Out of This World (TV series)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Out of This World

Title screen
Format Sci-Fi Teen comedy
Created by Steven Kunes
Starring Maureen Flannigan
Donna Pescow
Doug McClure
Joe Alaskey
Steve Burton
Christina Nigra
Burt Reynolds
(voice of Troy)
Country of origin Flag of the United States United States
No. of episodes 96
Production
Running time 25 min.
Broadcast
Original channel Syndication
Original run September 17, 1987May 25, 1991
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Out Of This World is a children's television comedy series about a teenage girl who is half alien, which gives her unique supernatural powers. It first aired in U.S. syndication on September 17, 1987 and ended on May 25, 1991. It was first broadcast in the UK on April 9th, 1990, usually on mornings during school holidays.

Contents

[edit] Plot summary

The series revolves around Evie Ethel Garland, a young girl living in Marlowe, California, who discovers on her thirteenth birthday that her father isn't a secret agent, as her mother had always told her. In fact, her father is an alien named Troy, from the planet Antareus, who married her mother and "merged lifeforms" to create Evie. Evie's half-alien heritage allows her to use supernatural abilities, which her father can give and take away at will. Most of the episodes revolve around Evie misusing her powers and causing some trouble, which she spends the rest of the show trying to fix.

Evie's mother, Donna Garland, runs a school for gifted children, which Evie also goes to. Later on, Donna becomes the mayor of Marlowe.

The cast includes Evie's human uncle Beano Froelich, her surfer boyfriend Chris Fuller, and ex-actor turned mayor Kyle Applegate.

The show's theme song is an adapted version of Bing Crosby's "Swinging on a Star", a number one hit on the Billboard magazine music charts in the summer of 1944.

[edit] Evie's powers

  • Evie's main power is the ability to freeze time for other earthlings (while time continues for her and her dad) by joining two fingers, during which she maneuvers herself or objects to alter the course of events on Earth. When she claps her hands together, time resumes as normal. She can also "unfreeze" individuals by touching them while time is frozen. In the opening sequence, she opens a door and knocks an open can of paint off a ladder, and then joins her fingers to stop it mid-fall.
  • Evie can also gleep, which allows her to manifest objects by using the power of her mind. There are certain restrictions on this power, such as the inability to create complicated machinery, and overuse of this power will cause her other abilities to stop functioning.
  • Evie has the ability to instantly teleport herself from one place to another, by snapping her fingers.
  • In an episode that centres around Evie's 16th birthday, her father gives her the choice between several new powers as a gift. Each one proves to be too much of a burden (such as "looking into someone's eyes and telling them to do something while thinking the word obey, and they would obey"); she ultimately chooses the power to "change shoes quickly".

[edit] Main cast

Actor Role
Maureen Flannigan Evie Ethel Garland
Donna Pescow Donna Garland
Doug McClure Kyle Applegate
Joe Alaskey Beano Froelich
Buzz Belmondo Buzz
Steve Burton Chris Fuller
Christina Nigra Lindsay Selkirk
Burt Reynolds (voice) Troy Garland of Antareus

[edit] Trivia

  • The English band Fine Young Cannibals were featured in an episode of this show.
  • Director Scott Baio appeared in an episode called "Princess Evie".
  • Pop singer Tiffany made a guest appearance as herself in 1991 during the episode "I Want My Evie TV".
  • The character Chris Fuller is played by Steve Burton. Burton had a role in the Sci-Fi miniseries Taken, which revolved around a young girl whose great-grandfather was an alien. The girl has some powers similar to Evie's, such as the ability to stop time.
  • While Troy appears in the opening sequence of the show, he is depicted only rarely during the course of the series. In all cases, his face is mostly hidden (for example, via a surgical mask or shadows). His voice is usually heard coming from a special communication device that he left on Earth.
  • The show's opening uses a few elements from the 1970s version of Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. The two ships flying by at the start of the intro were two Terran starfighters, which Buck and his partner, Wilma Deering, were famous for flying. The alien city on Antareus was really a shot of a city on Earth. One of the buildings was Defense Directorate headquarters, where Buck and Wilma got their assignments from Dr. Huer; another building was, presumably, Buck's apartment. The masters of Antareus, however, wore robes similar to the Time Lords from Doctor Who.
  • During the second season of the program, actress Donna Pescow became pregnant. Since it couldn't be explained how her character became pregnant while her husband was away fighting a war, Pescow was filmed using only close-up shots or staged so something was hiding her pregnancy.

[edit] External links