A Man. And His Blog.

Still in the boring procedural-universe: Nathan, Shane and Hawkes

How would the series have looked, when SciFi (soon to be known as Syfy) got the creators for it during the 2000s and made a serial besides Battlestar Galactica, instead of a few The X-Files writers deciding to stay with FOX and making the show in the mid-90s? Maybe the show wouldn’t have looked that boring in their stories? Even though the episodes “Mutiny” (1×04) and “Ray Butts” (1×05) were as dark and gritty as always, they really had the most boring storylines, where I didn’t care one single bit for the characters’ lifes and fates. While “Mutiny” delivered more of the in vitros, the writers failed to prove some consistency with Cooper Hawkes; and “Ray Butts” just had the most clichéd one-episode character I have seen for a long while, mixed with a clichéd ending, which could have been really interesting, when the writers would have chosen to fuck science and shown what was behind a black hole. Or to say it short: I like the dark grittiness, but the two episodes were boring, and I wished to have seen this series being produced at least eight years later.

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Nathan West and Shane Vanson have to deal with their respective past.

While trying out a new way of reviewing TV shows, you will now read a pooled review of two Space: Above and Beyond episodes: “The Farthest Man From Home” (1×02) and “The Dark Side Of The Sun” (1×03) – both character-centric episodes, both are trying to build up a mythology, both are not really trying to tell the story of a full-grown serial series, instead both episodes were mostly proceduralized and the audience doesn’t really have much to think about. While the first episode deals with Nathan West trying to find his girlfriend Kylen on the planet she crashed on, the second episode introduced us to the past of the series and started to tell a story about an already lost/won war the humans had to fight: against their own artificial intelligence. And both episode showed perfectly, why fans were accrediting the series to be dark and gritty and probably to intelligent for the FOX audience of the 90s: because it was dark and gritty and a bit intelligent.

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The main characters of the series: Wang, Shane, Hawkes, Vanessa and Nathan

It was the year 1995, where TV networks still produced two-hour pilot episodes. It was some year between 1998 and 2001, where I “accidentally” watched an episode of this series on German television, but can’t remember which, can’t even remember what it was about. It was the year 2009, where I found the complete season (and series) in this wonderful thing called internet. It was yesterday, when I finally decided to watch Space: Above and Beyond, maybe known as “Space 2063″ in some countries. And since I am hot for a few large reviews, I decided to put some pilot reviews (or season premiere reviews) for older TV shows up, followed by the usual season reviews, when I have finished the season. Space: Above and Beyond premiered on FOX during the 1995/1996 season, was created by some The X-Files writers, had a five-year plan, but the show was obviously so dark, gritty and intelligent, it survived for one full season. And since the season is pretty much short with 23 episodes, I decided to crack this show, open it up, watch it and review it. And since I need a few more science fiction shows to watch, I thought this would be a good choice.

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