Rod Serling would be proud.
The writer-producer pioneered fantasy-themed television anthologies with "The Twilight Zone,” so he'd likely support "Masters of Science Fiction,” a four-part ABC series premiering at 9 p.m. Saturday. With noted physicist Stephen Hawking as off-camera narrator, the commendably cerebral show dramatizes short stories by such acclaimed authors as Harlan Ellison and Robert Heinlein.
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First up is director Mark Rydell's ("On Golden Pond”) version of John Kessel's futuristic "A Clean Escape,” giving Sam Waterston a rare role outside "Law & Order” as a seemingly amnesiac, post-apocalypse patient of a psychiatrist (Judy Davis, "The Starter Wife”). She's more insistent on unlocking his memory than a shrink normally might be, keeping him wary of her agenda.
"It was Judy Davis and the script and the fact that my manager was (co-producing) it,” Waterston says of filming the project during his hiatus last summer. "I can't say I'm any great expert on science fiction, but I enjoy it. I loved ‘The Twilight Zone,' and this show has that sort of twist at the end. There's an awful lot of science fiction in our general entertainment now, so I don't know if it's as separate a genre as it used to be.”
For its sci-fi trappings, "A Clean Escape” is a two-character piece in the best theatrical tradition. "In order to sustain that for an hour,” Rydell says, "the actors have to have great variety and depth. The issues the story deals with are so enormous, the actors have to be brilliant not to be intimidated by such material. It's also a real challenge for the director to maintain visual interest and not let things get static.”
Upcoming on "Masters of Science Fiction”: Howard Fast's "The Awakening,” with Terry O'Quinn ("Lost”) and "Law & Order” alumna Elisabeth Rohm in a tale of a strange casualty near Baghdad; Heinlein's "Jerry Was a Man,” featuring Anne Heche ("Men in Trees”) and Malcolm McDowell in the saga of a wealthy couple and their new, semihuman household addition; and Ellison's "The Discarded,” casting Brian Dennehy, John Hurt and James Denton ("Desperate Housewives”) in a story of minorities banished to outer space.
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