Out of This World – Looking Back…

One of my favourite Sci-Fi series of the late 1980s was the Sci-Fi/Comedy series "Out of This World." The series, which premiered in September 17th 1987, starred Donna Pescow as Donna Garland, Maureen Flannigan as thirteen year old Evie Garland, Burt Reynolds as the voice of Troy (Evie's father), Steve Burton as Lindsay's boyfriend Chris Fuller, Christina Nigra as Evie's best friend Lindsay Selkirk and from 1987 to 1990 Joe Alaskey as Donna's brother Beano Froelich.

"Out of This World" aired in syndication from 1987 to 1991 and was four episodes from its '100th' episode when the series went off the air. The show told the story of a woman (Pescow) who married a man from another world (a planet called Antareus), had a child (Flannigan) and ran a school for gifted children in a town called Marlowe, California.

Evie's "gifts," which she had inherited from her father, included the ability to materialize things (by 'willing them' into reality) and the ability to "freeze time" which was one of the things she did most, literally freezing the people around her in mid sentence.

Like most TV series, through the course of it's run, the focus of "Out of This World" changed. After the first season, Lindsay and Chris became members of the regular cast instead of recurring; the audience began hearing Troy's voice whereas it had been only Evie who heard it before.

In the third season Donna ran for Mayor and defeated the reigning Mayor Kyle Applegate (portrayed by Doug McClure) and gave him the job of Chief of Police. Finally in the fourth and final season Donna's other brother Mick (portrayed by Tom Nolan) and an 'alien' named Peter (portrayed by Peter Pitofsky) were introduced.

"Out of This World" was a great series, one that has, unlike some shows, never been duplicated. One of the things I liked best about the series was how the writers portrayed the characters. They made the characters realistic enough to make them seem as though they would 'jump out of TV set.' I miss that in some of today's shows.

Of note to Steve Burton fans, as I have previously reported in my Sci-Fi TV News watch article on December 14th, he has a new Sci-Fi series coming out entitled "Taken." In "Taken" Burton portrays a WWII veteran who was abducted by aliens. The mini-series is set to begin airing in December of this year.

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