Why so much hype?

Let's be realistic.

As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

I thought I was going to see a nice scifi about a space colony and their efforts to build a home & society on a new planet. The colony story lasted all of 5 minutes. It also gets old showing Earthlings as having no consideration that someone else might own the planet before we setup colonies or try to strip the planet of its resources or disrespect a sacred site.What I got was a gung ho "Marines in Space" which spend every episode shooting & attacking their Alien enemy. Every episode was the same boring repetitious shootemup, over & over again at an incredible slow pace. It doesn't even have any decent technology or effects. Only the alien design was unique.Also, what moron would use C & W music on a sci fi? I had my lifetime fill of Patsy Cline & Johnny Cash. Most sci-fi fans are not C&W fans. Personally, I can't stand C&W. It belongs on cowboy movies.Clearly, this series must appeal to males who get off on war films & shootemup violence which doesn't require any thinking or storyline outside of the repetitious battles between the space marines & aliens... over and over and over again on each episode. There is no depth to the characters. They are 2 dimensional & you never warm up to them. This is the fault of the screenwriters & director. Not the actors. The potential to develop the characters was in their profiles but never attempted.The scenes drag so slowly, you have to fast forward to tolerate it to make it thru to the end. There is only so much shooting & watching marines running thru the trees in full gear you can tolerate. After the first few episodes, this flying space squadron of Marines mostly become foot soldiers on the ground shooting toy machine guns. They don't even have laser weapons.This show would probably appeal to ex marines who crave combat and don't care about story lines or thinking. But not scifi fans. This series would drive any intelligent, thinking person up the wall after one or two episodes. There is only so much repetition someone can endure.This reminds me of NBC execs trying to turn Star Trek into a cowboy wagon train to the stars. These neophyte execs seem to think they need to dumb down everything so the public can handle it. Anyone who is that bad off wouldn't watch sci-fi in the first place. They would be watching Martha Stewart or Archie Bunker.Almost all engineers, scientists & technicians are sci-fi & Star Trek fans. Out of several hundred of my peers, I never met one engineer or Scientist in 30 years who wasn't a Star Trek fan. We were all influenced in our careers & our hopes for a better future by Star Trek. The scifi series & films should be written for these fans. Not the critics.We like in-depth, intelligent stories which don't drag. Fancy, futuristic technology & effects. As well as 3 dimensional characters & a deep connection & relationship between the cast members like Kirk & Spock or Ender's game or the series Eureka. Of course, every time someone comes up with a great series, they cancel it or do something stupid to ruin it like they did to the reboot new Dallas series by turning an oil & riches show into a Mexican cartel with dumb idea story lines which violated the original Cannon. Bobby already owned Southfork outright from the original series final season. Nor did they utilize surviving former cast members & slung Sue Ellen back on the bottle when she was so much better when successful. This is a perfect example of wasted opportunity as they did to this series.One of these days, maybe someone will create sci-fi for sci-fi fans instead of trying to appeal to some other low bracket to attract non scifi fans and ending up with none at all.If you like scifi, this isn't it unless you like slow, boring, repetitive shootemup marines running through the trees with full backpacks & toy guns firing at aliens who dissolve into green goo when they get wet or exposed to air. Every episode the same shootemup, no technology, no story & no effects.At least it doesn't have some overprotective mother whining about her spoiled kid on every episode like we suffered thru on Earth 2 (forever lost in the wilderness) or the reboot of V (FBI agent) where they stupidly killed off the original Diana. Or some lost in space series where they never get home. Or Rick Berman & Abrams killing off every decent character which appeals to the audience & deliberately destroys everything Roddenberry created. I include these side issues as comparative analogies in the hopes that someone will learn from these mistakes & avoid them & create something great.The last two episodes are the best. I agree with those who suggest watching the first 2 episodes & the last 2 and skip everything in between. The alien was clearly an award winning design which should have been shown from the beginning. The characters left in jeopardy at series end were all recoverable. The two females had thrusters & parachutes to land. When Wang's pods blew apart only the right side was obliterated. The section he was in broke away intact. Rerun the scene & you will see it for a split second. McQueen was still alive but wounded. The alien spy they never revealed was the commander of the Saratoga. He sure recovered from that fake cold quite rapidly. Nary a sniffle after the big meeting & they made sure to show a few shifty eye clips of the commander. He's the alien mole whose been providing info to the enemy.Unless you only plan to watch the last 2 episodes, don't waste any time on this series.

