Out of This World is an American fantasy sitcom about a teenage girl who is half alien, which gives her unique supernatural powers. It first aired in syndication from September 17, 1987, and ended on May 25, 1991.
During its first season, the series was originally part of NBC's Prime Time Begins at 7:30 campaign, in which the network's owned-and-operated stations would run first-run sitcoms in the 7:30–8:00 p.m. time slot to counter-program competing stations' game shows, sitcom reruns and other offerings. Out of This World was rotated with four other shows: the original series Marblehead Manor and She's the Sheriff, a syndicated revival of the 1983 sitcom We Got It Made, and a television adaptation of the play You Can't Take It with You. NBC ended the experiment after the 1987–88 season due to the low ratings put up by three of the series, which were cancelled. Out of This World was renewed, as was She's the Sheriff.
After its first season, Out of This World began airing primarily on weekends. Despite receiving mostly negative reviews from critics, it lasted three more seasons.
Contents
Show summary
The series revolves around Evie Ethel Garland, a young girl who discovers on her 13th birthday that her father Troy is an alien from the planet Antareus. Evie's half-alien heritage gives her supernatural abilities, with most of the episodes revolving around Evie misusing her powers and causing some trouble which she spends the rest of the episode fixing.
Only Evie and her family know about the alien side; many episodes depict their efforts to hide her secret from other characters. After four seasons, the series ended on a cliffhanger: Troy came to visit and Donna took his place by accident, ending up on Antareus while Troy was stranded on Earth.
Characters
Evie Ethel Garland (Maureen Flannigan) — A half-human, half-alien girl who lives with her mother Donna in Marlowe, California (a fictional analogue of Carmel-by-the-Sea), in a house overlooking the sea. An only child, Evie attends a school for gifted children that her mother runs, and achieves good grades there. Her father describes her as "the perfect child: loving; caring; with the same needs of most teenagers". The series follows Evie through her teenage years, from her 13th birthday in the pilot to her 18th birthday in the final episode. Donna had always told Evie that her father was a secret agent, but on her 13th birthday, Evie developed superhuman abilities; it was then revealed that her father is a native of another planet. Evie's most frequently used power is her ability to freeze time on Earth by touching her index-fingertips together; this allows her to alter the course of Earthly events by maneuvering herself and/or others as desired. When she claps her hands together, time resumes as normal. She can also "unfreeze" individuals by touching them while time is frozen. Evie later gains the power to gleep, which allows her to manifest objects using only her mind. On her sixteenth birthday, she is given her choice of a new power (including levitation, invisibility, and eight others) and is seen experimenting with several, but declines to make any of them permanent. For one episode near the end of the series ("Evie's Three Promises"), she gains the ability to teleport. Although she was the leading character, Flannigan was billed last in the credits. In the first season, she received the billing "And Introducing Maureen Flannigan". Starting with the second season, she received a different billing: "And Maureen Flannigan as Evie".
Donna Froelich-Garland (Donna Pescow) — Evie's mother. Described by her husband as "an ambitious working mother with a career", Donna runs a school for gifted children, which Evie attends. She later starts her own catering company, "Donna's Delights". Toward the end of season 3, Donna becomes the mayor of Marlowe. Donna is very protective of her daughter, often to the dismay of Evie, who would like to be more independent. Donna, along with her brothers Beano and Mick, are the only regular characters on the show who know Evie's secret.
Troy Garland (Burt Reynolds, voice only) — Evie's father. Troy is a human-looking extraterrestrial with many special powers, from the distant world of Antareus, where he is an astronaut. Troy met Donna when his spacecraft crashed on Earth at some point in the late 1960s or early 1970s. The two fell in love and were married in 1971; two years later, Donna gave birth to Evie. The year after that, Troy was recalled to participate in a war which raged on Antareus. Since then, Troy, while occasionally visiting Earth, stays in touch with his daughter via a special communication device known as the "cube" (see below). Troy's powers seem practically unlimited; although he lives on Antareus, he can control many things on Earth, from computers to the weather. He can also give and/or take away Evie's powers at will (as demonstrated in the second episode of the series), and is very good at keeping up with events on Earth. While Troy appears in the show's opening credits, he rarely makes a physical appearance, and when he does, his face is obscured (for example, via a surgical mask or shadows). In the series finale, when Troy arrives on Earth, he is seen in a silhouette with stars from the galaxy. Troy was credited as "himself" in the opening credits from Season Two onwards.
