The Starlost needs a remake. Great premise, dollar store execution.

What they wanted:

Foreseeing the destruction of Earth, humanity builds a multi-generational starship called Earthship Ark, 50 miles (80 km) wide and 200 miles (320 km) long. The ship contains dozens of biospheres, each kilometres across and housing people of different cultures. Their goal is to find and seed a new world of a distant star.

In 2385, more than 100 years into the voyage, an unexplained accident occurs, and the ship goes into emergency mode in which each biosphere is sealed off from the others.

Centuries after its original launch, most of the descendants of the original crew and colonists are unaware that they are even aboard a spaceship.

How it went:

Unable to sell The Starlost for prime time, [20th Century Fox television producer Robert] Kline decided to pursue a low budget approach and produce it for syndication. By May, Kline had sold the idea to 48 NBC stations and the Canadian CTV network.

Originally, the show was to be filmed with a special effects camera system developed by Doug Trumbull called Magicam. … The technology did not work reliably, however. In the end, simple blue screen effects were used, which forced static camera shots. … The failure of the Magicam system was a major blow, as the Canadian studio space that had been rented was too small to build the required sets. In the end, partial sets were built, but the lack of space hampered production.

As the filming went on, [the writer Harlan] Ellison grew disenchanted with the budget cuts, details that were changed, and what he characterized as a progressive dumbing down of the story. … Ellison broke with the project before the airing of its first episode.