Plymouth (1991 TV Movie) User Reviews

The Plymouth Rock is actually the Plymouth Moon.

[mark.waltz · 7/10 · 29 March 2024]

It's interesting that science fiction films set in outer space are known as space operas, and when mixed with soap opera twists, it gives a double dose of operatic elements (minus the singing of course) to the movie or TV show it is presented on. This well done combination of both deals with an entire town who over a five year period is reunited on their new civilization on the moon, named after the town they lived in back on earth that was destroyed by radiation.

One of the first people to leave the town is devoted mother Cindy Pickett who discovers that she is pregnant and thus cannot return to earth when it's time to go back. If she did her baby may not be able to read adapt to life on a different structure than the one it was raised on. Among the town's people involved in her crisis are the mayor Richard Hamilton and the wise Anne Haney, who was pretty much a surrogate mother to everyone she knows.

Intelligently written but probably too complex for the length of the movie due to too many characters (as this was a serious pilot), this is nevertheless is intriguing and well produced. Fran Bennett is good as a scientist on earth who keeps in touch with the space station and helps protect it from possible disaster.

One funny scene has her talking to the president of the United States and having to end the conversation very quickly due to a possible emergency, bluntly hanging up on him. This does seem open-ended but I wonder in hindsight how much material they could drag out of this premise. They should have definitely wrapped a few things up before airing this as it feels literally left up in the air.

"Remember that TV movie about miners on the moon?"

[rdfranciscritic · 7/10 · 26 January 2023]

Did you hear the one about the 8 million dollar TV movie -- the most expensive ever made (in part by ABC-TV) -- that no one watched? Well, they watched, but forgot all about it, soon after. Then they wracked their brains years later trying to remember the film, scouring the Internet to find it?

Well, it wasn't a tween-teen fever dream. The film is real. And it was made a lot later than you remember, because you're remembering Earth II (1971), itself another, well-made TV movie pilot (and overseas theatrical) produced by MGM-Warner Brothers for ABC-TV. So, yes, in 1990, you really did read an article about Plymouth's production in Starlog Magazine -- complete with that memory-haunting, (now, easily Googled) black and white production still of miners decked out in Alien (1979)-styled miner-space suits exiting a pressure hatch (also, the lead, here isn't Gary Lockwood, but the always likable Dale Midkiff).

Plymouth -- which debuted on Sunday, May 26, 1991 -- was a co-production between ABC-TV, Walt Disney Studios (their Touchstone PIctures arm), and Italy's Rai uno radiotelevisione. As result of Rai's involvement, Plymouth played as a theatrical feature (?) in the Eurasian marketplace. It eventually turned up on European television (in the UK in July 2001), and as a Spanish-language Argentinian VHS. After its stateside debut on ABC-TV, Plymouth replayed once more as part of ABC-TV's "The Wonderful World of Disney" that aired on Sunday nights (which ended production in 1997).

Then, Plymouth vanished from stateside television. It's never been syndicated for UHF-TV nor for the retro-channels, such as the sci-fi-centric Comet. While DVDs are in the market, they're grey market DVDr, since Plymouth has never officially been issued to VHS or DVD in the United States.

During a 1998 interview regarding the 30th anniversary of 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), actor Gary Lockwood, who starred in Earth II, said he hated working on the ABC-TV project due to "its complexities." And that's the problem with Plymouth: too complex (expensive) for its own good. Lockwood, of course, was referring to Earth II's plotting -- and Plymouth has its plot complexities. So, yeah, this isn't Gerry Anderson's Space: 1999 or its predecessor, UFO: so no goofy aliens, here. But Plymouth is dangerously close to Battlestar Galactica territory via its plot and character department.

Sure, Plymouth, like Earth II, is a "hard science fiction" piece that deals with the physical and psychological challenges facing the first moon base colony that populated by the citizens of a Northwestern US mining-timber town displaced by a corporation's Chernobyl-Love Canal-styled disaster. UNIDAC, the company responsible, also operates a financially-failing helium-3 mining operation on the moon. A deal is stuck: the citizens of Plymouth, Oregon, will move to the moon and run the operation.

