To find this old, Saturday afternoon UHF-TV ditty -- as well as it's "sequel," Time Warp -- on Tubi after all these years is a shock! Fans of the production values of Filmation's Jason of Star Command, Space Academy, and Ark II for CBS-TV Saturday mornings, strap in, for it was the year of George Lucas.
It was a time of the Italian knockoffs with Star Crash, The Humanoid, Escape from Galaxy III, and Star Odyssey, Canada's cheap jack The Shapes of Things to Come, and NBC-TV's chintzy Buck Rogers and dual, plastic-Star Wars hopefuls The Martian Chronicles and Brave New World.
Cue Allan Sandler and Robert Robert Emenegger of Gold Key Entertainment to the set.
So, with 20th Century Fox cashing the Kessel Run checks, Gold Key pumped out clones between 1980 to 1981. Emenegger is the point man on these, as he wrote (most of) them, directed six, and by Atari and Casio, scored them all.
As far the order in which these were made or released: your guess is as good as ours. It's possible -- since it's the best looking of the nine films and has the stronger, best-known cast -- Lifepod was probably the last film produced (and was the best-distributed). We'll defer to the order in which the IMDb lists each.
Captive (1980)
PSI Factor (1980)
The Killings at Outpost Zeta (1980)
Beyond the Universe (1981)
Escape from DS-3 (1981)
Lifepod (1981) -- I reviewed this space-take on Hitchcock's Lifeboat in full at B&S About Movies (linked on the film's IMDb page) and go deeper into all of Gold Key's films.
Warp Speed (1981) -- Adam West, stars!
Time Warp (1981) -- Adam West, returns!
Laboratory (1983)
As you watch these films -- based on their syndication and quick VHS releases and common-cast actors throughout -- there's plenty of stock prop, set, costume, and footage recycling. If Roger Corman can do it with Battle Beyond the Stars, Galaxy of Terror, and so on, and Glen Larson can with his Battlestar Galactica-Buck Rogers plastic-verses, why not?
Now, deeper into The Killings at Outpost Zeta, we go!
This actually sounds a lot like James Cameron pinched it for his later film, Aliens (1986), but, ah, while Star Wars is pinched in the Emenegger-Sandler canons, don't forget Alien (1979) birthed from Star Wars.
A co-ed rescue team is sent to the barren Zeta to investigate what happened to two colonization expeditions establishing a base to expand Earth colonies in the uncharted galaxy. Yes, xenomorphs -- aka anthropoidal "Rock Monsters" -- are responsible. Yes, rocks that walk. Yes, the rescue team is picked off one by one.
If you've seen the popular British BBC-TV series Blake's 7 or Red Dwarf -- and sometimes Doctor Who, when the Doctor clashed with the Cybermen or the Daleks -- and accepted the bargain television production values, you'll be fine. If you're okay with Sunn Classics' Hangar 18 and Ed Hunt's goofy underwater pyramid alien bases in Starship Invasions, you'll be fine.
Those who can't: They'll criticize the sets and costumes as "cheesy" -- and we are obviously somewhere in the '70s, even though the verse is the 22nd century. Yes, the costuming department breaks out the old motorcycle helmet trope with flexi-hoses capping off questionable space suits fitted with then groovy-trendy "Moon Boots." The guns look like a spray painted, empty paper towel tube clued onto something else to look like a gun.
Regardless of the sets, the costumes, and the questionable thespin', once we get on Zeta, the outdoor sets and cinematic atmosphere is actually effective, as it reminds (just a little bit!) of Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires' (1965) lens filters, fog and mood lighting. While the dialog is poorly delivered, the script -- in all of the films, actually -- have a burst of intelligence that rises above John Carradine's Horror of the Blood Monsters (1970; my zero-star choice). But not as good as Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962) or Angry Red Planet (1959).
Yeah, I loved this, then. Now, all these Tubi-years later: not so much. It's pretty bad, but not as bad as the Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999) cash-in that is Starforce (2000). Yikes! So, Zeta trumps that. For that: my pushing-it one-star jumps to two-stars. Oh, mind you: Space Mutiny (1988) is my zero-star barometer, here.
