ExoSquad (1993)

ExoSquad was a 1993 to 1994 animated series, produced by Universal cartoon studios as a response to the growing popularity of redubbed Japanese anime.

The series was notable as being one of the few "western amine" type shows to be successful, as the problem with western attitudes towards animated media tend to pigeonhole it firmly into the "kids stuff" category, thus meaning that plots tend to be uncoordinated and somewhat farcical, with the characters lacking any depth.

ExoSquad completely bucked this trend and, combined with its use of a "realistic" animation style, it is essentially a science fiction space opera.

Two series were made, with a third planned to debut in 1995, however, due to networks treating the series as a disposable "Saturday morning cartoon" and not airing the series in the correct order etc, viewing figures for series 2 plummeted and thus the ok was not given to proceed to the third, and possibly more ambitious, series.

Unusually for a western cartoon, the series explored some very adult topics, such as racism, love, honour, betrayal, military tactics and the consequences of infighting which have disastrous outcomes, which, being as the series was aimed at the teen/young adult demographic, was unsurprising.

The series has received limited releases on both VHS and DVD, but has mostly been released via streaming media in recent years, which has allowed the full series to be seen properly for the first time by people who weren't around for its original airing.

Series 1 begins in the year 2119 with series 2 concluding in the year 2121. Mankind has begun exploring the solar system, and has managed to colonise the Moon, Mars and Venus, with tentative exploratory missions making headway to colonising the outer planets.
Extensive terraforming work has been done, but not fully completed, on both Mars and Venus, making their atmospheres more hospitable to human life, but still somewhat dangerous.
In order to complete the extensive mining work required to access the rich mineral deposits on other planets, in the mid 21st century, Human scientists perfected the art of genetic recombination, and thus created a worker race named the "Neo-Sapiens".
Originally it was thought that these creatures were only capable of simple tasks, and were not sentient at all, however some time in the 2070s, the Neo-Sapiens working on Mars staged a violent revolt.
The revolution, although unsuccessful, did lead to the recognition of Neo-Sapiens as being a sentient species, and their status as a "slave race" was cast off. The Neo-Sapiens were given custodianship over Mars, and at the time of the series beginning, the Neo-Sapien leader, Phaeton, has spent years planning another revolt, however this time his aim is not merely to secure Neo-Sapien freedom (which they already have) instead, his plan is to assure Neo-Sapien dominance over the solar system, with the long term goal of completely eradicating Homo Sapiens.

While the ExoFleet (the name given to the armed forces of this future time because of their use of "ExoFrame" technology to fight with) are distracted by the perceived threat of space pirates, who are themselves descendants of people transported to penal colonies on the outer planets and then subsequently abandoned, the Neo-Sapiens conquer the inner planets in a lightning fast assault.

The series itself follows the exploits of "Able Squad", a unit of ExoTroopers whose role in the war is pivotal in the goal of liberating the inner worlds and stopping the Neo-Sapiens from committing mass genocide.

The main characters are as follows:-

Lt./Cmdr J.T Marsh - Commands Able squad, but is later promoted to be commander of a full platoon. Marsh is a fair man, but does not tolerate members of his squad going against orders. He is fiercely loyal to Admiral Winfield and is a skilled ExoFrame pilot. Marsh usually pilots an aerial assault E-Frame.

Lt./Lt.Cmdr Nara Walsh - Initially Nara is Able squads tactical officer, but gets promoted to squad leader after Marsh's promotion. A native of Venus, her parents were killed in the first days of the Neo-Sapien war, and he younger brother leads the human resistance on the planet. Nara usually Co-pilots the squads ground attack E-Frame with Marsala, but wears a suit of powered armour when working alone.

Lt. Maggie Wilson - Able squads technical expert and field engineer. Maggie is responsible for field maintenance of the squads ExoFrames, and her skills come in handy whenever the squad need to infiltrate buildings or spacecraft without blowing things up, or need some assistance with unfamiliar technology. During the later series, she is often seen helping Professor Algernon. Maggie usually pilots an armed Engineers E-Frame.

Sgt. Rita Torres - Able squads 2iC who harbours an intense hatred of pirates due to an incident in the past where her entire squad was killed in an ambush except her. She was left to die a slow death from suffocation by the pirate Jubail, whom she later encounters when the ExoFleet allies with the pirates.
Torres is a perfect soldier and is very loyal to Marsh. Rita usually pilots a heavily armed assault E-Frame.

Alec DeLeon - Able squads communications and intelligence expert. His skill with computers and technology rivals that of Maggie, but his preference is for active combat as opposed to research. He is eventually killed in the closing days of the war but is resurrected thanks to Neo-Sapien cloning technology, where he begins an oft hinted to romance with Maggie. Alec usually pilots a C3i E-Frame.

Wolf Bronsky - Wolf is the squads heavy weapons trooper. Loud mouthed, rude and gluttonous, but also extremely dependable, Wolf prefers action over stealth and intrigue. When not on mission, Wolf likes to spend most of his time eating, so much so that his speech is often punctuated by a series of loud burps. Wolf usually pilots a heavy assault E-Frame.

Kaz Takagi - The youngest and newest member of Able squad. Kaz is the squads aerial support trooper. As Kaz is fairly young and impressionable, he is often easily swayed into going "off mission", especially so whenever the opportunity is presented for him to prove himself in the eyes of the other squad members, although this brings him into conflict with his superiors and lands him in trouble more often than not. Kaz usually pilots an Exo-Fighter, an light fighter air/space craft equipped with lasers and missiles, and he is regarded as one of the best fighter pilots in the fleet.

