Space: Above and Beyond (1995-1996)

Space: Above and Beyond (Also known variously as Space 2063, Squadron 58, Space Marines, Space War 2063, Space Commando, Star Squadron and many others, depending on which country you are from) was a short lived military Sci-Fi TV series created by X-Files writers/Creators Glen Morgan and James Wong as a side project while that series was still ongoing.

                                                               (Series Title Card)

The first, and only, series takes place between the years 2063 and 2064, a time in which mankind has begun to explore and colonise not only the outer solar system, but also due to the discovery of predictable but highly mobile wormholes, other star systems as well.

The series begins proper when the first extra-solar colony, named "Vesta", comes under attack by an advanced alien species, ironically while the colonies leader delivers a speech about mankind being alone in the universe.
A second colony, named "Tellus" is planned, however the colony ship is attacked and heavily damaged as it makes its landing run on the planet.

The Tellus colony ship is what sparks the beginning of the series storyline, as prior to its launch a colonist named Nathan West is forcibly removed from the program on the orders of US Government senators for political reasons. This removal separates him from his long term girlfriend Kylen, whom he pledges he will find and be with again, which leads him to enlisting in the US (Space) Marine corps, as there is a slim chance that he will be stationed to system monitor duty in the Tellus system, which will allow him and Kylen to be together again, the destruction of the Vesta and Tellus colonies puts a damper on this plan though, as for the first time, mankind has to fight a war against a completely alien enemy.

Initially, the series plays out along the lines of what is seemingly a "humans v evil aliens" type storyline, however, as time passes, it slowly becomes apparent that the aliens, who are nicknamed the "Chigs" (due to their passing resemblance to a chigoe flea - their real name is never revealed) are not as evil as it was thought, and that the cause of the war is not a straightforward question of "Us vs Them".
Nathan West is eventually assigned to USMC 58th Squadron, attached to the Carrier vessel USS Saratoga, where, during the course of the pilot episode, they distinguish themselves by thwarting a Chig plan to directly attack the planet Earth.
The remainder of the series follows the members of 58th Squadron as they fight their way through the war one day at a time, hampered by the various bits of infighting and politics that are as still prevalent amongst mankind in the future as they are now.



Numerous plot arcs and story lines are followed in this series, and, unlike most Sci-Fi offerings of the time, are intelligently written, examples include:-



Racism/Prejudice - Part of the series backstory is that about 5 years prior to the series beginning, mankind fought a war against "The Silicates", a race of human created androids intended to perform labour considered dangerous or too menial for humans. At some point, a computer programmer, seeking to revenge himself upon a supervisor who took credit for his work, inserted a virus in the Silicates programming, which urged the androids simply to "take a chance" instead of following logic. This petty decision led to all of the worlds androids rebelling, which in turn erupted into open conflict, causing the deaths of millions of people.
In response to this, Human genetic engineering gave birth to a race of artificially created humans, referred to as "in-vitros", who are created in laboratories and who were originally intended to be used as soldiers to fight the AIs. However, this backfired, as in-vitros, known mostly by the derogatory terms "Tanks" (referring to both their method of birth and the fact that they are generally tougher than normal humans) and/or "Nipple-necks" (due to them having a noticeable navel on the back of their neck, as opposed to being on the stomach as it is on a normal human) are "born" with the physical age of 18, but the mental age of a newborn baby, they are then quickly and brutally rushed through education and indoctrination, which although instilling the required level of military knowledge into them, instils none of the psychological knowledge which normal humans acquire through years of life (most of the in-vitros shown during the series appear to have an adolescent type of mindset).As such, the in-vitros are considered to be both lazy and cowardly, as during the AI war, very few of them actually fought or performed any of the duties they were created for.

Most humans are shown to treat in-vitros with extreme prejudice, who for most of the series are shown to be treated as little more than slaves and/or animals.This leads to various plot lines where they are openly defiant and rebel against humans, and are even used by humans in plots to cause trouble with the war effort.

Loyalty/Betrayal -  One of the recurring themes is the intense loyalty that 58th Squadron develops for each other, sometimes at the cost of disobeying their superiors. Conversely, one theme that also recurs is betrayal or distrust of "outsiders". Numerous characters pop up during the series whose motives and true intentions are either never made clear, or who outright betray everyone. While this is an expected trait from AIs (all of whom harbour an intense dislike of humans) when it is displayed in other humans, it usually ends up being something shocking or unexpected.

Conspiracies/Cover ups -  One thing that crops up at various points in the series is the involvement of the megacorporation "Aero-Tech" in numerous aspects of both the war and human space exploration in general. Aero-Tech is shown to be a major aerospace company who manufactures space craft for the various Earth governments, but also seems to have numerous hidden agendas, and, who as it turns out, may have had a hand in inadvertently causing the war in the first place, a fact which they try, using various underhanded means, to cover up.