Cast
Maureen Flannigan as Evie Ethel Garland
Donna Pescow as Donna Froelich-Garland
Burt Reynolds as Troy Garland (voice only)
Joe Alaskey as Beano Froelich (1987–1991)
Doug McClure as Kyle Applegate
Buzz Belmondo as Buzz
Christina Nigra as Lindsay Selkirk
Steve Burton as Chris Fuller
Carl Steven as Quigley Handlesman
John Roarke as Phil (1987–1988)
Tony Crane as Jeffrey Cummings (1990)
Peter Pitofsky as Peter (1990–1991)
Tom Nolan as Mick Froelich (1990–1991)
Guest stars
The series featured several celebrities who made cameo appearances on the show, occasionally as themselves. In chronological order of appearances:
Ann Miller
Norman Fell (as Evie's psychiatrist Dr. Hauser, "The Nightmare", 1987)
Scott Carpenter (as himself, "Evie and the Young Astronauts", 1987)
Charles Nelson Reilly (as himself, "Dueling Mayors", 1987)
Betsy Palmer (as Donna's mother, "Uh, Oh... Here Comes Mother", 1987 and “AKA Dad”, 1987)
Tom Bosley (as Troy's father, "Guess Who's Coming to Earth", 1988 and "Around the World in Eighty Minutes", 1989)
Jamie Farr ("Go West, Young Mayor", 1988)
Richard Kiel (as Norman, "Go West, Young Mayor", 1988)
Scott Baio (who also directed several episodes) made a cameo appearance in "Princess Evie" (1988) and "Evie Goes For the Gold" (1989)
Lyle Alzado ("Goodbye Mr. Chris", 1990)
Mr. T ("New Kid on the Block", 1990)
Susan Anton ("Best Friends", 1990)
Tiffany ("I Want My Evie TV", 1990)
Florence Henderson ("My Mom, and Why I Love Her")
Kathleen Freeman (as Miss Ogilvy, Evie's high school teacher, "Educating Kyle", 1991)
Episodes
Opening credits
The opening credits for the series incorporated special effects footage from the 1979–1981 series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. The theme song is a modified version of "Swinging on a Star". Video snippets of parents Donna and Troy show the start of their relationship including the wedding and birth of daughter Evie. Troy's face is continuously obscured, never fully shown. The fictional town of Marlowe is shown to be adjacent to Carmel-by-the-Sea and Monterey, California with a directional traffic sign.
International airings
In France, Out of this World was aired under the name Loin de ce monde (Far From this World) as part of a block called La Une est à vous (Channel One is Yours) from September 10, 1988, until October 12, 1991, then from July to August 1992 on TF1. It was then rebroadcast from November 1994 until November 10, 1996, on M6.
In Germany, Out of this World was aired under the name Mein Vater ist ein Außerirdischer (My Father is an Alien) which aired on RTL Plus in 1989.
In Italy, Out of this World was aired under the name Cose dell'altro mondo (Things from the Other World) on Rai 1 from 1990. This was also the name of a comedy film from 2011.
In Turkey, it appeared under the name Bu Dünyanın Dışından on the channels of TRT and Star TV.
Out of This World was first broadcast in the UK on the ITV network on April 9, 1990, until 1995, and was later rerun on Trouble.
Critical reception
Discussing Out of This World, Roger Fulton stated "like many juvenile US sitcoms, the series was short on laughs and long on moralizing". The book Television Without Pity contained a review of Out of This World that described the show as "quite possibly the worst sitcom ever made-it's a complete failure on every level". The review went on to criticize the show's scripts, acting and production, and unfavorably compared Out of This World to Sabrina the Teenage Witch. The Splitsider website called Out of This World "perhaps the worst sitcom ever, or at least the most '80s sitcom ever".
Home media
A DVD set with 35 episodes from seasons 1 and 2 was released in Germany on November 8, 2011. The 6-disc set has a runtime of 875 minutes, but does not include all episodes due to music rights.
In other media
In the Universal Studios ride Kongfrontation, the news report that plays during the queue is interrupted by an ad for Out of This World, at which the screen crawl at the bottom of the ad is a civil defense message warning that King Kong is in the vicinity and for civilians to stay indoors and not use public transportation until further notice.
The show was parodied in the Robot Chicken episode, "Executed by the State". In the parody, Evie (voiced by Kat Dennings) is asked out by a boy who likes her, she uses her powers to stop time and takes a look down his pants in order to check out the size of his penis. After seeing the size of his penis, Evie says "Uhhh, pass." This is followed by canned laughter typical of sitcoms of that era. Evie then walks off with time still frozen.
Stations
As previously mentioned, during the first season, Out of This World aired on NBC's owned-and-operated stations as part of their Prime Time Begins at 7:30 experiment.