Marsala - One of the few Neo-Sapiens that remained loyal to the ExoFleet, Marsala faces considerable opposition in the face of human prejudice against his kind. As he is a Neo-Sapien, Marsala is considerably stronger and more resilient than his human comrades, and is able to easilly infiltrate Neo-Sapien bases. Later in the series it is revealed that Marsala and Phaeton are genetic twins, the closest the sterile Neo-Sapiens can get to being "brothers" (Neo-Sapiens reproduce via being grown in laboratories, with "spawnings" of new Neo-Sapiens numbering from small groups to theoretically hundreds of thousands). It is also revealed that Marsala was one of the instigators of the original Martian Neo-Sapien revolt. Marsala usually pilots the ground attack E-Frame with Nara, whom he shares an emotional bond with, but is unable to express due to his concern for the prejudice that comes with him being a Neo-Sapien.

Phaeton - Marsalas twin and eventual leader/tyrant of the Neo-Sapien order. Phaeton is originally the governor of Mars, however he instigates a plot to secretly build weapons to overthrow homo sapien dominance. Later in the series, it is revealed that Phaeton suffers from a debilitating genetic condition which is causing his body to randomly mutate and degrade, requiring that he use a life support E-Frame at all times. Phaeton was originally Marsalas second in command during the Martian revolt, however his capture by a young Admiral Winfield and subsequent betrayal led to a humiliating defeat for the Neo-Sapien cause. Due to his disease, Phaeton gradually becomes insane, and towards the end of the war decides that if he cannot control the solar system, then no one will, and has an anti-matter bomb built on Earth with which he intends to use to destroy the inner planets.

Admiral Winfield - A veteran of the Martian revolt, Winfield rose through the ranks to become supreme commander of the ExoFleet. An extremely capable wartime commander, it is his strategies that prove to be successful in eventually liberating the inner worlds from Neo-Sapien rule.
Along the way, Winfield overcomes a mutiny instigated by his second in command and is instrumental in negotiating an alliance with the pirate clans of the outer planets. Winfields flagship is the ExoCarrier Resolute, which ends up getting destroyed during the mutiny, he later takes command of the Resolute II, an ExoCarrier constructed by rogue elements within the pirate clans which is equipped with a pirate cloaking device.

Professor Algernon - A human scientist who eventually becomes the ExoFleets chief scientific officer.
At the beginning of the war, Algernon is trapped on Earth, but has no interest in whose side he is on as he has previously been belittled by the military, his only interest is his pursuit of scientific research. To this end, he strikes a bargain with the Neo-Sapien scientist Xenobius, where he will be allowed to carry on his work as Xenobius's "assistant", while Xenobius claims any credit for Algernons discoveries.
While Xenobius is a scientist, the Neo-Sapiens lack of any sense of imagination or curiosity seriously hampers his ability to actually make any new discoveries, therefore he is completely reliant on Algernon to produce results, and claims credit for them despite not actually understanding any of the devices.
Algernon invents the GraF (Gravitational Focus) shield, a devastating directed energy weapon which the Neo-Sapiens use in the early days of the war, however after he is captured by Able squad he is convinced to work for the humans, where his discoveries are finally recognised.

Jonas Simbacca - The gruff leader of the pirate clans. Jonas was one of the people originally abandoned on the outer planets when he was just a boy. Over time he rose in the pirate ranks to become their leader, mainly through a combination of political savvy and martial prowess.
Simbacca, as with many of the pirates, is initially an enemy of the ExoFleet, however after the Neo-Sapiens try to assassinate him (his life is saved by J.T Marsh) he orders the pirate clans to join with the ExoFleet to put a stop to Phaetons plans.

The series 2 ended with a major cliffhanger, involving the possibility of series 3 being centred around the ExoFleet and the Neo-Sapiens being forced to join forces in order to combat an alien threat, however due to the series' cancellation, this was never resolved.

The ExoFleet brand was expanded to include a toy line, a video game and a short print comic series,  however the declining popularity of the TV series meant that the periphery stuff outlived the series itself (Later releases of ExoSquad 6" action figures included some repaints of "Robotech" mechs, released under the "ExoSquad : Robotech" sub line), but did nothing to improve the shows fanbase.

The series itself treads some very familiar territory, and has many tropes taken from series such as the Gundam series, Robotech, Battletech, and it draws inspiration from sci-fi sources such as BladeRunner and Starship Troopers, but even with all these familiar bits of background fluff, the series still manages to be entertaining.

The series has never been released in full on DVD, however streaming sources such as Amazon Prime, Netflix and Hulu have featured the series in full on numerous occasions.
"Other" online sources tend to be very poor quality VHS rips, so it is in viewers best interests to try and watch the series via "official" channels as opposed to "by other means".


I love this series, as it was, along with shows such as "The Pirates of Dark Water", "Bots Master" and "Phantom 2040", a good indicator that western animation studios were perfectly capable of providing well thought out and well animated shows which weren't afraid to step outside of the "Looney Toons" pigeonhole, and compete directly with Japanese imports.





 

Professor What? - A look at BBVs definitely "Not-Doctor Who" Straight to video offerings.

Even though the BBC decided in 1989 that they weren't interested in making anything Doctor Who related any more, fans and enthusiasts still wanted more.

Thanks to the miracle invention of the video camera, along with fairly cheap video editing consoles, a number of private, low budget film makers could indulge the fans fantasies for more Who related stuff, and make a bit of money to boot.

However, Who fans would not get to see the Doctor himself travelling through time in the TARDIS, being as the BBC held on to the licence for it with a tight fist, despite supposedly not being interested in it any more, and neither would fans get to see Daleks exterminating anything in sight, because Terry Nations estate has proven itself notoriously difficult to work with whenever the subject of the angry intergalactic pepper pots shows up.

Instead, BBV (Bill & Ben Video, named after owner Bill Baggs and his wife Helen, whose nickname is 'Ben') had to make do with stuff that was similar, but not copyright infringing enough to make stories from, although they did manage to get the odd one or two licences for "canon" stuff, simply by paying the original creators directly.

Although many of their productions featured people who had previously starred in Doctor Who in some fashion, no references at all were ever directly made to the famous TV show by name, even though it was dead obvious that they were, in some cases (*coughthestrangercough*) thinly veilled copies.
BBV also produced a couple of "one off" productions, with no connection to the Whoniverse, but made "in the style of", even occasionally dabbling in more adult oriented productions.

