ALL SCI-FI

[Pow]

Wikipedia: The New People ran on the ABC Network from September 22, 1969 until January 12, 1970 for a total of 17-episodes. Interestingly, the running time for this series was unique as it ran for 45-minutes.

The show was created by Larry Gordon & Aaron Spelling, and developed by Rod Serling.

Synopsis: A group of college students are returning from a trip in Southeast Asia when their passenger jet crashes on a remote island in the south Pacific Ocean.

With the exception of the badly injured pilot, all the adults and several of the students are killed. The pilot dies later on.

The island the survivors are stranded on is a site for potential above-ground nuclear bomb testing which has never taken place. Buildings have been constructed to represent a mid-size city.

There are also (improbably) supplies stored in the buildings.

The students were originally on a Goodwill Tour for the United States State Department. It all went awry when one of the students disrupted it, feeling that what they were doing was fake and a way to gloss over what was happening in Vietnam.

The pilot script was written by Rod Serling under the pseudonym John Phillips.

The theme music was performed by The First Edition.

The series reflected the youth counterculture of the 1960s with all its anger, frustrations, and mistrust of the U.S.

Rod Serling always wrote about issues that mattered and were controversial. So I could see his attraction to a show like this that would explore such material.

[Bud Brewster]

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I haven't yet found a good poster for this series or a decent YouTube version, so I'll just thank Pow for making us aware of the series.
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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)

[Krel.]

For some reason my Dad liked this show. I wonder if he was waiting to see if it would end with "The Bomb" being dropped on the island.

David.

[Bud Brewster]

[Pow]

Upon re-reading about TNP at Wikipedia, I discovered some other interesting items about the series.

Rod Serling stated that it was Producer Aaron Spelling's show, as "He brought me the idea and I wrote the pilot script. Beyond that, I have nothing to do with it. The show is somewhere between Gilligan's Island and San Francisco State. It may work. But not with me."

Sidebar: For some reason I thought that it was Rod's idea, and that he was executive producing the show. His rather snarky comment about the series being "somewhere between Gilligan's Island & San Francisco State," seems to imply he did not have much respect for the series. I don't know why he wasn't asked on board by AS to produce & write the show. Certainly AS knew Rod's esteemed reputation as a highly talented and respected writer. Perhaps Rod was asked and declined. The two men might have had different visions as to what direction the show would go in. Perhaps Rod just didn't want to take on the brutal shooting schedule, the work, and the ong hours of another television series after his own Twilight Zone.

Wikipedia: The concept of having all the adults killed off and leaving only the young people to survive was not a new one. Author William Golding wrote about this theme in his classic 1954 novel Lord of the Flies.

Star Trek: TOS produced the episode "Miri" on October 27, 1966. On that episode, the Enterprise crew discovers a twin Earth where all the adults have perished due to a biological plague that was accidentally released when that civilization sought to prolong their lifespan.

Flight 29 Down ran for 3 seasons (October 1, 2005 to August 25, 2007), for a total of 26 episodes and 1 film on the Discovery Kids network. The plane carrying a group of teens on the way to Palu for an eco-adventure camping trip, crashes on an island located in the Federated States of Micronesia.

Lost ran on ABC from September 22, 2004 until May 23, 2010. A passenger plane crashes onto a mysterious island in . . . you guessed it . . . the South Pacific.