cavanaugh), Paul and Scott traveled across the country in their search for Jenny Hayden and their quest to evade Fox, inevitably helping people along the way. Even though there were obviously sci-fi trappings, there was a lot of heart and humor at Starman’s center.
Personally speaking, at age 8, Starman was one of the first “new” TV series I ever watched, and I doubt I knew that there was a movie that inspired it. The show did a good job of telling stories episodically in a Fugitive-like fashion while still continuing the father and son quest. Audiences were drawn to that father and son bond, where the two were teaching each other about life; “Paul Forrester” was of course learning about the basics of humanity while his son was growing from a youth to man. Starman amassed a bit of a fandom at the time, with fan gatherings called “Family Cons” with attending actors and crew from the series still attending thirty years later. If Starman had premiered even ten years later, when the Internet really started to take root, and especially now when fan buzz can keep shows alive for years, it would have certainly ended up with more than the 22 episodes they had.
It may be a bit of a spoiler to reveal that they do eventually find Jenny Hayden, a momentous event to this young TV viewer. Sure, it was Erin Gray and not Karen Allen, and yes, some of the flashbacks to scenes from the movie are kind of awkward without the likenesses of the movie actors, but the “Starscape” 2-parter still remains a favorite in my TV library.
Sadly, a remake or revival of Starman on TV is probably unlikely at ths point. Jeff Bridges has talked about the notion of a Starman movie sequel before, apparently unaware or ignoring the fact that there even was a TV series. THR revealed earlier this year that a remake of the original film might be coming from director Shawn Levy. If one wanted to re-create Starman for TV, especially if the rights are tied up in the movie realm, it might just be best to create a new show rather than complicating matters where royalties and rights would be a problem. (The movie I Am Number Four definitely seemed inspired by Starman, so something similar could surely be done). Finally, the name alone may be problematic, as if memory serves, Starman required a credit to DC Comics since they held the rights to the name because of their comic book character.
It’s a shame that we did not learn more about the Starman’s origins or get to see more of that world explored, though it shouldn’t deter a potential viewer from watching. All of Starman is available on DVD, and it’s highly recommended. You can purchase it here. I wish there were extras on the set, but it’s still nice to have it all in one place.
If you want a glimpse of what Starman was, you can see the pilot in its entirety on YouTube. Enjoy; it surely will be an hour that can get you hooked. And, yes, it bugs me too that the credits include scenes that we never actually did see on the show, that were from an earlier pilot version.