BBV eventually filed for bankruptcy in 2008, and since then all of the video and audio productions have gone out of print.

P.R.O.B.E 1994 - 1996  (4 "Episodes" - Created by Mark Gatiss)

Consisting of 4 "feature length" episodes, varying between 45 and 90 minutes in length, P.R.O.B.E follows the further adventures of former UNIT scientific advisor Liz Shaw, who now works for the "Preternatural Research Bureau" (don't worry, try as i might, i cant get it to say "P.R.O.B.E" either).
The first episode (The Zero Imperative) sees Liz investigating mysterious deaths at a mental hospital, the second episode (The Devil of Winterbourne) sees Liz investigating what appears to be a Devil worshipping cult. The third episode (Unnatural selection) sees Liz investigating a secret project that has gone a bit wrong and the final episode (Ghosts of Winterbourne) sees Liz return to Winterbourne to finish the job started in episode 2.

The series is notable for starring not only Caroline John as Liz Shaw, but also featuring Sylvester McCoy, Jon Pertwee, Colin Baker, Peter Davidson, Sophie Aldred and Louise Jameson, all playng different characters to their original appearance.
The series also features Mark Gatiss somewhere in every episode, and oddly, Linda Lusardi.

Mark Gatiss, although the creator, writer and cameo star of the series, has expressed his dislike for it in recent years, however, the series was given a limited release on DVD in 2012.

Having watched the series, I must personally say that I agree with Mark Gatiss, the series is a bit crap. Poor storylines, bad acting and el cheapo filming and editing make this series a bit painful to watch, it was an achievement for its time, however in this day and age, you can see better quality films made by college students on digital cameras on youtube.

Auton 1997 - 1999 (3 films - Created by Nicholas Briggs)

Essentially a 3 part story arc, the Auton series of films sees UNIT operatives tangling with a resurgence of the Nestene consciousness left over from the 3rd Doctor era.
None of the original actors appear in the Auton films, and no original series characters are really mentioned in these stand alone stories.

The series itself isn't too bad, its much higher in entertainment quality than P.R.O.B.E was, but its still nothing spectacular.
All 3 Auton films have been released on DVD, the third film includes a bonus film spoofing the concept of the entire series, which is actually quite good.

The Airzone Solution 1993 (Standalone story - Created by Nicholas Briggs)

One of the first films made by BBV, this "Drama" (its single 60 minute episode doesn't really count as being a film)  is a completely new and original concept unrelated to Doctor Who in any way.
Starring (in order of screen time) Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant (speaking in her normal accent) , Sylvester McCoy, a very young looking Alan Cumming, Peter Davison and Jon Pertwee, as well as a bit of a cameo appearance by Nicholas Briggs and a few other people ive never heard of.
The story takes place in the near future, where Britains skies are so polluted that people have to wear filter masks when outside or they risk suffocation, and where weather reports centre more on areas of toxic gas build up than the actual weather. The government awards a large sum of money to the Airzone company who claim they are able to clean the toxic pollutants up, however a TV weatherman and his girlfriend find that Airzone are not exactly being truthful about their intentions.
The Airzone solution is a sci-fi mystery thriller, and is surprisingly good considering the obviously very, very low production values and a somewhat confusing in places plot.
People watching this and expecting to get all nostalgic about classic era Doctor Who might be in for a bit of a shock when the 5th,6th and 7th Doctors all start swearing, and when the 6th Doctor takes Peri to his bed.

Yeah, this is quite good really, probably one of the best offerings from the BBV catalogue.

The Stranger 1991-1995 (6 Episodes)

The Stranger series centres around a man, who may or may not be the 6th Doctor (although he looks a lot like him) and his assistant Miss Brown (who definitely isn't called Peri) turning up and helping solve problems throughout a multi dimensional universe etc etc and so on.

This was BBVs first production, entirely shot using a single VHS video camera and starring the usual stable of ex-Doctor Who actors & actresses (except Tom Baker, who told them to bugger off).
Each episode is a thinly veiled Doctor Who style story which changes just enough of the history and dialogue so as not to infringe on anyones copyrights.
The series is highly regarded by some, personally though I just don't like it as it looks like a cheap and tacky knock off, which is exactly what it is.
Nevertheless, the series has been released on DVD.

Cyberon 2000 (Standalone story)

Another "set in the near future" story, Cyberon deals with an American pharmaceutical researcher testing out a new drug.
The drug, called "Cyberon" is said to be a synthetic silicon based intelligent gene therapy, which when injected directly into the brain of a human, will begin to regenerate damaged brain and nervous tissues. The drug itself though proves to be far more dangerous as the material not only cures brain and nerve damage, it also begins a process of "uprgrading" the user.

This story is definitely NOT (coughbullshitcough) a thinly veiled Cyberman story, oh no, definitely not, and it definitely doesnt feature a creature which looks like a Cyberman either.
Other than that, this is a pretty boring dialogue heavy film which tries and fails to have an intelligent discussion about mankinds relationship with both drugs and technology. 

Battletech: The Animated Series

Battletech: The Animated Series was a 1994 cartoon series created by Saban entertainment.

Consisting of a single series of 13 episodes (not including episode 5a, which was a clip show), the series tells the story of the 1st Somerset Strikers, a combined arms unit which fought in the early days of the Clan Invasion period.

Although foreknowledge of the Battletech universe is not required to watch the show, it does help as the show makes little to no attempt to explain much of the fictional universes background.

Synopsis:-

In the year 3050, Major Adam Steiner, an officer cadet training on the planet Tharkad, Is informed that his home planet of Somerset has been invaded and conquered by a mysterious enemy known as "Clan Jade Falcon". Within days of this news, other worlds in the Innersphere (the name given to the known planets colonised by mankind, all of which fall under the control of one of five noble houses) also report attacks by these mysterious invaders.
Major Steiner finds that his brother Andrew has been captured by the Jade Falcons, and decides to attempt to mount a rescue operation, however, being a low ranking officer, he lacks the authority required to rally a large military force from within House Steiners armed forces.
Starting with a few loyal colleagues, bolstered by his requisitioning of a space craft belonging to the rival house Kurita (which is eventually signed over to his command officially by a mutual defence agreement between the two noble houses) Major Steiner and his multi national strike team are given the task of intelligence gathering, as no one in the Innersphere has any idea about who the Clans are or what their capabilities may be, except that Clan Battlemech technology seems to be far superior to their own.


