Our trio come to the society of Omicron, a name which seems more on the nose in 2022 than it presumably did in 1972, and there, good heavens, they encounter actual acting. John Colicos and Barry Morse are guest starring, and they show up the regular cast something rotten as they deliver a masterclass in how to do space melodrama.
Omicron is an all-male society, which loses its collective mind at the sight of Rachel. This was the premise of one of my favourite episodes of LEXX, but sadly this is The Starlost, so instead of throwing a joyous life-affirming bisexual sex party, they want her to marry John Colicos.
The script is also at pains to assure us there’s nothing remotely gay about Omicron, well, apart from John Colicos watching lithe and handsome young men perform aerobics displays, but there’s nothing gay about that at all, no, no.
This story actually has a narrative heart, namely a power struggle between charismatic strong-man leader John Colicos, and Barry Morse as a seemingly feeble peacenik high priest who is nonetheless rather cleverly finding ways of undermining him. Including manipulating him into fighting a duel over Rachel with Devon, who wins (through the power of his plot armour), and the society winds up taking an unexpected turn.
Which just goes to show that in the hands of the right performers, this series could be not half bad. My theory is that the director was mostly leaving the actors to themselves, the two junior members of the hero trio were taking their cues from Keir Dullea’s monotonous performance, and the guest stars were either underplaying it, as in most episodes, or thinking, “screw it, let’s milk this to the hilt,” as Colicos and Morse are clearly doing here. With hindsight, this is quite possibly my favourite episode of The Starlost, inasmuch as terms such as “favourite” apply in this case.
This episode was “based on a story by Ursula K. Le Guin,” who went on to write some other things.
A Doctor Of Many Things 