Star Maidens are once again trekking across my universe

Sue Wilkinson goes intergalactic with lost sci-fi gem

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Forgotten gem or rubbish revived? That is the question hanging over Star Maidens being reshown on vintage TV haven Rewind.

Star Maidens is a British-German science-fiction television series, first broadcast in 1976, and the 13 25-minute episodes are being rescreened.

It is certainly a blast from the past in every sense - a planet is sent off course by a comet, sent spinning uncontrollably through space as its inhabitants are forced to live underground.

Its radical premise was that women rule the universe, well, the planet Medusa. They hold power and sway over men who are reduced to the status of 'domestics' who perform household chores and, as the voice-over coyly suggests, more.

To coin a more modern phrase, they were 'friends with benefits'.

When two men, Adam and Shem, escape their female-dominated Medusan home and head for Earth, where they have heard men are in charge, their rulers, Fulvia and Octavia, are in hot pursuit.