The series itself was not well received by Battletech fans, many citing that the show was poorly made and not keeping within the spirit of the war games universe, as numerous bits of artistic licence used to flesh the series out were in direct contradiction to established "in universe" canon.
The animation quality at the time of release was fairly average, as was the voice acting, however as the series has never really been fully officially released on video or DVD, whenever you encounter it now it will more than likely be in the form of low quality VHS rips, all of which suffer from poor video rendering and dodgy sound quality.
Storywise though, the series attempts to follow in the vein of other animated series' of the time, such as the renowned "Exo-Squad", by having a single series long story arc and dealing with much more mature themes than what is commonly associated with so called "Saturday morning cartoons".
People in the show are actually killed off (except for main characters of course), and both sides Battlemechs are shown to shoot lasers, machine guns and missiles at each other, buildings and fleeing unarmed humans without resorting to dialogue saying that they were using "stun lasers" or something along those lines.
Alas, although the final episode sets up a storyline for a second series, it never materialised due to the shows poor reception amongst viewers, and FASA, the then owners of the Battletech brand, received considerable negative feedback for their decision to "sell out" by allowing a cartoon to be made of the franchise (with an accompanying toy line to boot!).

In the years that followed, the series itself has actually entered into the Battletech canon, being described in a sourcebook dedicated to the 1st Somerset Strikers as being "a poorly made and inaccurate holovid detailing the campaign by the 1st Somerset Strikers to liberate Adam Steiners home world" , with the sourcebook itself containing game rules to use the legendary unit within the game and correcting the "inaccuracies" as depicted in the show.

The series is by no means the worst cartoon to have come out of the early/mid 1990s, but it isn't one of the best either, instead, it is a bit of a curiosity which may or may not appeal to fans of the Battletech/Mechwarrior series of tabletop and video games.

Review - Defying Gravity (ABC/CTV 2009)

Its always interesting to see what happens when a TV show airs that tries to mix adult drama with sci-fi, sometimes the results are good, and sometimes they are bad.

Defying Gravity (sometimes stylised as "DefyinGravity") was an attempt to expand on the concept of Space Odyssey: Voyage to the planets and make an intelligent TV show about space exploration that was character driven drama as opposed to pure sci-fi or docudrama.

The shows storyline takes place in two time periods, the "present day" of 2059 and flashbacks to the year 2055 and even as late back as 2038.
By 2059, man has set foot on Mars, although the mission ended in disaster with two of the crew members being left behind, and has developed spaceflight technology to the point at which missions lasting several years can be comfortably attempted with a better than average chance of success.

The series itself consists of 13 episodes, covering the first 50 or so days of the multinational space ship Antares journey to visit (in the following order) Venus, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn and Pluto.
The first, and only series ends with the Antares successfully landing a manned mission on Venus, and preparing to depart for Mercury.
Should the series have continued, series 2 would have dealt with the landing on Mercury, and the trip to Mars, and the third series would have dealt with an extended stay on Mars, followed by the journey to Jupiter, presumably any further series would have dealt with the remainder of the planets and culminated with all questions raised by the series being answered.
Although the plot ostensibly deals with the first human attempt to make the "Grand Tour" of the Solar system successfully, the real main plot, as revealed from episode 8 onwards, in fact deals with mankind's first possible contact with extra terrestrials (this is one of the unanswered questions raised by the series) and in fact the journey is simply a facade to cover up the need to visit the planets in order to retrieve the "fractals", a group of seemingly alien entities that have strange supernatural powers.

The space ship Antares is designed along the lines of utilising current and "near future" levels of technology. Powered by 3 nuclear reactors, backed up by a combined solar collector/cosmic ray shield, and propelled by nuclear ion thrusters, the Antares has artificial gravity in the form of two sets of rotating arms (crew quarters are located in these sections), as well as sections, such as the common area and laboratories, which require magnetic shoes to be worn. Most of the vessels structure is made up of fuel tanks, payload bays and vital propulsion and life support systems, very little of the ship is intended for human habitation so the ships interior is somewhat cramped.

Most of the shows plot is derived from human interaction, mostly between the 8 members of the ships crew (4 men, 4 women), but also supplemented by the people at mission control.
The series is interesting as it shows that space travel, although it may seem glamorous and futuristic etc, is actually a rather boring experience, as the time required to travel from point A to point B is usually a lot longer than any planetary landings etc.
The problem with this type of format is that the "space" scenes tend to be quite boring, and thus most of the series plot comes from the human factor and their reactions to plot developments.

As the series is character driven, here is a bit of bio on the series' main characters....

Ted Shaw  (Mission Commander, American).
Ted is an experienced astronaut, and is married to Eve, however in the past he had a relationship with Jen Crane. Ted is the first member of the crew to be informed to the Antares real mission goals, and struggles with keeping the secret for most of the series, until he is compelled to reveal to the crew what is really going on after all of the crew except for Jen and Steve begin suffering from crippling hallucinations. Teds hallucination centres on him seeing a violent storm on the surface of Mars.

Maddux Donner (Chief Engineer/Pilot, American).
Maddux was one of the surviving crew of the ill fated Mars mission, which saw him have to leave behind his lover on the surface after a storm began which would have prevented their lander from taking off, something which he feels guilty about. Maddux is also involved in a casual sexual relationship with Nadia, and in the past had a one night stand with Zoe.
Maddux was not originally intended to be a part of the actual space mission, however he replaced Ajay at the last minute due to Ajay developing a heart problem.
Maddux has two hallucinations, the first being an image of him seeing Zoe flush herself out of an airlock naked whilst in orbit around a dark planet, the second being that he keeps seeing the two people he left behind on Mars .

