SPACE: Above and Beyond - Reviews and general geekiness

I still think of this show. To me this was a reboot of Battlestar Galactica done right.

 

Holy resurrected thread, Batman!!

Just finished a re-watch of this series and had forgotten how much I enjoyed it despite its flaws. First episode I ever saw was 'River of Stars'- the X-mas episode. My wife had taped a few on VHS and sent them to me in Iceland when I was deployed to Keflavik back in '95.

This show is the greatest and the worst at the same time, but its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. The hardest thing watching it nowadays is to remember that it came in the pre-9/11 world, which meant that as an audience we had a totally different mindset back then.

To paraphrase Churchill, 'never in the history of human television has so much cheese and over-the-top acting worked so well on so many levels.'

Like for many people, "Never No More" and "The Angriest Angel" are my two favorite episodes of the series. "...and when I get back, I'm going to drink a bottle of scotch like it's Chiggy Von Richtofen's blood, and celebrate his death."

If ever a series was ripe for a reboot with modern fx and slightly better writing, this would be the one. Of course, finding another T.C. McQueen or Commodore Ross would be pretty hard. But perhaps not impossible.

"You guys seen any action?"
"We're the 58th." -Nuff said.

Wild Cards- Expect No Mercy.

SEMPER FIDELIS!

 

The first time I saw that episode, the scenes with 'dead Vansen' were a little confusing to me, but I eventually grasped what they were going for. Recently read a review of this episode that was actually more an article and treatise on the series itself, and found this tidbit relating to the 'visitations' Coop experienced on the planet. Most interesting to me (and slightly chilling, truth be told) was the last part about Dale Dye.

 

One other tidbit from the finale I always forget about-

In the last scene, West comes into the bunkroom and lays down in Wang's rack. When Hawkes comes in, he lays down in Vansen's. After all they've been through, it's like they're one entity at that point. West is Wang, Wang is West, Hawkes is Vansen, and so on. The loss of Wang, Damphouse, and Vansen makes them feel like they've lost themselves- the lives that mean more to them than their own.