Escape from Jupiter
Entry updated 29 May 2020. Tagged: TV.
Australian tv series (1994). Film Australia. Produced by Ron Saunders. Executive producers included Ron Saunders and Kagari Tajima. Directors included Fumitaka Tamura and Kate Woods. Writers included Martin Daley, David Ogilvy, John Patterson. Cast included Steve Bisley, Anna Choy, Arthur Dignam, Abe Forsythe, Robyn MacKenzie, Justin Rosniak, Daniel Taylor and Anne Tenney. Thirteen 25-minute episodes. Colour.
Juvenile mini-series, set in the Near Future. This Space Opera begins in a mining colony on Jupiter's moon Io. Mining operations create unstable conditions and the personnel are compelled to flee to a derelict Space Station orbiting the moon. In succeeding episodes they struggle to get this space station into working order, connect it to a space tug to propel it, connect with an ore carrier ship to refuel, and desperately hope to eventually reach Earth and rescue. The science is often dubious, but the dangers are realistic and the stories move along quickly. The main characters are George Duffy (Bisley), the irascible leader; three teenagers, Michael (Taylor), Gerard (Rosniak) and Kumiko (Choy); two younger children, Kingston (Forsythe) and Anna (MacKenzie); and other adults including the Scientist Professor Ingessoll (Dignam), Helen (Tenney), a doctor and Kingston's mother, and several other parents. Along the way the refugees encounter numerous dangers, including equipment failures, explosions, and the youngsters inadvertently getting themselves into life-threatening situations. The novelization is Escape from Jupiter (1995) by David Ogilvy. A sequel mini-series was Return to Jupiter (1997). [LW]
links
previous versions of this entry