User Reviews

Written by Dennis O' Neil ( a writer of both D.C. and Marvel Comics ) and directed by Curtis Harrington ( responsible for Basil Rathbone's final film 'Queen Of Blood' ), 'Stargate' was the final 'Logan's Run' television episode. It begins in a similar fashion to the preceding episode 'Turnabout' with our heroes finding someone in the desert and helping them only to be caught and taken a nearby community. 'Morah' ( Paul Carr ) is the leader of a gang of aliens working to establish a matter transporter to bring their people to Earth in order to take it over. Their own world is almost dead. They steal parts from Rem, and make duplicates of Logan and Jessica. But they have a weakness; they do not like low temperatures, and Logan exploits this at the end.

If 'Stargate' disappoints as a series finale, that is because it was not intended to be one. The impression given by the final scene is that Logan and his friends will be having another adventure next week. It is a formulaic story of alien invasion, and would have been greatly improved in my view by the inclusion of Randy Powell's 'Francis'.

Though the series flopped in the States, here in Britain it was far more successful, frequently making the top twenty list of most watched programmes of the week, and trouncing its main rival - Tom Baker's 'Dr.Who' - on B.B.C.-1. The magazine 'Look-In' ran a comic-strip, and there was an Annual published in time for the Christmas market. Though the 'Logan's Run' movie has been shown countless times over the years, the series was surprisingly ignored until 2006 when the U.K. Sci-Fi Channel repeated it ( the pilot being edited into a two-part adventure ). In 2012, Logan,Jessica and Rem ran again, this time on D.V.D.

I have to admit that I have delayed watching the final episode made for the sci-fi adventure series, Logan's Run, based on the theatrical film starring Michael York and Jenny Agutter (with Richard Jordan as their Sandman pursuer). It was delaying the inevitable. It is just kind of unfortunate that so few were made. I would have preferred a whole 21 episodes to enjoy instead of 13, but it is what it is, sad to say. I had a lot of fun with this episode, although the plot is of the oft-used "aliens wish to colonize Earth as invaders" formula, well known since the early days of cinema. Logan and Jessica happen to spot a sickly man in a silver full-bodied suit walking haggardly across land not far from the road they were travelling, looking worse for wear. They help him back to his people, a cold, blank-faced group who are actually aliens disguised as humans, wanting to refine a transportation transmitter that will bring their army immediately to Earth to take it over as their new home. The key for the transmitter to function properly will come from Rem himself, or, more accurately, from inside him.

This episode left me a bit uncomfortable/unsettled because the aliens, in essence, violate Rem, stealing bits and pieces of him for their machine while Logan and Jessica try to rescue him and stop the transmitter (the reason for colonization is that the alien's world are in direct path of a sun about to nova). Rem, in secret, will work on a device, with a satellite dish, that might cause the carrier wave to send the aliens into space if placed in the direct location, but Logan will need the aliens to be subdued. The aliens physiological flaw are their dependency on heat: the cold will send them into a hibernated state. Logan and Jessica, who are early in the episode drugged and placed in a "heat room", are themselves rescued by a human man named Timon(Eddie Firestone), someone who was witness to the total annihilation of his own people at the hands of the aliens who used some of their "human shells" as vessels to exist in the humanoid form to trick other humans into trusting them. Timon knows the city the aliens currently inhabit (their ship crashlanded not far from this derelict city left uninhabited after the atomic war) like the back of his hand, the many passageways and hidden doors, providing Logan and Jessica access to areas while their visitors' attentions are on the transportation transmitter.

While I think this was formulaic but entertaining as an adventure with a plot placing Logan and Jessica in quite a pickle (most of the series does this), ultimately "Stargate" being the final episode of the series is a bit disappointing. Especially, considering Francis was absent and, besides the principles trio, he was a vital part of the overall series, the Sandman never ceasing on his mission to capture them. "Stargate" feels like more of an episode that pops up in the middle of a season rather than sadly finishing as the final one ever. The aliens are diabolical and forward-thinking, without an inkling of conscience or feeling. While taking parts from Rem, nothing presents itself acknowledging the evil of what they are doing, or how the aliens clinically treat humans as simple specimens to overtake and get rid of if no longer needed.

The episode even features (this aspect is not as inspired unfortunately) a "radioactive swamp" with possible mutant creatures, a dumping ground for human nuisances for the aliens. I think fans of the series will have fun with this, but as a final episode, I believe others like "Carousel" would have been better suited to finish the series. I must say, though, that seeing Rem "disassembled" is kind of neat, with him often lamenting another part being removed.