Otherworld (1985 series)
Summary
"Beyond the beyond, at the edge of within: the Otherworld." "Lost in Space - on Earth!" A family searches for a way out of a bizarre parallel world.
Details
- Release Date: 1985
- Country/Language: US, English
- Genres/Technical: Science Fiction, Fantasy
- Setting: 1980s Dreamlands
- Runtime: (generally formatted for a one-hour commercial television slot)
- Starring: Sam Groom, Gretchen Corbett, Tony O'Dell
- Creator: Roderick Taylor, Bruce A. Taylor
- Producer/Production Co: Universal Television, CBS
- View Trailer: (link)
- TV Show Website: (link)
- TVTropes: (link)
- IMDB Page: (link)
Ratings
MPAA Ratings
- Rated: (not rated) (equivalent to a 1980s family TV-friendly PG for mild Violence, and very mild Violence Adult Content and Profanity)
Tentacle Ratings
A rough measure of how "Lovecraftian" the work is:
- S____ (One Tentacle: Debateably Lovecraftian; has almost no direct connection to Lovecraft's work)
No direct connection to Lovecraft or his work, though the New-Agey, Egyptian-themed portals to Dreamlands-style parallel worlds were a nice touch, with some vague potential for conversion to Lovecraftian Horror setting.
Note: This rating is not intended as a measure of quality, merely of how closely related to Lovecraftian "Weird" fiction the work is.
Reviews
Review Links:
- John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic TV, (link) - "To be certain, the show wasn't always great (and some episodes were downright bizarre and surreal...) but -- also like Star Trek before it - Otherworld boasted a weird, attractive sort of charm; a quirky, individual sense of humor and joie de vivre that could, for the most part, gloss over the budgetary inadequacies and the occasionally trite writing."
Synopsis (SPOILERS)
"Other worlds lie outside our seeing. Beyond the beyond. At the edge... of within. The Great Pyramid: erected by the ancient ones as a barricade. At the portal between two dimensions, two separate realities. This is the story of one family, drawn through a mysterious vortex into the other world -- and of their perilous trek homeward." Thrown into another dimension, a family must keep ahead of a tyrannical state's hunters while following a series of strange, ancient "signposts" to a distant city in their search for a way home.
Notes
Comments, Trivia, Dedication
Associated Mythos Elements
- location: Thel, a vaguely Egyptian-themed parallel world with a crystal-power-based technology, comprised of many different self-contained provinces, each with its own way of life and separated by an oppressively patrolled "Forbidden Zone", governed by a tyrannical dictatorship with an army of jack-booted Zone Troopers.
- Imar, the capital zone of Thel, ruled by a dictator known as a Praetor. The Praetorship has banned all maps and travel.
- Sarlex, a city inhabited by "plasmoid replicants"
- Tarka, an agricultural town
- Metraplex
- The Dead Forest of Animula
- Centrex City
- race: "plasmoid replicants" - biomechanical androids that look indistinguishable from humans
- cult: The Signpost Astrologers of Otherworld
- cult: Church of Artificial Intelligence, the official state religion of Thel
Keeper Notes
- A group of investigators exploring ancient pre-human ruins stumble through a mysterious portal into a strange parallel world, and must travel through a series of isolated lands similar to those of our world, but each with its own strange customs, technologies, and buried secrets, to find their way home.