Psychology/Torture - Throughout the series, both the humans and the Chigs are shown to make extensive use of disinformation and psychology to try and outwit each other, up to and including psychological torture and "reprogramming" of individuals to perform some purpose inherent to their respective war efforts. On the human side, things such as hypnotic suggestion and psychological programming are used to make people believe things that are not true, or to coerce them into performing deeds which they normally wouldn't. Both the Chigs and the AIs are shown to make extensive use of terror tactics and terror weapons in order to destabilise the human war effort.

Although S:AAB didn't really tread any new ground (similar plot lines were explored in the TV series "Tour of Duty") , it did bring forth a fairly interesting, although sometimes dry, Sci-Fi tale which was set close enough to "now" to still be recognisable to the causal viewer, but just far enough into the future to allow for convenient Sci-Fi trappings to give the writers enough freedom to explore plotlines without having to make too many nods towards realism.

Although the series was well recieved, its convoluted plot and expensive special effects, coupled with it "schedule hopping" led to the decision being made not to commission a second series.
As such, the series ended on a cliffhanger, which the creators hoped to resolve in a possible feature length episode or movie, however as time went on, people lost interest in the project and thus it never materialised.
Since then the creators have given rough outlines to what would have happened if the series had continued, including most of 58th Squadron being killed or captured and the various survivors encountering personal problems, both due to their experiences and with the replacements for those killed.

In the years that have passed since the series aired, actor Joel de la Fuente, who played Lt. Paul Wang in the series, has been vocal in his criticism of the way in which the series handled stereotypes, labeling his character as being little more than a stereotypical "Asian coward" and most of the other characters as being "cardboard cut outs". Understandably, de la Fuente has not been asked to take part in many of Morgan/Wongs other projects since, unlike many of the other people who starred in this series.

S:AAB is a nice series, but some of the series 24 episodes are just downright boring to watch, as the writers seemed to be trying too hard to make the series cerebral, and ended up instead making convoluted and dialogue heavy scenes which confused many viewers and created plot holes.

Its not a bad series, but its not a great one either....

Serial offender - "Watt on Earth" (1991-1992, CBBC)

"Serial" type shows were a staple component of kids TV here in the UK from the 70s through to the late 90s, CBBC producing loads, many based on semi popular childrens books and many original productions.
Said serials would usually feature children being the "hero" in some fashion, and would often take place in some sort of fantasy/sci-fi setting.

Although a popular format for over 30 years, its popularity waned in the late 90s and such types of show are now almost totally unheard of.

"Watt on Earth" had 2 series, each consisting of 12 episodes, both written by the veteran TV writing team of Pip and Jane Baker, and centred mainly around the misadventures of an alien prince, the titular "Watt" (geddit? "what/Watt" on Earth...puntastic!) and his human friend Sean, whose job it is to keep Watt hidden from his family (all of whom are journalists of some description) and generally keep him out of trouble.

Watt, who is considered a child on his home planet, despite being over 300 years old in Earth years, is the last remaining member of the royal family, his parents having been "killed in an accident" arranged by his evil uncle who has designs on crowning himself king as he has grown a bit sick of merely being the planets "regent protector", unfortunately for his evil plans, Watt, being the remaining heir, will become king when he comes of age.
Watt is sent into exile on Earth by a faction within his planets government who are still loyal to the royal family until such time as they can remove the Uncle from power and restore Watt to his rightful place as ruler. The uncle though, who isn't stupid, catches on to this plot and dispatches his faithful right hand man, Jemedah, to Earth to hunt down and kill Watt......(wow, heavy stuff for a kids TV show from the early 90s eh?).
Watts people are energy beings, so in order to blend in, Watt and Jemedah use a technique called "Transanimateobjectification" to appear as numerous people and objects found on Earth, although Watt, being only a child, isn't able to use this ability properly, so whenever he changes himself, he often messes it up, for example, in the first series, his human disguise (A shell suit wearing man in his early 20s) is ok apart from his ears being backwards, and in the second series, he gets his ears on the correct way, but they are green. He makes similar mistakes when he tries to imitate inanimate objects as well, such as becoming a teapot that has 2 spouts, an apple what has a blue flashing stalk etc.

The series itself is a fairly bland, middle of the road bit of TV filler, and is packed with teenage cliches, such as Seans sister being obsessed with pop music, and some inoffensive humour, most of which is derived from Watts inability to understand human customs and situations. One such "comedy sequence" that jumps out is during episode 3 where a whole 5 minutes is spent with Watt hunting around the kitchen looking for food, and ending with him making a cat food and squirty cream sandwich, which he then finds disgusting, but still eats anyway (Watt must keep his energy up otherwise he isn't able to transanimateobjectify, therefore he spends a lot of time moaning about being hungry).

The first series deals mainly with Watt acclimatising to living on Earth, but also trying to find out what is happening back home, the second series deals with Watt returning to Earth after being away for a fortnight, although due to relativity issues, a year has passed on Earth. The second series ends with Watt returning home for good to take his place as king.

