The Stranger: Lee H. Katzin

I'm really getting tired of watching poorly conceived and poorly executed sci-fi television shows re-purposed as "feature films." Between Riding with Death (1981) and Mighty Jack (1987), I don't know how much more of these films I can take. And yet, lo and behold, I have had to watch another of these made-for-TV monstrosities. This time around the film is The Stranger by Lee H. Katzin. It was originally designed as a pilot for a television show that was never picked up. Fortunately, this means that the entire film contains one coherent storyline instead of a hodge-podge of clips and scenes from a season's worth of episodes. Unfortunately, the single storyline is nothing more than a sci-fi rip-off of The Fugitive. The film follows Neil Stryker, an American astronaut who crash lands on a "twin planet," or an earth-like planet on the opposite side of the sun. This planet has followed the same evolutionary path as Strkyer's earth, even producing humans. Unfortunately, this twin earth is ruled by a dystopian government called "The Perfect Order." So Stryker needs to find a way to get back to earth without getting caught by "The Perfect Order." It's a bland, boring film with ugly cinematography. I'm glad that The Stranger never got picked up as a series. It would have been a terrible television show.

5/10