Plymouth completed production in 1990, remained shelved for year, and then was passed over as a series replacement. ABC-TV declined to purchase the series because, "It just didn't meet our needs." (And they probably knew another BSG flop when they saw one.)

While the production values are stellar (Lockheed served as tech advisors), and the writing (from director Lee David Zlotoff of TV's MacGyver fame) and acting are on equal: this is all too "Battlestar Galactica on the moon," with little action and too much human yakity-yak drama: e.g., a UNIDAC worker and Plymouth citizen (the town's female doctor) engage in forbidden love that lead to an outlawed pregnancy, teen-bickering love, a souped-up moon buggy prototype (no, not Brad Pitt's Ad Astra!), and the mischievous son of the town's now pregnant doctor as the series' resident "Boxey," skirting (weekly, if this went to series) security protocols, as he finds himself (and a young Joseph Gordon-Levitt) trapped in construction-mining tunnel. Oh, and a solar flair hits the moon, which increases cancer risks. You see where this is going: no space battles, no aliens. But, eventually: juvenile delinquent moon buggy racing.

If Plymouth did go to series -- as did NBC-TV's 1993 to 1996 Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea reimaging, seaQuest DSV (by producer Steven Spielberg and writer Rockne S. O'Bannon) -- it would have, in order to survive in the ratings, ditch its "hard science" trappings for aliens, etc. (and SQV brought on a talking dolphin!), which caused Roy Scheider quitting that show. Yeah, Plymouth probably would have gone "Daggit," too, for the kids, and brought on the eventual human androids kerfuffles.

Over on B&S About Movies, you can find reviews of Earth II, Space: 1999, and UFO, as part of a "Movies in Outer Space" theme week, if you're looking for those hard-to-find films to watch. You can find each review link under "Critic Reviews," here, on the IMDb.

Thought this would be a turkey but pleasantly surprised

[llarian-3 · 1 July 2001]

Plymouth aired today (July 1, 2001) in the UK. Thought the premise sounded pretty dopey, but it wasn't too bad after all. All the way through it, I was thinking "Picket Fences in Space" and that's kind of what it turned into, but it was in no way offensive. I guess it was a pilot for a TV series, but if they ever made one, it never aired in UK. Dale Midkiff is suitably square-jawed as the hero, Gil. Great to see some sci-fi that doesn't have bumpy-headed aliens!

Great memories

[Fugitive93 · 9/10 · 16 March 2001]

I saw this movie when it premiered because it looked like a change of pace from the usual TV-Movie. It turns out I was right. It is nothing amazing, but it is an inventive, diverting step u from the usual made for TV sci-fi garbage. Dale Midkiff is a winning hero, Joseph Gordon Levitt alludes to the range he would eventually show on 3rd Rock and in 10 Things I Hate About You. The whole package is nicely cheesy and boasts decent special effects. I wish this would get released to video or DVD so I could see it again. I overtaped my copy back in '98. Fun Movie 9/10

More Sci than Fi

[bjarne-fich · 8/10 · 25 April 2014]

Sometimes you come by a movie, that try to show how the world would look in the future. This story of "the first moon base" is moving in a gentle and realistic tempo. Its not an action movie, but tries to be a vision of how thing may be in the future. The style (cloth, hair, big head set, keyboards etc.) in the movie is typical 1990 - so it has this old time kind of look, but a part from that its a really enjoyable movie. So if you would like to see a (fairly) realistic vision of the future, you will enjoy this. As the title shows, this could be the story of an ordinary American mining city - just on the moon - with the twists in the plots that comes with it.

Great TV Movie

[chasedc · 5 October 2003]

I thought that this was a well written movie, better than most made for TV sci-fi. I thought that it made living on the moon look very believable. I wish it would get released to DVD before something happens to my VHS copy.

good clean movie that needs to be shown again

[Thumpit · 25 February 2003]

I enjoyed the movie as its a world we can "dream" of with a smile. someday we will have a similar reality of the aspect of "living" in space. I used to have a fuzzy tape of it when it aired and now that tape gotten destroyed. it would be great to see it again and "dream"