Strange New World
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Strange New World was a TV pilot based on concepts envisioned by Gene Roddenberry which first aired on March 23, 1975. It starred John Saxon as Captain Anthony Vico (PAX team leader), Kathleen Miller as Dr. Allison Crowley (team navigator and communications expert), and Keene Curtis as Dr. William Scott, M.D. (Team Physician/Doctor).
Strange New World was the third attempt by a production company to bring Roddenberry's dystopic future vision to the small screen. Prior efforts, entitled Planet Earth and Genesis II, explored an Earth after a nuclear war and focused on an organization called PAX that was working to bring peace and order to the world.
Although he was closely involved in the previous two incarnations, this time Gene Roddenberry opted out. As a result, the character names, as well as some of the main plot points were changed in order to avoid any potential litigation.
John Saxon himself had starred in Planet Earth, but his character name was changed (in the previous film, he had been named Dylan Hunt). The movie did, however, share the time travel to a dark future concept of Genesis II and Planet Earth. The title of the film, meanwhile, was borrowed from the famous opening monologue of Roddenberry's Star Trek.
Strange New World is considered by many observers to have been the weakest production of the three attempts to envision the world of PAX. It, like the previous attempts, was not developed into a weekly series.
Unlike the previous versions, which focused on a single cryogenically frozen survivor working for an established organisation called PAX, Strange New World had three astronauts return to Earth after being cryogenically frozen and looking to re-establish the organisation (PAX) that had sent them into space.
The opening of the movie featured an explanation of the PAX team members, and described the disaster which befell the earth (a swarm of giant asteroids) and how PAX headquarters changed the orbit of the their space station so that it would orbit the sun and return to Earth in 180 years (the amount of time that their suspended animation was extended), and what their orders were upon returning to Earth (mainly, to free the hundreds of volunteers below PAX headquarters in suspended animation), and two unrelated "episodes".
