Cliffhangers: “The Secret Empire”"

During the 1979 midseason NBC premiered an unusual hour-long series consisting of a trio of twenty-minute serials. Each serial, broadcast in “chapters,” ended in a cliffhanger that was resolved in the following week’s episode. NBC had high hopes for the series, which was heavily promoted by the network. The Secret Empire is best remembered for switching between black & white (or sepia tone, really) and color; it dealt with an advanced alien society living below the desert.

Critics were not impressed with Cliffhangers, commenting on the fact that serials were intended to be shown in movie theaters between feature films — trying to create a series based on filler wasn’t a great idea [1]. Of the three “serials” that made up Cliffhangers, it was The Secret Empire that was most like the movie theater serials of the early twentieth century.

The Secret Empire was set in 1880 and starred Geoffrey Scott as Marshal Jim Donner, who stumbled upon a vast alien civilization below the surface of the Earth. Thus, it was easily the strangest of the three serials that made up Cliffhangers. It took place in Cheyenne during the 1880s and involved a race of powerful alien humanoids living miles below the surface of the Earth. Their city, known as Chimera, was controlled by the evil Emperor Thorval (Mark Lenard).

In a rather unusual move, the portions of the serial that took place in Cheyenne were broadcast in black & white, while the portions of the serial that took place below the surface in Chimera were shown in color. But all that pales in comparison to the oddest aspect of The Secret Empire: it was more or less a remake of a real serial, one made up of a dozen or so chapters, produced and released in 1935.

The serial was called The Phantom Empire and starred Gene Autry as a singer who came across a forgotten civilization below the surface, with advanced technology. Autry had to keep a war from erupting between the Muranians and his own people.

In 1940, a film version was released, edited from the chapters of the 1935 serial. And then, thirty-nine years later, The Secret Empire popped up as a serial on Cliffhangers. In 1988, yet another version of the original serial was created, this time a re-edited syndicated telefilm.

The Secret Empire wasn’t an exact copy of The Phantom Empire. It took the basic idea from the 1935 film serial and shifted some things around, to create the television serial. There was no singing in The Secret Empire, while Gene Autry sang his heart out in The Phantom Empire. The Secret Empire was just campy action and adventure.

Jim Donner

Marshal Jim Donner hadn’t been a marshal very long when he found himself having to deal with stolen gold shipments. Time and time again, the men hauling the gold were attacked, the gold was taken, and the men were left with only the vaguest memories of being set upon by Phantom Riders on horseback.

Donner had gone out alone to try to track down these Phantom Riders and he succeeded, in a way. He met up with them, was attacked, but managed to get away from them with some sort of strange, metallic key. A group of Phantom Riders chased him down, firing at him with unusual weapons.

One of the Phantom Riders got off a lucky shot and hit Donner in the back. The next thing he knew, Donner was falling off a cliff into a river. He survived and returned to town, where Millie Thomas patched him up. Millie was considered by the town to be a doctor, but she didn’t consider herself to be one.

Millie Thomas

Harvard hadn’t seen fit to bestow a degree upon a woman despite the fact that Millie had attended her brother’s classes while he was at Harvard, and thus knew everything he did. The two expected to find a bullet in Donner’s shoulder but what Millie pulled from Donner’s body was a metallic projectile unlike anything the two had seen before. It was, however, much like the key Donner had taken from the Phantom Riders.

Moments later, a young orphan boy named Billy burst into the room, anxious to tell Donner that he had seen some of the Phantom Riders on the rocks outside the town. Millie reminded Donner that Billy was prone to tell tall tales, but Donner and the boy went off to inspect the rocks anyway.

They found a keyhole on the side of the rocks, one that fit the key Donner had in his possession. The keyhole opened a door that led straight into the rocks and into a large room. Inside the room was an elevator. Donner entered the elevator and its doors shut, cutting him off from escape, and Billy. As the elevator descended, Donner was stunned to find himself entering into a vast, majestic city (Chimera), one that was far more advanced than anything Donner had ever seen — and in color!

