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Similar plot formulas
The plot structure of the series is hero with a quest flees obsessed pursuer and helps people along the way. This structure has a number of literary and televisual antecedents. Perhaps the origin of them all is Victor Hugo's novel Les Misérables. In this novel the reformed convict Jean Valjean is pursued relentlessly by the implacable Inspector Javert. Jean Valjean has to move and change names in his flight from Javert and along the way adopts a daughter Cosette to whose care he devotes his life. Valjean also goes out of his way to help people he encounters. There are also elements of Voltaire's Candide to the series with its naive and optimistic protagonist for whom the whole world is constantly new and surprising.
One can argue that the television series to which Starman is often compared all derive from Hugo's novel. The most popular comparisons are The Fugitive in which the wrongly accused Dr. Richard Kimble flees the obsessed Lieutenant Gerard while looking for a one armed man whom he saw running away from the scene of his wife's murder. Kimble reluctantly helps people along the way, usually because he is forced into helping them. Another point of comparison is the later series
The Incredible Hulk in which scientist David Banner turns into a monster whenever he is angry after a laboratory experiment goes wrong. He flees obsessed journalist Jack McGee who is convinced that Banner's alter-ego, the Hulk, was responsible for the death of Banner and a scientist colleague in a fire. Banner's quest is to find a cure for his condition. Along the way he helps a number of people by becoming very angry and turning into the Hulk who sets things to rights with a bit of muscle.
Less directly related
The series listed below don't have the entire plot structure required - but include a couple of elements of that structure. The element in common is the wandering hero who helps people and then moves on.
First of all there is Michael Landon's treacle fest Highway to Heaven. Jonathon Smith is an "angel" (in reality a dead human being) who is sent to earth by God to partner up with a burnt out ex-cop Mark Gordon in order to attone for some sin he has committed while alive. Together they travel the country side providing pompous moral edification and aid to those designated by "the Boss" (aka God) as being in need of guidance and help.
In the same tenuously related bracket one might also mention the scarcely less unwatchable Quantum Leap. Scientist Sam Beckett finds himself thrown into the past and other people's bodies after the usual experiment gone wrong. He leaps from life to life 'saving' people with the assistance of a holographic scientist colleague. At one stage of the series the Devil turns up and it transpires that God is using Beckett to set right 'mistakes'. You can't beat that - the instrument of God pursued by the devil no less!
If we do in fact have wandering heros in both these series, the impetus to wander is quite different. In the latter two series - both heroes are on a mission and have been assigned, whether they like it or not, to solve people's problems and then move on as soon as the problem is solved. If Jonathon Smith and Sam Beckett do indeed have quests, respectively salvation and returning home, their movements are not generated by these quests. In Starman, The Fugitive and The Incredible Hulk - helping people is only incidental to the hero's quest and the impetus to move on is either escaping the pursuer or a new clue to finding an answer to the protagonist's own problem - not somebody else's.
For an excellent - indeed definitive - series of articles on TV series with Fugitive style plot structures (Starman is mentioned) see the Homepage of the Hunted.
What is particular to the series
So far, I have discussed how Starman derives from other literary and televisual plot structures, I would now like to look at what is particular to the series.
More later...
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