Space: Above and Beyond

As part of my effort to phase out my Region One DVDs, I made a list of films and series to replace, and somehow "Space: Above and Beyond" made the cut. This was due to some fond memories of the show, and led to me finally purchasing a new, Region Two, set and re-watching the show over the past several weeks. That re-watch concluded last night.

It turns out that it was a mistake to replace that set, with the new disks now immediately finding themselves as prime candidates to be purged next time we have a clear-out.

I've watched "Space: Above and Beyond" four times. The first time was back in the 90's, when I caught the latter half of the TV transmission (if I recall correctly, this was late at night on either BBC 2 or Channel 4 - back when terrestrial TV was five whole channels!). When it was released on DVD I would have watched the series then, and I re-watched it a few years ago.

My recollection of the show was that it starts out pretty weak, but somewhere around halfway through it suddenly gets much better, and that it ends very strongly.

Well...

It's true that that trajectory is broadly accurate, but it rather exaggerates how good the second half of the series is. In fact, there are a couple of very good episodes, and a number that are pretty much okay. As a whole, though, the series really doesn't hold up. And given how far TV storytelling has advanced even in the last six years, it's no longer really worth considering.

That said, there is one potential point of interest in the show. "Space: Above and Beyond" does have a pretty strong concept, and several of the character do have stories that are worth telling (though it's rather unfortunate that the 'main' character is actually the least interesting of the bunch - a fact that the writers seemed to realise pretty early on). The show just doesn't manage to fulfil its potential.

What that means is that "Space: Above and Beyond" is probably a prime candidate for a reboot - especially if looking for something to fill the niche once held by "Battlestar Galactica". That said, I'm not convinced that it has enough name recognition to make such an effort worthwhile... and BSG itself now ended a fairly long time ago, so maybe that niche no longer exists.

(In related news, I'm now within touching distance of the end of my cull of Region One disks - my 'replace' list is down to four entries, none of which is a TV series. With luck, I'll get that done by the end of next month.)