bkoganbing Seeing 20 user comments for Otherworld is a pleasant surprise for me. I really thought I might have been the only one who remembers this unique and fascinating science fiction series. Sad that it only ran for a few episodes. I attribute that to poor marketing. With all the cable outlets now, Otherworld definitely could have survived. I can see it being a staple on the SyFy network now. The show involves the American Sterling family touring Egypt where they wander into the labyrinth of one of the pyramids and when they come out find they're in a different dimension. And of course they stand out in this Big Brother Orwellian type of planet. The idea was for them to get back home somehow.It's a thinking man's version of Land Of The Lost. The few episodes there were and I saw were intelligently written and acted by the players who were cast as the Sterlings. Father Sam Groom, Mother Gretchen Corbett, and children Tony O'Dell, Chris Hebert, and Jonna Lee were all just fine in the parts.Too bad this show didn't catch on. Everyone should write in to the SyFy Channel and beg them to buy these episodes.

Sara C I watched this because there were only meager pickings available in the sci-fi genre, but even at the time I thought it was lame. The family, meant to represent the average American family, was just plain boring. Putting boring people into interesting situations doesn't magically make those people interesting.The premise had promise, but would have worked better if it was either (1) aimed squarely at pre-adolescent children, or (2) involved a group of friends stuck in Otherworld instead of a family. Who wants to have a fantastic adventure in a strange land, but have to drag their parents along for the ride? The only episode that sticks in my mind is the rock n' roll one where the kids sing "I wanna hold your hand" on stage - one of the corniest moment in 80s TV.

wingsandsword I saw this show when it was on, for it's very short run, when I was a little kid, and even then I could see the huge plot holes.A "typical American family" touring Egypt finds a local boy who offers to show them an unauthorized tour of the Great Pyramid, on the day of an eclipse, and the boy suddenly stops in the middle of the pyramid and demands more money. When the family refuses, he extinguishes the light and leaves them alone in the Pyramid, where the eclipse happens and they are mysteriously sucked through into another dimension/world.Now, at this point it seems vaguely akin to Sliders or Stargate SG-1, which treated the concept of other worlds and ancient Egyptian space/dimensional travelers much better, however here comes the big problem.They are barely arrived in this new dimension, where they land in a huge desert with a single road going through it. A futuristic car drives up and out of it comes some strange official-type person, who tries to arrest the family and is quickly beat up, looted of some strange crystal, and the family flees.Apparently this official was a very, very high ranking leader of the "Zone Troopers" this world, and that crystal was a huge, powerful command permit that gives its wielder nigh-unlimited authority over the computer and governmental systems of this world, which turns out to be huge set of vastly different "zones" with different cultures and peoples, all policed by the "Zone Troopers". Also throw in some bit about how they are trying to go home by following a series of obelisks that have the "eye in the pyramid" sign found on US Dollar bills on them that leads to a mysterious capital city they hope can send them home.This is all in the first 10 minutes of the pilot. This leader will be a recurring nemesis as he follows them trying to get his crystal back, but like Colonel Decker of A-Team fame, he's always 3 steps behind.Now, in one of the episodes the son does poorly on a test at school and is promptly drafted into the Zone Troopers. Bad, but it's worse when he finds out that conscription is for life, unless he can excel at the training program so well he's made an Officer and is allowed to resign immediately.Suddenly, that crystal goes from being able to shut down massive power grids, rewrite any computer file, open any lock, override any command, and being nigh-godlike in the system to being ignored. The dad just says something about "I can't use that to get you out of every little problem you get yourself into, you have to take care of these things yourself." The dad just arbitrarily decides to let his son be drafted, probably for life, on an alien world just because he failed a test at school, and decides not to use the plot-device uber-permit (mainly because it would completely shortcut the episode) but it makes the dad look like a real jerk.So the show sets up that the main characters don't have to worry about the bureaucracy of the new world they find, which they decide to arbitrarily ignore early on, and make the main characters look either incompetent or uncaring. They couldn't make it 8 episodes without completely backpedaling on one of the main concepts of the show?

swood-8 I very much remember watching this show when it was on TV. The most striking thing that I remember from the show were the upside-down guns. The laser pistols on the show had the barrel underneath the stock. My friends and I used to emulate this when play gunfighting.The most memorable episode for me was the "I Want to Hold Your Hand" Rock and Roll episode. As a kid in the 80s, this was one of the first exposures (that I remember) I had to the Beatles. If my memory serves me, after this episode I went through a period of listing to my step-mom's Beatles records.I am absolutely certain that this show, if it were watched today, would invoke spontaneous retching and gagging. While I haven't actually seen it in 20 years I can be certain that this show is better left as a fond memory of quirky 80s television. Like it's quirky 80s siblings "Square Pegs" or "Silver Spoons" it most likely would NOT hold up against shows today.