The Martian Chronicles

The Martian Chronicles

Col. John Wilder

Ruth Wilder

Major Jeff Spender (3 episodes, 1980)

Ben Driscoll (3 episodes, 1980)

Commander Arthur Black

Sam Parkhill

Father Stone

Genevieve Seltzer (3 episodes, 1980)

Elma Parkhill (3 episodes, 1980)

Anna Lustig (3 episodes, 1980)

Father Peregrine

Marilyn Becker (3 episodes, 1980)

David Lustig

General Halstead (3 episodes, 1980)

Mr. K

Christ (3 episodes, 1980)

Wise Martian

Peter Hathaway (3 episodes, 1980)

Alice Hathaway (3 episodes, 1980)

Lafe Lustig

Briggs (3 episodes, 1980)

Lavinia Spaulding (3 episodes, 1980)

Sam Hinston

Captain Conover

Sandship Martian

McClure (3 episodes, 1980)

Captain Nathaniel York (3 episodes, 1980)

Bill Wilder (3 episodes, 1980)

Narrator (3 episodes, 1980)

Marie Wilder (2 episodes, 1980)

A 90 minutes version, edited out of three episodes of the series, was theatrically released in France a year before the complete version was weekly aired on television.

The miniseries was originally scheduled for release in September 1979 as a major kickoff to the 1979-80 season. Unfortunately, it fell victim to some negative publicity from Ray Bradbury himself. Although Bradbury had worked with scriptwriter Richard Matheson in adapting his book to the small screen, he was less than thrilled with the final production. At one point, shortly before the miniseries' scheduled release, Bradbury found himself the sole representative of the production at a press conference. When one reporter asked him what he thought of the miniseries, he responded candidly, "Booooooooring!" NBC soon shelved the miniseries and did not air it until January 1980.

Robert Powell was asked to play the Jon Finch cameo

In the final sequence, the image of the Wilder family, reflected in the canal, is NOT a mirror image of the family.

[Probably intentional] People on Mars move about in normal Earth gravity, but Mars has only about 38% of the gravitational pull of Earth.

Characters on Mars talk to characters on Earth with no perceptible delay in communication. Even at their closest approach, signals would take at least 3 minutes to travel the distance between Mars and Earth.

Maj. Jeff Spender: You know, a race creates itself for a million years, refines itself, does everything it can to give itself respect and beauty, and then it dies - part in its own time, with dignity as it should be, but the other part... Does it perish of some majestic affliction? No, it doesn't. It dies of a disease that does not kill the youngest child on Earth. It's like saying that the Greeks died of mumps. Or the Roman Empire was decimated by athlete's foot.

Maj. Jeff Spender: I just believe in things that were done. And there were so many things done here. Streets and houses and books and big canals and clocks and places with names - things that were used and touched for centuries. And I don't see how we could ever use them without feeling uncomfortable. Oh, we could change the names, but the old names will still be there. So no matter how we touch Mars, we won't be able to really touch it. See, that'll make us angry. We'll get mad at that and just rip it up. We'll change it to suit ourselves. And ruin it. Just like we've ruined Earth.