WALTER KOENIG R.I.P. – THE STARLOST (1973)

WALTER KOENIG ON THE STARLOST (1973) – Fair solar winds and following seas to the late Walter Koenig. Since everybody else has been covering his Star Trek role Pavel Chekov or his movie Moon Trap, Balladeer’s Blog will instead review his two episodes as the alien named Oro on the Canadian sci-fi series The Starlost in 1973.

Back in 2011 I reviewed that Harlan Ellison-created program as part of my Forgotten Television blog posts. The Starlost starred Keir Dullea and featured an enormous, miles-long spaceship of Earthlings looking for a new home planet after a disaster.

I only mentioned Koenig’s two appearances in one sentence in that review, but now I’ll do a deeper look. 

EPISODE TEN: THE ALIEN ORO (November 3rd, 1973) – Brace yourself for a villainous Walter Koenig speaking without a Russian accent.

In this first of his two appearances, the spaceship of the humanoid alien Oro crashes into one of the many biospheres on the enormous space ark transporting Earth’s survivors. The computer alerts the show’s main character Devon (Keir Dullea), who takes his love interest Rachel (Gay Rowan) and his hot-headed sidekick Garth (Robin Ward) with him to investigate the damage.

Arriving at the site, our heroes find Oro cannibalizing parts of the space ark to try repairing his own, much smaller vessel (wessel?). He has recruited the Earthling Idona (Alexandra Bastedo) from a nearby biosphere to help him. She is willing to do so because Oro promised to take her with him when he flies back to his home planet Exar, where he claims his people can cure Idona of the disease she is slowly dying from.   

Oro may be lying to her and he callously refuses Devon’s request that he help them repair the space ark and change course from the star that the ark is on course to collide with in a few years.

NOTE: The continuing plot of The Starlost was that the original crew had died mysteriously and none of the space ark civilians knew how to alter course, so eventual doom was in the air. 

Oro is at odds with Devon over stealing parts of the ark without permission and not caring about the countless Earthlings on board. He’s at odds with Garth because Garth gets the hots for Idona.

SPOILERS: Ultimately, Oro repairs his ship and flies off for Exar, claiming he feels a bit guilty over not helping the doomed passengers of the space ark. Go to hell, Oro.

EPISODE THIRTEEN: THE RETURN OF ORO (December 15th) – Oro returns from Exar, claiming that his world’s rulers have given him permission to fix the space ark’s master computer and fly the ark to the area around Exar.

Given Oro’s cold-blooded “So long, suckers!” attitude during most of his previous appearance, Devon, Rachel and Garth are suspicious. In the end, Devon flushes out Oro’s true intentions by winning a debate with the alien (just go with it) – a debate moderated by a robot found in one of the hundreds of biospheres on the ark.

It turns out that Oro’s masters on Exar want the space ark delivered to them so they can disassemble all of its parts for their own use. Our heroes prevent Oro from setting course for Exar, so his masters sentence him to death for failing in his mission.

The wiley alien evades Devon and company and escapes to the miles of corridors on the space ark, posing a potential menace in future episodes. The series only lasted 18 episodes however, and Oro never appeared again.

By 1980 the two Starlost episodes with Oro in them were packaged together as if they were a movie. 

*** The special effects on The Starlost were as low budget as those on Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker episodes of Doctor Who. That, plus the generally poor writing and mostly dull storylines meant it never attracted the huge cult following of shows like the original Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica.

Farewell, Walter Koenig! You’ll be missed.