It was a time of the Italian knockoffs with Star Crash, The Humanoid, Escape from Galaxy III, and Star Odyssey, Canada's cheap jack The Shapes of Things to Come, and NBC-TV's chintzy Buck Rogers and dual, plastic-Star Wars hopefuls The Martian Chronicles and Brave New World.
Cue Allan Sandler and Robert Robert Emenegger of Gold Key Entertainment to the set.
So, with 20th Century Fox cashing the Kessel Run checks, Gold Key pumped out clones between 1980 to 1981. Emenegger is the point man on these, as he wrote (most of) them, directed six, and by Atari and Casio, scored them all.
As far the order in which these were made or released: your guess is as good as ours. It's possible -- since it's the best looking of the nine films and has the stronger, best-known cast -- Lifepod was probably the last film produced (and was the best-distributed). We'll defer to the order in which the IMDb lists each.
Captive (1980)
PSI Factor (1980)
The Killings at Outpost Zeta (1980)
Beyond the Universe (1981)
Escape from DS-3 (1981)
Lifepod (1981) -- I reviewed this space-take on Hitchcock's Lifeboat in full at B&S About Movies (linked on the film's IMDb page) and go deeper into all of Gold Key's films.
Warp Speed (1981) -- Adam West, stars!
Time Warp (1981) -- Adam West, returns!
Laboratory (1983)
As you watch these films -- based on their syndication and quick VHS releases and common-cast actors throughout -- there's plenty of stock prop, set, costume, and footage recycling. If Roger Corman can do it with Battle Beyond the Stars, Galaxy of Terror, and so on, and Glen Larson can with his Battlestar Galactica-Buck Rogers plastic-verses, why not?
Now, deeper into The Killings at Outpost Zeta, we go!
This actually sounds a lot like James Cameron pinched it for his later film, Aliens (1986), but, ah, while Star Wars is pinched in the Emenegger-Sandler canons, don't forget Alien (1979) birthed from Star Wars.
A co-ed rescue team is sent to the barren Zeta to investigate what happened to two colonization expeditions establishing a base to expand Earth colonies in the uncharted galaxy. Yes, xenomorphs -- aka anthropoidal "Rock Monsters" -- are responsible. Yes, rocks that walk. Yes, the rescue team is picked off one by one.
If you've seen the popular British BBC-TV series Blake's 7 or Red Dwarf -- and sometimes Doctor Who, when the Doctor clashed with the Cybermen or the Daleks -- and accepted the bargain television production values, you'll be fine. If you're okay with Sunn Classics' Hangar 18 and Ed Hunt's goofy underwater pyramid alien bases in Starship Invasions, you'll be fine.
Those who can't: They'll criticize the sets and costumes as "cheesy" -- and we are obviously somewhere in the '70s, even though the verse is the 22nd century. Yes, the costuming department breaks out the old motorcycle helmet trope with flexi-hoses capping off questionable space suits fitted with then groovy-trendy "Moon Boots." The guns look like a spray painted, empty paper towel tube clued onto something else to look like a gun.
Regardless of the sets, the costumes, and the questionable thespin', once we get on Zeta, the outdoor sets and cinematic atmosphere is actually effective, as it reminds (just a little bit!) of Mario Bava's Planet of the Vampires' (1965) lens filters, fog and mood lighting. While the dialog is poorly delivered, the script -- in all of the films, actually -- have a burst of intelligence that rises above John Carradine's Horror of the Blood Monsters (1970; my zero-star choice). But not as good as Journey to the Seventh Planet (1962) or Angry Red Planet (1959).
Yeah, I loved this, then. Now, all these Tubi-years later: not so much. It's pretty bad, but not as bad as the Star Wars: The Phantom Menace (1999) cash-in that is Starforce (2000). Yikes! So, Zeta trumps that. For that: my pushing-it one-star jumps to two-stars. Oh, mind you: Space Mutiny (1988) is my zero-star barometer, here.