Richard Matheson concludes his adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s The Martian Chronicles with the final episode, The Martians. It brought the miniseris to a close on 29 January, 1980.

The Earth is dead. But Wilder (Rock Hudson) returns to see if there are any survivors. Despite the charred appearance of the Earth in space, it seems only the people are gone; everything else seems to stand as it was left.

On Mars, Ben Driscoll (Christopher Connelly) is the lone man in an empty town, until he receives a broadcast from Genevieve (Bernadette Peters). When Ben and Genevieve meet, neither is what the other expected, and they begin to wonder if they were better off alone.

He’s determined to meet her.

Barry Morse plays Peter Hathaway. He and his family are among the lone survivors on Mars. He lives in hope of a rescue, but from what and to where? Their past lives are gone, and they, like the Wilders and Ben and Genevieve, are going to live (for a time) in this new world, even as humanity is dying out.

Wilder returns to Mars. He and Father Stone (Roddy McDowall) go to visit Hathaway, summoned by his laser signals. He brings the news of the destroyed Earth. And Wilder realizes that Hathaway’s wife and daughter aren’t what they appear to be. They’re surviving Martians.

They get a nice tag to their story with Ben Driscoll.

Following this, Wilder goes on a bit of a road trip, stopping in to see Parkhill (Darren McGavin), and some of the strange and empty Martian cities. He has a strange encounter with a Martian, who seems to have met him at a temporal intersection; which is past, which is future? There, he learns that life needs to be lived for itself, the gift of pure being.

There is a way to live in cooperation, which Earth discovered too late, and Mars had but fell apart because of Earth. It’s a gentle ending that reminds us to be part of the world, not outside of it. o live in harmony and joy.

It’s a good message, and poignantly delivered as it’s discovered too late.

Wilder returns to his family, determined to show them who the Martians are. They set out to the canals, heading through memories and empty places, before finally glimpsing who the Martians are.

Overall, it’s an interesting miniseries. I think they were maybe hoping for something a little more adventurous, but Matheson’s script stays fairly close to the themes and narrative threads in the book. I didn’t hate it, and I got more out of it than I did as a twelve-year-old. There’s still some shoddy modelwork in this episode, but I do still like the Martian make-up effects and design. And it has Roddy McDowall in it!

It’s an interesting experiment for a mini-series, and makes a nice companion piece to the book.