Like i said, this series isnt too bad, although it is unashamedly a bit of filler used to pad out the CBBC winter schedules schedules between 5:10pm and when Neighbours came on at 5:25pm, its hardly memorable though when put alongside other childrens serials of the same type (in many ways, the show resembles CITVs sci-fi sitcom "Mike & Angelo", another series about an oddball alien arriving on Earth and befriending a series of young children. A show which incidentally ran for 11 years, I dont know why because it was a bit tedious).

As is the norm for CBBC serials, it has never been released on video/DVD, although a book was available, so if you want to watch this series, youll have to head over to Youtube, where several people have uploaded the series in fairly high quality video.

Alien Nation : The Series (1989-1990)

Following on from the original film , the Alien Nation TV series continues the story of a "future" (the series is set roughly in 1991/1992) United States which becomes inhabited by 250,000 aliens after their ship crash lands in the Mojave desert.

Although the series was intended to be a direct follow on to the film, there were numerous small changes made to characters and back story, for example, the two main characters, Matthew Sykes (renamed "Sikes" in the TV series) and "newcomer" Sam "George" Fransisco (renamed simply "George Fransisco" in the series, his original pun name said to have been foisted on him by a bored immigration official) are now played by Gary Graham and Eric Pierpoint as opposed to James Caan and Mandy Patinkin respectively.
In addition, Georges family was slightly changed, With his son now being named "Buck" instead of "Richard" as given in the film.

I first encountered this show as part of Yorkshire televisions "late night" weekend slot, as it usually aired on a friday or saturday night during the early/mid 90s. Itwas strange as i thought that there were at least 2 or 3 series of this show made, the series itself consisted of a single series of 22 episodes, each lasting 47 minutes, and the concept is explored further than it was in the film.
Several new aspects are added to the background of the "newcomers", whose race is named officially as the "Tenctonese", although the pejorative terms "Slag" or "Spongehead" are used by people to refer to them on occasion, a point which in the first episode, George explains to Sikes that calling him a Slag is the equivalent of calling someone a "nigger" or a "kike". Although the newcomers show they too have prejudice by referring to humans as "terts".

The series does have a couple of plot arcs, and each episode generally consists of two story lines running simultaneously in some way.  Themes explored include:-

• The culture shock that ensues from humans suddenly having 250,000 completely alien people dropped on them, which leads to various racist themes being explored, such as jealousy that the newcomers are generally stronger, smarter and more resilient than  humans. So much so that during the course of some episodes, a human centric "purist" movement is shown to exist, which spreads various rumours and lies about the newcomers. The irony of this is is that many black, oriental and Hispanic people end up repeating the same things about newcomers as what was once said about themselves, for no other reason than to express hatred towards something different.
• The new types of crime that spring up once the newcomers begin integrating into human society. Although a lot of this crime is pretty much the same as human crime (drug traffiking, prostitution, theft, murder, gang warfare etc) the problems end up becoming more complex being as that they involve an alien culture, and as such, many of the human characters do not always understand what is happening. 
• Inter species relationships are also explored, with Sikes slowly becoming more and more attracted towards his newcomer neighbour "Cathy", as well as a few episodes depicting both aliens and newcomers in mixed or same sex relationships (it is also shown that the newcomers have no taboos about same sex relationships amongst either their own people or inter species, although some do have prejudice about mixed sex inter species relationships).
•  An interesting sub plot throughout the series is the introduction of a ruling class of newcomers called "overseers", nearly all of whom went unnoticed on their arrival on Earth and all of whom seek to once again take control of the "lesser" newcomers. George finds the overseers detestable, as do most of the other newcomers once they have been freed from their influence. One episode deals with a terrorist obtaining a cannister of the mind control gas that the overseers used to keep the slaves in line, and several episodes deal with the police finding and closing down operations to create "Jabroka", a drug which has roughly the same effect on newcomers as crack cocaine does on humans.
• Sikes and Georges ongoing struggle to make arrests despite interference from the ambitious and somewhat buffoonish Captain Grazer.

The series is unashamedly a "buddy cop" type program, but also has elements of being a sci-fi soap opera, with many of the "B" plots being little more than simple "aliens/humans not understanding each other" type affairs, but for some reason, it really works well, and quickly establishes a core group of likeable characters performing believable actions within their almost normal environment.
There are numerous examples of comedy in there as well, ranging from simple cultural misunderstandings (such as Georges wife being utterly repulsed by the concept of Halloween), right down to instances of heavily satirical and/or black humour. 

But, despite how well the series was received, its days were numbered as after only a single series. This came as somewhat of a surprise to viewers, and to the production crew, who had expected to at least get a second series based on the shows approval ratings. The problem was, the show aired on FOXs "Fox Network" during its early days as a prime time TV channel, and, due to the network not attracting as much investment from advertisers as they had expected, cuts had to be made to the network budget, and, Alien Nation, being an expensive show to make due to the large amount of special effects and make up needing to be applied to actors playing aliens, ranked as one of the shows which had to go in order to save money.

The story didn't end there though, with five feature length TV movies being produced between 1994 and 1997 which picked up from where the series left off and resolved all the unfinished story lines.

The show still enjoys somewhat of a cult following today, and is one of my firm favourites.