The series starred Rock Hudson, Darren McGavin, Bernadette Peters, Roddy McDowall, Fritz Weaver, Barry Morse, and Maria Schell.

As the narrator is speaking, the viewer becomes aware that there are two viewpoints at NASA amongst the scientists who launched the probe: One group obviously believes Mars is uninhabited, the other is open to the possibility of indigenous life on the planet.

The next scene places the viewer at the Kennedy Space Center in January 1999 when the first "Zeus I" crewed spacecraft to Mars is carried into orbit by a Saturn V rocket.

The Zeus project represents the beginning of a major effort by NASA and NATO to explore and eventually colonize the outer planets.

Her husband, though he pretends to deny the reality of the dreams, becomes bitterly jealous, sensing his wife's confused romantic feelings for one of the astronauts.

Wilder (who has shepherded the project for ten years) refuses, among other things because he believes mankind might escape environmental pollution and war on Earth by colonizing Mars instead.

To their amazement the crew (astronauts Arthur Black, Sam Hinkston, and David Lustig) discover that they have landed in a town that looks exactly like Green Bluff, Illinois, circa 1979.

The men, except for the archaeologist Spender and Colonel Wilder, break out the alcohol rations and begin to celebrate their successful landing, becoming more boisterous.

These sites, named after the Zeus mission astronauts, include: "York Plain," "Blackville," "Wilder Mountain," "Spender Hill," "Briggs Canal," and "Lustig Creek."

The colonies grow rapidly over the next two years with varying amounts of success, as the colonists bring the vices of Earth (greed, corruption, bureaucracy) with them.

They tell Father Peregrine, who has vowed to build a church in the hills with a blue sphere in place of a cross, to return to his own people and minister to them.

Peregrine realizes that his visitor is actually a Martian who is forced to appear as anyone that others have strong thoughts of: David Lustig, Jesus, Lavinia Spaulding (the lost daughter of another settler couple), etc.

To Parkhill's great surprise, they bear him no ill will; in fact, they give him a land grant to half of Mars and a message: "The night is tonight.

He returns to the Zeus project mission control facility but discovers a video recording the deaths of everyone, including his brother, when enemy neutron bombs detonated nearby.

A mechanical tinkerer, Hathaway has wired an abandoned town below his house to sound alive at night with noise and phone calls.

This is a significant departure from the original 1950 short story, "Silent Towns", in which Selsor is not self-absorbed and expectant of Driscoll's labor; instead, she is overweight, sticky with chocolate and desires to watch movies.

They reunite with Hathaway, who is troubled by his heart when they break the news of Earth's nuclear destruction, but brings the crew to his house for breakfast.

He comes to the conclusion that the Martians desired to give the other half of their own desolate planet away to the survivors of the Earth colony, such that each surviving civilization could develop once more.

In 2002, the Airstrip One Company in association with MGM Music, released a 3000 copy, limited edition 36 track soundtrack CD of the original Stanley Myers score recorded in 1979.

This release, still available from rare Film & TV soundtrack specialists, includes a comprehensive 18-page full color and fully illustrated booklet which details various aspects of the making of this mini-series.

The CD comprises the full miniseries soundtrack, with a notable exception: the track the Silver Locusts is a shorter, completely different piece than the version that was aired.

[4] The conversation between Ylla (Maggie Wright), the Martian woman, and her husband, Mr. K (James Faulkner), from episode 1, The Expeditions, was sampled by electronic musician Biosphere in his song "The Third Planet".