Allen then had on the air,
Lost in Space
and
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
—toy robots, miniature submarines, rubber fright masks (for a segment of
Voyage
titled “Man of Many Faces,” Allen had sent every major television editor in the country a rubber mask used by the Man of Many Faces). On the floor below, Allen had a full-time crew of artists sketching storyboards for each segment of his shows, as well as a staff of researchers compiling all available information on time, space, the ocean and giants, for possible use as both effects and plot points on his current and proposed series. In the presentation script of
City Beneath the Sea
, there was an eight-page appendix of “new underseas projects and discoveries to be used in combination or alone as premises for
City Beneath the Sea
episodes.” Among the projects and discoveries were:
Bubble curtains for use as fish pens;
Acoustical barriers, electrical fields and temperature fences for the same purpose;
New methods for tagging fish using radioactive markers to help discover secrets of migration;
Extracting oxygen from water by use of a silicone membrane.
In all, the researchers had compiled sixty possible discoveries. “I’ve tried to take the lunacy that exists in television and reduce it to a quiet panic,” Allen told me one day. “There’s only one thing to remember about television: it’s a business.”
He is a large, myopic, hirsute man with hair like Brillo and a bowl-shaped paunch that leaks out between the bottom of his shirt and the top of his trousers. He has a raucous voice and he is richly sarcastic, but it is largely a performance without a cutting edge. He supervises even the most minute details of his shows. There were a half dozen people present at
The Man from the 25th Century
meeting and each had a copy of the presentation script Allen had written:
THE MAN FROM THE 25TH CENTURY is a one-hour weekly television series of science-fiction, high adventure and action. It is the eerily horrifying tale of Andro, our nearest planetary neighbor, whose source of power is being used far more quickly than it can be created and whose need to attack the Earth and replenish such power is of the highest priority. An Earthling, kidnapped in infancy and transported to Andro for indoctrination, is returned to Earth to start its downfall. He is repelled by his assignment and defects to the Earthlings. Each week the non-humans from Andro arrive in flying saucers and create havoc with Earth. Each week the Earthlings, aided by THE MAN FROM THE 25TH CENTURY and his weaponry, succeed in dissuading the enemy.
On succeeding pages, Allen’s script spelled out the show’s theme (“The basic theme dramatizes man’s earliest hidden fear—the appearance of seemingly extraterrestrial beings from another planet”), its major settings(“The planet Andro, two-and-a-half light-years from Earth, the super metropolis of the future in the year 2467” and “Project Delphi, most mysterious of all undertakings in the history of the United States government,” buried underground deep beneath Glacier National Park and dedicated to combating the attack from Andro), and its leading character, Tomo, The Man from the 25th Century (“Tomo—twenty-four years old—the kidnapped Earthling. Dark, handsome, six feet, three inches tall. He is the most unusual of men. Graduate of the sciences of Nali, the great technological studies offered by the scientists of the planet Andro. Brilliant, trained to kill, and a master in the art of self-defense. Hidden deep within is a warm friendly nature. But so penetrating was his indoctrination, even he is unaware of his second personality”).
The problem before the meeting was whether to spin
The Man from the 25th Century
off a segment of
Lost in Space
or to go with a ten-minute presentation film. The discussion was scarcely underway when there was a knock on the door and the unit production manager for
Voyage to the Bottom of the
Lost in Space
and
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea
—toy robots, miniature submarines, rubber fright masks (for a segment of
Voyage
titled “Man of Many Faces,” Allen had sent every major television editor in the country a rubber mask used by the Man of Many Faces). On the floor below, Allen had a full-time crew of artists sketching storyboards for each segment of his shows, as well as a staff of researchers compiling all available information on time, space, the ocean and giants, for possible use as both effects and plot points on his current and proposed series. In the presentation script of
City Beneath the Sea
, there was an eight-page appendix of “new underseas projects and discoveries to be used in combination or alone as premises for
City Beneath the Sea
episodes.” Among the projects and discoveries were:
Bubble curtains for use as fish pens;
Acoustical barriers, electrical fields and temperature fences for the same purpose;
New methods for tagging fish using radioactive markers to help discover secrets of migration;
Extracting oxygen from water by use of a silicone membrane.
In all, the researchers had compiled sixty possible discoveries. “I’ve tried to take the lunacy that exists in television and reduce it to a quiet panic,” Allen told me one day. “There’s only one thing to remember about television: it’s a business.”
He is a large, myopic, hirsute man with hair like Brillo and a bowl-shaped paunch that leaks out between the bottom of his shirt and the top of his trousers. He has a raucous voice and he is richly sarcastic, but it is largely a performance without a cutting edge. He supervises even the most minute details of his shows. There were a half dozen people present at
The Man from the 25th Century
meeting and each had a copy of the presentation script Allen had written:
THE MAN FROM THE 25TH CENTURY is a one-hour weekly television series of science-fiction, high adventure and action. It is the eerily horrifying tale of Andro, our nearest planetary neighbor, whose source of power is being used far more quickly than it can be created and whose need to attack the Earth and replenish such power is of the highest priority. An Earthling, kidnapped in infancy and transported to Andro for indoctrination, is returned to Earth to start its downfall. He is repelled by his assignment and defects to the Earthlings. Each week the non-humans from Andro arrive in flying saucers and create havoc with Earth. Each week the Earthlings, aided by THE MAN FROM THE 25TH CENTURY and his weaponry, succeed in dissuading the enemy.
On succeeding pages, Allen’s script spelled out the show’s theme (“The basic theme dramatizes man’s earliest hidden fear—the appearance of seemingly extraterrestrial beings from another planet”), its major settings(“The planet Andro, two-and-a-half light-years from Earth, the super metropolis of the future in the year 2467” and “Project Delphi, most mysterious of all undertakings in the history of the United States government,” buried underground deep beneath Glacier National Park and dedicated to combating the attack from Andro), and its leading character, Tomo, The Man from the 25th Century (“Tomo—twenty-four years old—the kidnapped Earthling. Dark, handsome, six feet, three inches tall. He is the most unusual of men. Graduate of the sciences of Nali, the great technological studies offered by the scientists of the planet Andro. Brilliant, trained to kill, and a master in the art of self-defense. Hidden deep within is a warm friendly nature. But so penetrating was his indoctrination, even he is unaware of his second personality”).
The problem before the meeting was whether to spin
The Man from the 25th Century
off a segment of
Lost in Space
or to go with a ten-minute presentation film. The discussion was scarcely underway when there was a knock on the door and the unit production manager for
Voyage to the Bottom of the
Similar Books