Zoe Barnes (Geologist, Canadian).
Zoe was initially dismissed from the Antares program due to poor performance, however was later reinstated to the ships crew for reasons not shown on screen. She became pregnant after her one night stand with Maddux, but aborted it so that it would not lead to her being dropped from the program.
Zoe shares the same hallucination of seeing herself flushed into space as Maddux, but she also occasionally hears a crying baby, as she feels guilty about having the child aborted.

Jen Crane (Biologist, Canadian).
Jen is married to the Antares' original mission commander, Rollie, however in the past she had a relationship with Ted. Jens main responsibilities on the mission are to maintain the ships hydroponic gardens and to perform experiments in rapid evolution with rabbit cells, however, she decides to allow one of the rabbit embryos to mature to full term in an artificial womb in order to keep it as a pet. Only Zoe and Rollie know about the rabbit.
Jens hallucination is strange as in for the most part, she sees and hears nothing, even when the alien entity is right there in front of her and everyone else can see it, this is due to her deep seated fear of abandonment, which the entity "Beta" manifests as her being "left out" of being able to see it.

Evram Mintz (Medical Doctor, Israeli).
Evram was formerly a combat surgeon in an off screen war (presumably some sort of middle eastern conflict during the late 2040s), who suffers from PTSD due to not being able to rescue a young girl that was trapped in a building he had called an artillery strike on. this incident left him with permanent scarring on his back and has led to him becoming an alcoholic. Despite being a brilliant surgeon and doctor, his alcohol withdrawal symptoms have led to him becoming addicted to painkillers which periodically results in him being unable to perform his duties due to being addled or unconscious. Oddly, although Evram is explicitly stated to be Israeli, it is not mentioned if he is a practising Jew or not.
Evrams hallucination involves him seeing the girl he was unable to rescue appearing in various places, which causes him to go into shock.

Paula Moralez (Payload Specialist/Pilot, Mexican/American)
A staunch Catholic, Paulas duties on the ship seem to mainly revolve around filming bilingual (English & Spanish) documentary films to be shown on TV and in schools on Earth. Her devout belief in God irritates most of the crew, most notably Steve, however all of the crew pull together to help her heal after an accident in one of the cargo bays results in her receiving a serious and almost life threatening injury. Paula was originally to be the pilot of the Venus lander, however her injuries prevented this.
Paulas hallucination involves her seeing what she calls her "miracle", an incident form her childhood where her pet dog was run over and killed in the street, but then suddenly came back to life. It is revealed in the final episode of the series that her recollection of these events is not what actually happened, what actually happened was her father tried to molest her, and she ran out into the street to escape, which caused her dog to follow her and get run over, her father then gave the dog CPR which caused it to come back to life. Her encounter with the "Beta" entity clarifies this and proves that the hallucinations are part of a test to see if the crew can overcome their fears.

Nadia Schilling (Navigator/Pilot, German)
Nadia is a sexually promiscuous woman who refuses to wear a HALO (Hormone Activated Libido Oppressor) that all the crew are required to wear in order to stop sexual tension from leading to conflict on the ship. She has had a casual sexual relationship with Maddux for at least 6 years before the mission and is usually a source of conflict amongst the Antares crew, particularly with Zoe, whom she regularly argues with.
Nadias hallucinations involve her seeing a bearded, baseball cap wearing man walking around the ship, whom she does not recognise but who looks familiar to her. (The shows creator stated that the man is in fact Nadia herself, as Nadia was born inter sexed, and her parents decided to have her as a girl. Series 3 would have included a storyline in which Nadia was changed by the entities into a male)

Steve Wassenfelder (Theoretical Physicist, American)
Steve is the odd one out on the Antares, as at first glance, he appears to serve no purpose amongst the crew as none of the ships systems are experimental or require any of his skills.
A self confessed genius, Steve spends most of his time living like a slob, indulging in pornography and being cynical. He particularly dislikes Paula due to her chirpiness and her religion, even coining the nickname "Paula puke" for her when she keeps being sick due to motion sickness, however both of them feel a connection to each other because of their status as "outsiders" on the ship.
Steves true purpose on the ship is revealed after the crew learns about the entities, as his mathematical skill is needed in order to further understand them and their purpose.
Of all the crew, Steve seems to be the only member that is unaffected by "Beta".

"Beta"  (Fractal Entity)
The "Beta" entity was found on Earth in 2038 near the Nasca lines in Peru. "Beta" is one of seven known fractal entities which exist in the solar system, the others being located on Venus, Mercury, Mars, Io, Europa and Pluto.
"Beta" appears to everyone except Jen as a constantly shape changing blob of  unknown, but organic, material that glows with a yellow/green hue. It communicates with the crew and Eve via inducing hallucinations related to that persons guilt or greatest fear.
"Beta" was discovered by members of SETI when it began communicating with the entity designated "Alpha" on Mars via the use of high frequency harmonic tones. Since the discovery of Alpha and Beta, five more entities, named Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta and Eta, were discovered to be in communication with each other. This is what kickstarted the Mars landing, which was an attempt to find "Alpha" but ended in disaster after Alpha rejected the astronauts sent to find it, and also the Antares mission, which is an attempt to find all of the entities and bring them together.
"Beta" is only properly revealed in episode 8 of the series, and is hidden in a top secret cargo bay with storage units for the other six entities.
"Beta" also exerts some strange influence over the people who come into close proximity to it, changing their DNA for an as yet unspecified purpose.

"Gamma" (Fractal Entity)
Gamma is found and recovered from the surface of Venus by Zoe during her landing on the planet, where it appears to her as her aborted baby. Zoe receives life threatening burns to two thirds of her body when her space suit is damaged in the oppressive and hot atmosphere on Venus.
Gammas true form is similar to Betas, except it glows red/orange.

