Salvage/salvage-1

[LitaAlto]

Maybe I'm just revealing my age here....

But do any of you remember a brief ABC (US) series called SALVAGE-1 and its movie-length pilot, SALVAGE?

The pilot was better than the series, in many ways, but the whole thing was really intriguing to me as a kid.

In short, in the pilot: A junk dealer (played by Andy Griffith) recruits a former astronaut and an explosives expert to build a soft-landing SSTO out of junk, fly it to the Moon, and salvage the remnants of Apollo 11.

After the pilot the show suffered from the whims of network executives, who admittedly didn't want to pay for space SFX every episode, and it became more of a treasure-hunt kind of show. I think they only went back to space once....

While the show was fairly unrealistic in some aspects--we're nowhere near perfecting SSTOs, getting a little better at soft landings, etc.--it was still very well done for its time. Isaac Asimov was the show's scientific advisor, and that meant far less hand-waving than, say, the typical Star Trek episode. Discussions of fuel mixtures and orbital mechanics can be found in the pilot, and it's satisfyingly geeky.

But most relevant--I can't help but look at Harry Broadrick, Andy Griffith's character, and see shades of Jebediah Kerman in there. Jebediah Kerman's Junkyard and Spaceship Parts Co. seems to owe a bit of a debt to Jettison Scrap and Salvage Co. And both Harry and Jeb have a similar outlook: They might not know how to build rockets, but they can find people who do, and when they do, ROCKETS WILL BE FLOWN.

Anyhow, if you remember the show, post your favorite memories here.

[ZedNova]

Yeah I've seen that, it's hilarious how silly it is. But it's entertaining.

[LitaAlto]

Yeah I've seen that, it's hilarious how silly it is. But it's entertaining.

It really got silly in the series. They used a spaceship to... talk a Japanese WWII soldier into surrendering? WAIT WHAT.