Gene Roddenberry's Maglevs

Gene Roddenberry, noted Golden Age TV scribe and creator of Star Trek had a few lean years after the projected "5 year mission, to seek out new life and new civilizations" ended prematurely after only 3 years and 78 episodes in 1969.

After Pretty Maids All In A Row at M-G-M flopped, he tried another 'sci-fi' concept called 'Genesis II' starring future Air Wolf star Alex Cord as Dylan Hunt, a 1970s man in the 22nd Century, albeit a post-Apocalyptic future where the survivors are divided into different fragmented societies, mostly backwards and technologically retarded.

Trying to keep it all together is an outfit- PAX -which lives mostly underground and goes all over the globe via the 'Sub-shuttle', essentially a Maglev that goes at incredible velocities circumnavigating the planet with the PAXians aboard bringing civilization to the savages.

Or fighting self-imposed dictators and despots, both human and mutant in far-flung fiefdoms.

Influenced heavily by H. G. Wells' 'The Time Machine', 'The Shape Of Things To Come', and even 'Buck Rogers', the proposed series had at least 22 outlines for episodes, but was turned down by CBS in favor of the then-trendy TV version of 'Planet Of The Apes'-

which barely lasted a season.

Pre-production Art for Genesis II, Planet Earth,
A year later ABC gave the go ahead for a revamped second pilot, this time renamed 'Planet Earth', with John Saxon as Dylan Hunt, and Janet Margolin as a more sexier Harper-Smythe, with Ted Cassidy returning as the Native-American warrior.

From Gene Roddenberry's Genesis II
(1973):

From Gene Roddenberry's Planet Earth

(1974)


Compare these images with the real McCoy!