Eve Shaw (Civilian Observer/2iC, American)
Eve is Ted Shaws wife, and was the first human to encounter the "Beta" entity whilst working as an aid worker in Peru. She now works for the Bertram corporation as an observer on the Antares project and has had her DNA altered by her encounters with Beta.

Ajay Sharma (Mechanical Engineer, Indian)
Ajay designed most of the Antares systems and was originally a member of its crew, however Beta caused him to rapidly develop a heart problem which rendered him unsuitable for space flight. Upon learning this Ajay, who was already aboard the Antares in final preparation for launch, seemingly decided to commit suicide by donning a space suit and heading out for an unscheduled EVA, however he was persuaded not to kill himself by Maddux who, along with Ted, had been launched into space to replace Ajay and Rollie. On his return to Earth, Ajay finds himself "blackballed" from the program, however he is allowed to take up a position at mission control as the engineering advisor due to his extensive knowledge of the ships systems. Ajay was one of the few people who knew the full secret about Zoes pregnancy, and was one of the first people to figure out that something fishy was going on when nearly all the ships crew were crippled by hallucinations.

Rollie Crane (Mission control supervisor, American)
Rollie was originally to be Antares's mission commander, but was replaced by Ted after Beta caused him to develop the same heart problem as Ajay, something which is a billion to one chance of happening. Rollie is married to Jen and is unaware of her previous relationship with Ted.

Trevor Williams (Investigative journalist, British)
Trevor is one of the few people to be suspicious about the Antares mission from the start, simply because the facts about the previous Mars mission didn't bear up to close inspection. his suspicions are further aroused due to the last minute replacement of Ajay and Rollie. Eventually he gets Arnel Poe, one of the Antares programs failed astronauts who works in mission control after losing his leg in a training accident, to start feeding him secrets. The final scene of the series shows Arnel sending a text to Trevor informing him that the footage of the Venus landing was in fact faked to cover up Zoes injury as well as the retrieval of the "Gamma" entity.


The show itself was cancelled mid season, with only 9 episodes out of the 13 being shown on TV, this was due to the show not being very well promoted, which resulted in low viewing figures, but also because the show was somewhat boring, with its main story arc being uncomfortably stretched over the full 13 episode run, and proceeding at a slow pace. In the UK, the series was aired in a late night slot on BBC2, thus meaning very few people saw it.
Fans of the series hoped that it would be picked up by another network to have the story finished off, however in 2010 it was announced that the actors had all been released form their contracts and all the shows sets had been destroyed, thus dashing any real hope of there being a conclusion to the story.
Personally I did find the series a tad boring and slow pace,d but the final 3 episodes made up for it as they ignited what could have gone on to be an interesting sci-fi story, and provided explanations to the numerous unanswered questions that came up in the shows short run.
It would be nice to see a follow up series, or even a TV movie, but it is doubtful that will happen now.

Pilot erroR - Roddenberrys Fails...

TV Writer/Producer Gene Roddenberry is best known as the man who created Star Trek, which, although initially not thought of too highly, went on to become one of the most successful sci-fi franchises of all time.

Star Trek was not Roddenberrys only attempt at creating a Sci-Fi universe though, and during the 1970s he had many ideas for other TV shows, most of which were given the go ahead for a pilot to be filmed....Unfortunately, it is difficult to beleive that the creator of Star Treks subsequent TV projects all ended in failure, as all of them failed to recapture the recognition that Star Trek had garnered for itself, and thus, most of them ended up being put down as mere footnotes in TV history.
It wasn't until the 1990s that any of Roddenberrys ideas hit the small screen again, and then only airing after his death in 1991.

Genesis II (CBS 1973)
Its a bit like -  Buck Rogers in the 24th Century, Stargate SG-1

Premise -
In 1979, scientist Dylan Hunt (Alex Cord ) volunteers to be the first human to undergo an experimental suspended animation procedure, intended to be used for deep space flights at some point in the future.
He is successfully placed in stasis, however rather than being asleep for a mere 7 days, he instead awakens to find it is the year 2133, and the Earth as he knew it has ceased to exist following a global nuclear war.

Plot of Pilot -
Following his awakening, Dylan finds himself amongst a community of people who call themselves "Pax", who are the descendants of scientific personnel that managed to escape the war by hiding in underground bunkers. The people of Pax tell Dylan that they dedicate their lives to rediscovering the knowledge of the past and using it for peaceful exploratory purposes.
The people of Pax are strange to Hunt, as they live in a true meritocracy with full equality between males and females, to the point at which there are literally no distinctions between them (this is referred to in the show as "unisex"). This has led to a decreased birth rate amongst them, however some of the older members of the society note that the younger members have begun returning to "the old ways" (that is, to pursue heterosexual relationships and begin reproduction via sexual means).
Hunt is persuaded by Lyra-A, a woman who comes from an area which was formerly known as Phoenix, Arizona (The people of Pax are said to occasionally allow "outsiders" to enter their society, provided that they adhere to Pax's strict laws regarding non-violence), to leave Pax and travel with her via sub-shuttle, a series of underground high speed trains constructed in the 1970s to counter air terrorism, back to her homeland to repair their failing nuclear fission reactor, as none of her people know how to fix it, but do know that if it breaks down completely, it will cause a disaster. Lyra-A explains that her people, the Tyranians, pleaded with Pax to assist them, as Pax is the only place that has the right knowledge to fix it, but they refused, Lyra then lies to Hunt and tells him that the people of Pax are tyrants who want to conquer the world using their advanced science and knowledge of ancient weapons.
Dylan fixes the reactor, but is then horrified to learn that the rulers of Tyrania intend to use the power generated from it to reactivate and launch several ICBMs they have in their posession. Hunt manages to escape and sabotages the reactor so it explodes before the mutants can begin attacking their enemies, but the ruling council of Pax, whom he returns to once he has learned the error of his ways, explain that they knew that the Tyranians had access to the weapons, and they knew that should their reactor be fixed, they would immediately begin attacking people, thus setting in motion another war which would finally kill everyone on Earth. Knowing that Hunt was unaware of this, and had been tricked, they make him promise to never again use his knowledge of science or the past to harm another life form, to which he agrees. Hunt is then assigned to an exploration team and begins his new life rediscovering the reborn Earth.

