The New People (1969–1970)
8/10
A group of young people, stranded on a desert island are forced by necessity to create a new society!
24 June 2007
A group of (young) college students survived a plane crash only to find themselves stranded on a deserted island that was originally slated as a site for a nuclear bomb test that never occurred.

On the island is a perfect recreation of a small town, complete with houses, stores and all the comforts of home, 1950s style.

The rumor that Rod Serling wrote the story under an assumed alias, is very believable. It has all the marks of THE TWILIGHT ZONE.

The survivors, being college students, saw their new environment as the perfect place to PARTY! Then, they realized that they were stranded and as good as it was with all the comforts of home, there was a very good chance that they may be never be rescued. Although they had no fear of being nuked by a government that didn't know that there was anyone living on that island, they realized that this island was picked because it was outside of any established flight paths. Their only hope of being rescued would be if another pilot flying a plane would also fly off course.

So they needed to create a society of their own, with their own set of laws.

What kind of society would they create? What kind of order would they have? How would they enforce their laws? Although I have a very good memory of prime time TV throughout the middle to late 1960s, my mind sometimes plays tricks on me and although I remember this program right down to the time and the network that aired it, I could've sworn that it was called THE NOW GENERATION and my search for this program landed me in a really interesting web site which included information on a budget album from 1970, COME TOGETHER by a group called THE NOW GENERATION that was supposedly so bad that the album (featuring a very young Jimmy Buffett) has become some sort of collector's item.

THE NEW PEOPLE was not a hit and even though it was canceled by popular demand, that doesn't mean it was a bad show, just that it was a tiny contender up against the TV giants of the time like ROWAN AND MARTIN'S LAUGH-IN, THE LUCY SHOW and the tale end of GUNSMOKE. On DVD, this show could sell quite well. How about it?
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