George R. R. Martin is, thanks to Game of Thrones, now recognised as one of the most successful and influential authors in television history. Yet, before he embarked on writing A Song of Ice and Fire, cycle of novels that would serve as basis for hit series, Martin’s attempt to make a mark in world of television often left a lot to be desired. One of the most intriguing of all Martin’s failures was Doorways, science fiction series that haven’t got past the pilot episode directed by Peter Werner and released in 1994 as direct-to-video feature film.
The plot begins in Los Angeles where strange woman named Cat (played by Anne Le Guernec) suddenly and inexplicably appears in the middle of motorway. The result is incident during which she gets injured and gets treatment from Dr. Thomas Mason (played by George Newbern), physician who is intrigued by some strange details like the clothes and speech pattern of her patient. Mason becomes even more curious after Cat gets taken by federal agents and brought to secret lab. Mason is brought with her for the sole purpose of gaining her trust and making her cooperate with the government. Cat, however, decides to escape and Mason agrees to help her. Cat explains that she came from the parallel universe in which Earth is rules by cruel alien invaders. She used “doorways” or portal between parallel universes and now wants to find another in order to evade her pursuers. Thomas doesn’t want to follow but he nevertheless ends with Cat in another parallel universe, very similar yet very different from our own.
Concept of parallel universes is one of the more intriguing in the genre of science fiction, but its use on screen usually requires large budgets. Executives at ABC, network that have ordered the pilot, were apparently very vary of the series’ cost and decided not to produce the series. The pilot episode, on the other hand, looks like it was made with low budget and special effects don’t look very polished, even for 1990s television standards. Bigger problem for Martin’s script can be found in some plot holes and unexplained details, like character of Cat, played by French Canadian actress Anne Le Guernec, speaking with Pidgin-like English, while her compatriots from alien world easily handle Californian accent. On the other hand, Martin wisely decided not to use desert as the setting for post-apocalyptic world in the second part of the film and instead chose somewhat plausible ecological disaster that destroyed world’s oil reserves and turned society to pre-industrial levels, very much like the one depicted in Costner’s The Postman few years later. The cast isn’t anything to write home about, with exception of Kurtwood Smith who in the role federal agents uses one of rare opportunity to play someone other than villain. Despite the usual and annoying cliffhanger at the end, made even more annoying with knowledge that it would never be resolved, Doorways is a solid television film which showed great promise. Only a year later Sliders, with all of its faults, showed that the same basic premise could be used in a successful television series. On the other hand, loss of science fiction fans in case of Doorways was high fantasy fans gain, because it is very likely that there wouldn’t have been Game of Thrones with this series in regular production.
RATING: 5/10 (++)
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