Why did it fail?
This project failed quite simply because the TV people didn't like it, both because they found the storyline to be uninteresting, and because the series special effects budget would have been quite high.
The premise of this series is similar to Star Trek in many ways, as each week we would have seen Dylans exploration team visit a different region of Earth and interact with any people they found there. Roddenberry had already created several draft ideas for episodes when he submitted his original idea for consideration, but many of the plots were pretty much samey-wamey with the only variations being that each "new" people that the team met would be similar to but different from civilisations we are already familiar with.

Although I quite liked Genesis II, It didnt really have enough entertainment factor for it to be considered for a full series. The limitation placed on it by having Pax be a totally pacifist society would seriously hamper the chances of any action scenes, and, like Star Trek Voyager ended up being, most of the series' "drama" would come from long scientific and/or philosophical discussions between the main cast members, something which 1970s television wasn't really interested in.

Overall - 5/10


Planet Earth (ABC 1974)
Its a bit like -  Genesis II, Stargate SG-1, Star Trek

Premise -
In the year 2133, the people of Pax, one of the few cities to have survived world war 3, send out teams of explorers to make peaceful contact with other surviving communities so they can rebuild and reacquire scientific knowledge. One of these teams is led by Dylan Hunt, a man who was revived by Pax after being placed in stasis in the late 20th century, the series follows their adventures in the post apocalyptic Earth.

Plot of pilot -
Dylan Hunt (now played by John Saxon ) leads his team into the wilderness in search of a missing doctor, whom they need to perform a very delicate operation on a high ranking member of Paxs ruling council, who was injured during a conflict with the Kreegs, a race of warlike mutant humans descended from the military survivors of the war.
They find the trail leads to a small country which calls itself "The Confederacy of Ruth", a society which has adopted a matriarchal model and where men are treated as little more than beasts of burden.
Two members of Dylans team, The former savage Isiah (Ted Cassidy), and field medic Baylock go missing while attempting to make contact with the people of the Confederacy, so, Dylan and his remaining team member, the woman Harper-Smythe, infiltrate the settlement by masquerading as a woman with her male property looking to leave Pax and settle in Ruth.
The pair run in to Marg, one of the rulers of the Confederacy, who challenges Harper-Smythe to a fight and wins, thus taking possession of Hunt.
Hunt is placed into a slave pen, where all the males, referred to by the women as "Dinks", are kept prior too being sold to other mistresses. Hunt finds Isiah and Baylock, but they seem to be drugged in some fashion, being absolutely terrified whenever he tries to speak to them, it is only by way of using Baylocks latent telepathic ability that he finds that the food the men are given is drugged with something that induces terror in the men, this way Hunt manages to avoid eating any of the drugged food he is later served, and manages to fool the mistresses into thinking he has been "trained".
Marg decides to keep Hunt for use as breeding stock, as for several year snow, the Confederacy of Ruth has suffered from a decline in the number of pregnancies, as more and more of the men they have there become sterile for some unknown reason, Hunt notices that one of Margs slaves is the man they are looking for, and finds out from him that the reason the men are becoming sterile is because of the drug they are given to keep them docile, but, he has found an antidote for it but has as yet had no opportunity to be able to distribute it amongst the men.
Hunt tricks Marg into getting drunk and passing out while she is attempting to seduce him, having led her to believe that back in Pax, he has several wives and has fathered over a dozen children. Hunt then assists in putting the antidote into the food intended for the men, so that all the men are no longer in a permanent state of terror.
Meanwhile, Harper-Smythe has managed to ingratiate herself into Confederate society, and wins Hunt back after challenging Marg to a duel. Hunt explains what he has learned and they agree to organise a mass break out the next day, however it doesnt go according to plan as the Confederacy comes under attack by a group of marauding Kreegs, who decided to pick on the town because they knew that the men wouldn't fight back, and the women were too few in number to effect any resistance.
By the time they launch their attack though, all of the towns men have received the antidote, and much to the Kreegs surprise, they find themselves being attacked by the towns men, while most of the women stand back surprised as they never thought the men would fight for them, seeing them only as being savages fit only for work or breeding.
The Kreegs are successfully repelled, Hunt manages to get the doctor back to Pax, where he carries out the surgery, and the men of the Confederacy decide to stay and continue their lives, but this time free from being drugged or abused.

Why did it Fail?
Roddenberry, still smarting from being told that "Genesis II" was boring, reworked one of his draft scripts, titled "Poodle Parlour", into this show, adding on more action oriented scenes and even including the Klingon-like Kreegs to act as an enemy for Dylan and his team.
Unfortunately though this change did little to increase the shows charm. Dylan Hunt was changed from being an "action-scientist" to being "budget Captain Kirk", and the remainder of his team were of little significance, except maybe Isiah, who did get a little bit of backstory thrown in in the opening scenes to explain why he, a "savage" was welcome amongst the people of Pax.
At the time the show aired, the "Womens Liberation" movement was quite vocal in their campaign for gender equality in the western world, and many viewers sort of objected to womens depiction on screen as being little more than ignorant tyrants who treated men as indentured slaves. Hunts famous line "Is this womens lib?, or womens lib gone mad?", which was seen by many as being an insult to women and supporters of gender equality, while some pointed out that the Kreegs spoke and acted in a way that seemed to mimic a stereotypical "African savage", as the Kreegs would speak in a series of gutteral grunts and were completely obsessed with destruction.
Another factor in its downfall was again, a high budget required for special effects and makeup appliances, as actors playing the Kreegs would all require to have bony headpieces applied and their skin darkened.
All in all though, the show wasn't too bad, but would never have really worked as a TV series for the same reason that its earlier incarnation, Genesis II, wouldn't have worked, but it was better than Genesis II insofar as it is actually entertaining to watch in places, and not scene after scene of science bits and philosophical dilemmas and so on. 
Overall - 7/10

 Strange New World (Warner Brothers TV - 1975)

Premise -
In the late 20th century, a scientific organisation named "Pax" launches a space station into orbit, its purpose, to test a suspended animation process by placing 3 people into stasis for 18 days.
3 days into the mission, Pax observers spot a swarm of meteors heading directly for Earth, so they move the space station into a deeper orbit, lasting 180 years, and extend the stasis period to cover that time. The meteors impact the planet, causing the worst natural disaster to ever occur during human history, however, some people, including the families of the three people in space, are placed into stasis in Paxs underground bunker, to await the return of the three space travellers.



