An Exercise In Nonsense

It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

I liked the way that people would expect Starman to be a jerk (because the guy who's body he copied was kind of a jerk), but he would end up inspiring hope in everyone. I was impressed with how he handled his captor, George Fox, in the next to last episode.In the motion picture, I always felt that it was wrong for Starman to get Jennie Hayden pregnant and just leave her. The TV series sort of helped to redeem that.It made sense that, as an alien, he had a completely fresh perspective on things, and thus was a very creative photographer.The stories were all set in the southwest U.S. The scene of Starman first emerging in Paul's body was cool.A unique show that appeals to lovers of peace & social justice. I remember seeing a bumper sticker after it was cancelled: "Starman will return in a moment." The show was something new under the sun.

I was 14 years old when "Starman" the TV series premiered and I loved the show from the get-go. It was helpful that CB Barnes was a bit of a babe but it was the quality of writing on the show that kept me watching every week. In fact, I was so disappointed when they kept switching the time-slot that I was not surprised when they canceled it. In fact, I was incredibly upset because they kept really pathetic shows on the air and gave "Starman" the shaft.Funny enough, there were enough people that felt the same as me that there were "Blue Lights" clubs all over North America that wrote angry letters and petitions to have "Starman" continue. After months of fighting, it was clear that ABC had no intention of giving it the opportunity it deserved. If anyone knows how I could buy the two seasons that "Starman" was on the air, please let me know. I would love to add this series to my DVD collection and finally give it the credit it deserves.

I remember one show with Ami Dolenz when Scott Hayden was actually attending a high school. She starred in that 80's movie with Tony Danza, "She Drives Me Crazy". She was like Christie Brinkley beautiful,as in drop-dead-gorgeous and a "dream-of-her-many-a-night-hottie" only closer to my age. Thankfully we had just gotten a VCR the year before, so I was able to watch it over and over again. I also remember that they used Huey Lewis' "The Heart of Rock and Roll" which quickly became my favorite song. It had the perfect tragic ending with Scott and his dad being forced to leave because the bad guys began to close in. I remember thinking I would not have left Ami Dolenz for any reason. But then again, my father has never truly been an alien. At least that I am aware of.

"Starman" was a good, quality series. I loved this show back in 1986, and I became so used to the Robert Hays version of Starman that I remember when I looked up the 1984 Jeff Bridges/Karen Allen movie, I had a hard time accepting Bridges as Starman. And I wasn't as blown away by Bridges performance as others seem to have been. Bridges's was actually nominated for an Academy Award in acting in that 1984 John Carpenter film.Robert Hays does an excellent job bringing the Starman back to life. Starman isn't as uncomfortable with his human body as he was in the film, and Hays brings a great gentleness and warmth to the character. Hays doesn't try and copy Bridges, but he brings a different but similar take on the Starman character. Like Bridges, Hays plays the character as if he has an IQ of 60, but at the same time possesses the genius of Albert Einstein, Mahatma Ghandi, and Stephen Hawking combined. But thankfully Hays doesn't do the annoying bird like head movements Bridges does, and he doesn't speak with the motor neuron time delay that Bridges did in the film. You can believe that this is the same alien from the movie, but one that has learned things from his first time on Earth. He's still innocent and naive, but he's been around the block a bit more. In the pilot, Hays briefly played Paul Forrester, the photographer Starman cloned to use as a human body. There was a great contrast in the performances of Forrester and Starman as Forrester. So if Bridges could be nominated for an Oscar, why couldn't Hays have been nominated for any Emmy?I also prefered the TV series to the movie because the show was far more funny and lighthearted then the dreary and depressing movie. I think a lot of this has to do with the addition of Starman's 14 year old son Scott Hayden, played wonderfully by Christopher Daniel Barnes. In the movie, Starman gives Jenny the sphere and tells her "the baby will know what to do with". We get this sense that the baby will be born a genius and be just like Starman, a weird alien. But Scott is just a typical human kid that has a hard time accepting he is half alien. Back then, Barnes was was known as "C.B. Barnes", who for a while was a very low level teen heartthrob. In the 1990s Barnes got some mild fame playing Greg Brady in the "Brady Bunch" movies and doing the voice of Spider-Man in the Spidey animated series. Sure the John Carpenter/Jeff Bridges movie had some funny moments, but I felt that the movie was really depressing and gloomy. It was just this gigantic tragic road love story with such sad, sad, SAD music. The TV series has Scott Hayden to let the air out of it all and there are some hilarious exchanges here between Scott, his father and the people they come across in their quest for Jenny Hayden. I highly recommend this funny, warm and intelligently written series. It was a shame that ABC gave this series the shaft after just 1 year and 22 episodes. They never gave the show any good time slots anyway. They were always yanking "Starman" around on different nights, and always putting the series up against the heavyweights of the day like "Dynasty" or something like that. Yes Sci-Fi channel IS airing "Starman". It comes on Sunday/Monday morning at 2 AM Eastern/1 AM Central.