“What the hell is this?”
That’s probably what acclaimed author Ray Bradbury said, concurrently spitting grape soda out of his nose, when watching a cowboy-suited Darren McGavin on the run from a group of Man Who Fell to Earth rejects, as I did, too.
Taking a handful of stories from Bradbury’s collection of the same name was a highly ambitious project, one that was probably a little too big for the dreams of director Michael Anderson (Millennium) and star Rock Hudson (Avalanche), but they gave it their made-for-TV all and delivered The Martian Chronicles, a cinematic oddity which includes, yes, Darren McGavin (Billy Madison) running around Mars while dressed as a flashy cowboy.
Originally broadcast in three long, excruciating parts, the first night’s section deals with the landing and subsequent explorations of Mars and how Martians, for really no good reason at all, like to elaborately screw with our puny human brains. Examples of this include astronaut Nicholas Hammond (The Black Cobra 2) finding his Illinois childhood home on the red planet and astro-nut Bernie Casey (Never Say Never Again) grabbing an alien gun (for lack of a better term) and proclaiming himself as the second coming of the Martians. Or something to that effect.
Meanwhile, Hudson looks on coolly as the greatest astronaut who’s ever lived.
In part two, we find former astronaut McGavin opening up a Wild West-themed diner, promising to serve hot dogs and chili at 1970s prices to all the future immigrants. (Where and how he got these wieners and sauce is never explained, but I would’ve liked an explanation.) Sadly, no one ever comes to said eatery except for an alien offering him a deed to a portion of Martian land, whom McGavin promptly shoots. All this is done in a sparkly, spangly cowboy outfit, mind you.
Meanwhile, Hudson looks on coolly as the planet Earth explodes into nothingness.
You’d think that after such a dark revelation, things would get a little more entertaining, but instead we find an old man and his robot wife and daughter making dinner and looking to the stars while a lovelorn Christopher Connolly (Hawmps!) flies a foot-pedaled aircraft around the planet, only to find an insanely grating Bernadette Peters, practicing for her upcoming role in Heartbeeps, no doubt.
Meanwhile, Hudson looks on coolly as the temporal gates collide and time becomes a figment of our imaginations.
With workmanlike direction from Anderson, he seemed to forget all the tenuous life lessons he learned on Logan’s Run and made the most by-the-book miniseries possible, all the while barely covering the book. Well, except for that one scene where Darren McGavin goes bonkers dressed a cowboy, which is kind of the worst story in the book, but hilarious on the screen. He should have gotten his own series after that. —Louis Fowler