THE STARLOST: DECEPTION (1980)
Article #1141 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 4-29-2004
Posting Date: 9-26-2004
Directed by Ed Richardson and Joseph L. Scanlon
Featuring Keir Dullea, Gay Rowan, Robin Ward

Three adventurers on a quest to save a giant spaceship from destruction encounter resistance from various residents of the isolated pods on the ship.

Hey, this video has the exact same cover art as THE STARLOST: THE ALIEN ORO. In fact, if you haven’t read my review of that video, go ahead and do so now; this video is just more of the same as that one. Once again, two episodes of “The Starlost” are mashed together to make what’s supposed to pass for a movie. The first episode involves a tyrannical munitions manufacturer; the second involves an insane computer. Both episodes suffer from the same problems; the cheapness of the production, the lousy and repetitive synth music, the fact that each of the self-contained cultures on this gigantic spaceship appear to consist of no more than ten people each (if that), the turgid and bland talkiness of each episode, and the fact that none of the three lead characters appear to have anything in the way of a personality all combine to render invisible whatever interesting ideas or concepts that might exist somewhere in these episodes.

Now let’s do some calculating. The original series had sixteen episodes. Between these two videos, I’ve seen four of them. That means there may be six more “Starlost” movies to watch.

Suddenly, I’m depressed.