ABC’s four-episode mini-anthology-series Masters of Science Fiction ended its run Saturday night with what may have been the strongest episode of the four. Harlan Ellison’s “The Discarded” is the story of a spaceship full of discarded people, victims of what may be a virus that causes sudden, massive (and in most cases, unattractive) mutations. The wonderful sets showed us a spaceship that is truly outfitted for long-term human survival, with lots of greenery everywhere, and lots of people getting on each other’s nerves. The slow jazzy soundtrack (perhaps evidence of director Jonathan Frakes’s tastes) was perfect, and the acting (and actors) first-rate.
The discards are compared, at one point, to Father Damien’s lepers, and indeed, they have been sent away in hopes of protecting the rest of the population from their disease. They’ve managed to eke out a life for themselves on their interplanetary transport, in which they’ve sought (and been refused) landing rights on every terraformed outpost in the Solar System. Returning to Earth orbit, they are met by an emissary who just may offer them the chance to come home. And after so many years in space, most of the discards are ready to believe almost anything… all except crotchety captain Brian Dennehy, who doesn’t want his job, doesn’t want to work, and doesn’t believe they could be allowed back home.
Like the previous three Masters episodes, this one has a somewhat depressing ending, but unlike my earlier complaint (see my comments on “Jerry Was a Man”), this time they didn’t bother with trying to make an anti-war statement aimed at current politics. Indeed, the episode didn’t attack much of anything (except incipient racism). And I think the episode was stronger for it; for telling a good story without trying to make it only a political statement. I was also pleasantly surprised by author Harlan Ellison’s cameo: it wasn’t integral to the story, but it was good to see him on screen.
I think the biggest disappointment of this episode is that it’s the last. Someone obviously paid good money to produce very good television episodes, but then the six episodes languished on a shelf for more than a year, until ABC decided to air four of them in the “prime” slot of 10PM on Saturday nights in August, and without a bit of publicity to back them up. ABC missed a really good bet here. Based on the four we saw, they could probably have been produced fairly cheaply (in terms of modern television budgets), and they were thoughtful, literate, and engrossing. Is it that the audience for thoughtful, literate, engrossing television is so small, or have the networks truly swallowed the Kool-Aid that requires them to produce television only for the lowest common denominator? Is it the lack of merchandising possibilities they foresee in anthology television? What? I wish I knew.
ABC, you had a good thing here. There’s nothing that says you can’t pick it up and run with it. This is my call for more of the Masters of Science Fiction.