I got through Ark II this morning. The whole 1976 series is only 15 half hour long episodes which are spread over 4 sides of two discs. I got a 3 pack of Filmation saturday morning live-action science fiction shows from the 1970's and this is the last of them that I watched. It's the 25th century and pollution has killed off most everyone. Scummy gangs and small groups of people live, barely, scattered about the country side. The last of the science guys put together a team to visit the isolated humanity and help their asses out. They send a guy with a beard, two kids and a monkey. I know it sounds like a sitcom but the monkey talks. They have a big mobile home, a small jeep like vehicle which the monkey can drive, and a jet pack to get about in. It's the same jetpack that you've seen in the James Bond movies. They talk about it in the commentaries and interview documentaries. It was rented and all the shots for all episodes were done at one time. They made this series for about 70 grand an episode, not a lot of money even then, so they had to work hard to keep the show in budget. To that extent they reused set pieces from the old Planet of the Apes series. I thought I recognized one of the props from that Apes series. The Ark was just a shell on a old truck chassis and the front end was re-used for a space ship in the next Filmation live action series Space Academy.
The stories are pretty much the same from week to week. Someone needs some help. There's a bit of drama and danger with a bit of comedy. Monkey on the show after all. There were some good guest stars, many the backbone of 60's tv, Jonathan Harris, Malachi Throne, Marshall Thompson, Geoffery Lewis, Jim Backus, John Fiedler, and one of my favorite character actors, Vito Scotti. You'd recognize some of them even if you didn't know their names. Helen Hunt appears as a kid and Robbie the Robot appears as an empathetic robot. The scripts were bit a moral message, and some eco message tossed in. I'm not sure I ever saw this when it was new. That vehicle seemed familiar. I'n not sure I need to watch it again. There were a couple of commentaries and some pictures from the show and backstage. The shows look nice if nothing else.
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