When I was in college, I saw previews for this weird show and I
thought it must somehow be related to the gaming magazine.
Unfortunately, I never saw it and it never became a series. Last week (May 2012), I
finally saw the show.
The story opens on the planet Rusta around the year 3000 AD. Our hero, Driscoll Rampart (Neal McDonough), is a visiting doctor who has been posted from Earth for a 6 month internship. Rusta revolves around a white dwarf but the planet, does not rotate. Half the planet is in perpetual darkness and half is in constant light. The planet is livable only thanks to metal spheres in the atmosphere that make it so. Oddly, the strange spheres predate human arrival on the planet and are attributed to an unknown ancient race. The folk on the day side of the world appear to have a mid to late 19th century lifestyle; I was often reminded of the Old West. Rampart arrives at the clinic in a stagecoach and a posse was armed with pathetic pistols that Wyatt Earp would have been embarrassed to own. The dark side of the planet is more primitive still with the people wielding swords and crossbows. It is interesting to note that the two sides are fighting a low-level war which mostly involves darksiders raiding into the light and killing farmers.
Rampart meets Dr. Akada (Paul Winfield), the resident physician, who has the power to take life with a primal scream and performs surgery with red gloves that allow him to reach through flesh and into a body, like one of those psychic surgery quacks. The clinic seems to also serve as an orphanage. There are twin sisters - one of whom has unnaturally aged - who were orphaned in the opening of the show. Then there is the oddly named Never, a boy who happens to be a shape shifter.
The folk of Rusta worship a pair of divine sisters - one in white, the other in black - who appear to Rampart early on. He thinks he's hallucinating but others see him as blessed. But the weirdness doesn't stop there. There is a prison where the warden is a bizarre large-headed creature. This odd warden can grant immortality by feeding someone his saliva. He has done this to Lady X, a prisoner with whom he has fallen in love.
On the dark side, the king's daughter, Princess Ariel (not the mermaid), seems destined to connect with Dr. Rampart at some point in the proposed series. They share several scenes where each shows clear interest in the other. Plus, both of them have seen the divine sisters.
This is less than half of the strangeness of this show. Having seen it, I am not really surprised it failed to evolve into a series. It is just too bizarre. It is posted on YouTube:
The story opens on the planet Rusta around the year 3000 AD. Our hero, Driscoll Rampart (Neal McDonough), is a visiting doctor who has been posted from Earth for a 6 month internship. Rusta revolves around a white dwarf but the planet, does not rotate. Half the planet is in perpetual darkness and half is in constant light. The planet is livable only thanks to metal spheres in the atmosphere that make it so. Oddly, the strange spheres predate human arrival on the planet and are attributed to an unknown ancient race. The folk on the day side of the world appear to have a mid to late 19th century lifestyle; I was often reminded of the Old West. Rampart arrives at the clinic in a stagecoach and a posse was armed with pathetic pistols that Wyatt Earp would have been embarrassed to own. The dark side of the planet is more primitive still with the people wielding swords and crossbows. It is interesting to note that the two sides are fighting a low-level war which mostly involves darksiders raiding into the light and killing farmers.
Rampart meets Dr. Akada (Paul Winfield), the resident physician, who has the power to take life with a primal scream and performs surgery with red gloves that allow him to reach through flesh and into a body, like one of those psychic surgery quacks. The clinic seems to also serve as an orphanage. There are twin sisters - one of whom has unnaturally aged - who were orphaned in the opening of the show. Then there is the oddly named Never, a boy who happens to be a shape shifter.
The folk of Rusta worship a pair of divine sisters - one in white, the other in black - who appear to Rampart early on. He thinks he's hallucinating but others see him as blessed. But the weirdness doesn't stop there. There is a prison where the warden is a bizarre large-headed creature. This odd warden can grant immortality by feeding someone his saliva. He has done this to Lady X, a prisoner with whom he has fallen in love.
On the dark side, the king's daughter, Princess Ariel (not the mermaid), seems destined to connect with Dr. Rampart at some point in the proposed series. They share several scenes where each shows clear interest in the other. Plus, both of them have seen the divine sisters.
This is less than half of the strangeness of this show. Having seen it, I am not really surprised it failed to evolve into a series. It is just too bizarre. It is posted on YouTube:
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