Stepping out onto the floor, Donner walked straight into conflict: a young woman was being chased by two men clad in black. Unable to stand by and watch the attack, Donner pulled out his whip and fought off the attackers. The two ran through the city, chased by more of the men clad in black. Before he could get away, Donner was hit with some sort of ray, and fell from the stairs, frozen solid. Would he survive? What would happen to Billy? And who was the woman Donner had rescued? The serial had its first cliffhanger.

Princess Maya

All was revealed in the next chapter, of course. Donner survived, Billy escaped from the Phantom Riders, returning to town, and the woman was (former) Princess Maya, daughter of the former ruler of the underground city.

Thorval, the current ruler, was an evil, diabolical man played by Mark Lenard (who had appeared on Star Trek as Spock’s father). He wanted to extend his rule to the surface, despite the fact that his people were unable to breathe on the surface and were forced to wear breathers, in addition to dark cloaks to protect themselves from the sun.

Thorval’s daughter, Princess Tara, was evil in her own right, and tried to use a Compliatron on Donner. The Compliatron was used by Thorval to keep his citizens in line — it more or less turned them into slaves. Princess Maya, along with a group of citizens loyal to her father, were known as Partisans and were able to fight off the effects of the Compliatron, much to the disgust of Thorval and Tara. Gold was used to power the Compliatron, thus explaining why the Phantom Riders hijacked gold shipments.

While Donner was stuck below then surface, trying to escape from Princess Maya, Billy brought Milly to the mountain side, hoping to find a way to save the Marshal. But he couldn’t find the lock that earlier had opened the door into the entrance chamber. To make matters worse, Milly didn’t exactly believe Billy’s story. The two returned to town.

Donner, meanwhile, was again in trouble. He had escaped with Princess Maya from Princess Tara’s clutches, and Princess Tara hid him in an equipment where he would be safe, promising to return shortly. However, inside the room there was some sort of giant, reptile-like creature, one that jumped on Donner, tearing at his face. Would the good Marshal escape from the claws of this monster? Another cliffhanger!

Of course, Donner got away from the creature in the next chapter, but he then met Emperor Thorval, who tried to control the Marshal, just as Princess Tara had tried to do earlier in the serial. But Donner was strong and he was able to withstand everything Thorval threw at him. In fact, Donner was making plans to escape from the clutches of Emperor Thorval and return to the surface, where he would try to stop Thorval from attacking and taking over.

Once back on the surface, Donner went to work trying to keep the Phantom Riders from taking any more gold, knowing that with it Emperor Thorval would continue to dominate Princess Maya and her followers. But the Phantom Riders had taken Billy hostage! And then, to make things worse, when Donner put on a Phantom Rider outfit in an attempt to disrupt the gold raid, he was captured by his own people and thrown in his own jail!

Billy, who was now stuck below the surface, was in grave danger and only Donner could save him. After capturing Billy, Emperor Thorval was planning on killing him by throwing him into a “compression tube,” which could easily do away with the boy.

And if that wasn’t enough, Princess Maya nearly died when she went out on the surface without a breathing unit! Cliffhanger after cliffhanger, danger after danger, brush with death after brush with death! The story continued, but the serial was on its way to wrapping up.

Princess Tara

During the final broadcast it looked like Emperor Thorval was finally going to have his way. It had taken him nearly the entire length of the serial but Thorval was able to use his Compliatron on the Partisans! Donner desperately needed to find the reversal unit in order to stop Thorval. Could he do it? Would the Partisans retake the city?

Unfortunately, when Cliffhangers was cancelled, The Secret Empire abruptly ended, without any sort of conclusion, with two chapters left unaired.

Although the final two segments of The Secret Empire have remained unaired in the United States to this day, they have aired internationally.

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Last Updated June 26th, 2008