Plot of Pilot -
Astronaut Anthony Vico (John Saxon), together with navigator/communications officer Alison Crowley and medical Doctor William Scott are revived and informed as to what has happened while they have been in stasis. They are given the instructions to return to Earth and make their way to the Pax headquarters to revive the survivors, if any, that they find there.
The disaster has left Earth a changed planet, completely wiping out all civilisations and countries that occupied it previously, and leaving only a handful of survivors.
After landing, the three travellers begin their journey using an advanced 6 wheeled all terrain vehicle, and come across a society of people who model themselves somewhat on ancient Rome, who also claim to have discovered the secret of eternal youth. They are however, much more sinister as they have perfected cloning, thus allowing them to replace organs at will, not only that, but they also use their own clones as slave labour.
The next people they meet on their travels are people descended from zookeepers, who now worship and protect the animals their ancestors watched over from tribes of marauding humans who hunt animals for food and sport.

Why did it fail?
Of the three "Pax Trilogy" pilots, this was the only one which Gene Roddenberry had no direct involvement in creating. Warner Brothers, who now owned the "Pax" series concept, decided to give it one last go and completely reworked the format, keeping very little from the original premise.
What remained, and what eventually aired was a poorly conceived "adventure" type show in which the team of "heroes" searched for the "lost" Pax HQ, encountering a new adversary each week, pretty similar to any number of other shows that were on at the time.
The production itself was riddled with cheapo special effects, poor acting, terrible dialogue and flimsy formulaic plots which were neither interesting nor entertaining to watch.

Its a shame that a solid concept as this ended up as a simple run of the mill TV show full of cliches, bargain basement effects and boring plots. After this show aired, the Pax concept was discarded completely by Roddenberry as "unworkable", although many people have noted that the subsequent "Logans Run" TV series did indeed have many similarities to "Strange New World".
Overall - 3/10

The Questor Tapes (NBC 1974)

Premise -
Dr. Vaslovik had a dream to build the worlds first super realistic android, however, just as his dream was reaching fruition, he disappeared without trace.
His team complete the assembly of the android, however their inability to understand the robots programming causes them to erase most of the data left behind on a series of program tapes.
They try and activate the robot using a substitute program they wrote themselves, but are unsuccessful, so in a last ditch attempt to get it working, they input the remains of the original tape, which again appears to fail, causing them to abandon the project.
However, when the android is left alone, it suddenly activates, and, after making cosmetic changes to itself so that it can pass for human, it begins to wonder what its purpose is.

Plot of pilot -
Questor, as the android names itself, has fragmented memories of what it is supposed to do, left over from its original programming. It knows it must find Dr. Vaslovik, and that his location has something to do with a boat. The problem is that Questors nuclear power source, located in his stomach, will explode within a week if he is not reunited with his creator.
Questors investigations eventually lead him to mount Ararat, where he is reunited with Vaslovik, who reveals himself to be another android, one of many in a line left behind by "The Masters" to act as a guardian of mankind. Each android has a lifespan measured in centuries, and at the end of its lifetime, it must build a replacement and "pass on the torch" of responsibility, as it were. Questor takes on the mantle and begins his quest to help mankind move towards a peaceful existence.

Why did it fail?
Oddly, "The Questor Tapes" was actually greenlit for a full series before the pilot had even aired on TV, however, the series never happened, simply because NBC demanded numerous changes be made to the shows format, and then further causing insult by saying that the show was scheduled to air on friday nights at 10pm, a time slot which is considered to be a "death slot" for any TV program put in it (the 3rd series of Star Trek was placed in this time slot, and suffered horribly because of it).Roddenberry refused to make any of the changed demanded by the networks and after the timeslot was announced, he quit the production. Without him at the helm, the series fell through.
Although the premise itself was sound, the formula of having an "outsider" shepard mankind towards its destiny had already been tried out in the backdoor pilot episode of Star Trek named "Assignment: Earth" and had similarities to Doctor Who.

Overall - 6/10

Spectre (1977)

Premise -
William Sebastian is a Criminologist who during one of his cases ends up being cursed by the demon Asmodeus. The result of this curse is that he requires constant medical attention. Lucklily, Sebastians friend Dr. Hamilton is on hand to provide him with medical assistance whenever he needs it, thus leaving Sebastian free to continue solving cases related to the occult in the hopes that he will find a cure for the curse.

Plot of pilot -
While investigating a case on behalf of the Cyon family, Sebastian is attacked by a succubus, whom he defeats. This leads him to further investigate the family in their ancestral home in London.
Every step of the way, Sebastian and Hamilton are beseeched by supernatural entities who commit several murders in order to stop anyone investigating the family.
The pair eventually find a hidden temple dedicated to the demon Asmodeus and defeat him, thus removing Sebastians curse.

Why did it fail?
At the time the pilot was proposed, occult detective fiction was quite popular, however, due to this, numerous other pitches were made in a similar vein, many of which never made it into production.
By the time the filming of a pilot had been greenlit, it was already obvious that the pilot wouldnt be picked up for series, so instead the script was reworked into a standalone film, with the hopes that maybe it would become a series. Although the finished film was released at cinemas, it didnt do too well, being as that the main characters were basically Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in everything but name, and the story was bland and uninteresting, having pretty much been done to death before.
One item of note is that the UK theatrical release of the film featured a "black mass" scene at the end of the film, which included full frontal nudity, this section of the film was edited out for US release.

Overall - 5/10