Recently bought this when it came out on DVD and very glad I did. Excellent, highly enjoyable show, essentially World War 2 in outer space but not just flag-waving propaganda, dealing with real issues such as drug abuse, racial discrimination, bravery, cowardice, political intrigue and the fog of war. Very interesting to listen to Joss Whedon's DVD commentary for the 'Angel' story 'Conviction' guest-starring Rodney Rowland, apparently 'Who Monitors the Birds?' inspired the famous Buffy silent story 'Hush'. Also interesting to look at it's influence on 'Firefly', especially the scene in the story 'Dear Earth' where Shane eats a strawberry.For the good points this series has some fantastic individual stories, notably 'Who Monitors the Birds?' and 'The Angriest Angel'. Also very fond of 'Pearly' not least because it stars Martin Jarvis who is a very familiar face to Britons of my generation. The series gets some aspects of military life spot-on, even in this age of the internet, satellite TV and mobile phones everyone still gets excited about mail call. The exhaustion we see in 'R&R' is utterly accurate and there is no feeling like shore leave. So what went wrong? No offence to Morgan Weisser but he's a terrible choice as a leading man, not that good an actor, not really handsome enough and totally lacking charisma. He gets top billing yet he's one of the least interesting characters, his relationship with his lost girlfriend should be the focus for the series but it just doesn't ring true or hook us in. Wang and Damphouse are OK but it rapidly becomes apparent that Shane, McQueen and Hawkes are the true stars and the eps focusing on them are the most successful, the story lines with the In-Vitros especially good.Oh and did I mention that Kristine Cloke is GORGEOUS!? She's like a cross between Megan Fox and Jennifer Connolly. Such a shame she never really did that much after this. A shame we never got a second season, I'd have loved to have seen them cope with Wang's death, get court-martialed for leaking Earth's war plans to the enemy and Damphouse and Vansen as POWs/Baachus slave girls (Princess Leia in the gold bikini anyone?). Ultimately S:AAB was a great series that had terrific potential but unfortunately never had the opportunity to fulfil it.

When a friend recommended me a classic SF series, I was excited. The story of some soldiers defending Earth somehow promised a lot. But I don't think I've ever been more disappointed with a series. It was bad. It had a lot of potential, but never delivered. I started calling it the "almost"-series, because it was almost cool. Almost good. It almost had a good ending, good characters, a good story. But it didn't. After half the series I really didn't expect much anymore. But it still managed to disappoint me. I just kept watching because I wanted to know how it ended. It had to get better near the end, right? Hardly. It's tempting to suggest how this show could have been much better, but I won't. I'll just point out why I (and my brother) didn't like this show. The acting is decent at best. The characters are not interesting enough and there is almost no character development. Two or three go through some changes at one point, but that's all. Overall, they lack something that you just expect marines to have: attitude. Our heroes are supposed to be the best of the best. Yet they run around like some school boys playing with toy guns. Did the writers of the show really think that shouting 'booyah!' every now and then would make them cool enough? The script has a lot of potential, but never achieves full glory. Some of the story lines are truly glorious, but somehow they managed to mess up most of them. Either the acting is subpar, the music suddenly stops when it needs to be dramatic as possible, or the characters utter the most silly and cliché words imaginable. The aliens are uninspired and lack intimidation. You need a lot of imagination to see something else than suited people. Every episode consists of a short story, but it only takes a while before you realize none of them seem to matter. Nothing big ever happens. They're sent out on a mission, run into trouble and barely make it back. They receive a medal and that's the end of the episode. With some notable exceptions, you might as well watch the first 2 and the last 2 episodes of the whole series. I understand that it holds a lot of nostalgia value for many people and I don't mean to offend them. There are some pretty good episodes, but they could have been so much better, even for the mid 90s. Most episodes are just not worth it. I had to go through a lot of trouble to find this series. I had to go through a lot more to finish watching it. o through in order to finish it.

It's hard reviewing this one with a straight face almost a decade and a half later. Through the lens of times passed, it frequently seems goofy and childish, yet the fond memories linger. This was supposed to be the ultimate sci-fi show when it came out, and although it didn't materialize like that in most regards, it remains a likable, no, lovable classic.So all those intervening months may render the costumes and settings slightly unconvincing and even woefully laughable at times – I found myself shaking my head at least once an episode, every episode, when re-watching the entire series on DVD. But the story and the various parts that make up Space Above and Beyond (SAAB) are just as evergreen and tantalizing as they were during the long-gone heyday of the 1990's, when the world was noticeably more innocent and before Lost et al took story arcs and mythologies to the next level.SAAB is firmly a 1990's gig – from its look and feel to the very obvious shadow government conspiracy, this is X Files/Millennium/Nowhere Man/Harsh Realm/Dark Angel territory with a huge helping of Wing Commander thrown in. Of course, a couple of years after this show bought the farm, Starship Troopers essentially lifted most of its look and basic tenets to awesome effect – oddly immortalizing SAAB while never acknowledging it.Like many of its stablemates, it too got the Fox cancel hammer slap bang on the noggin after just one short season. Not surprising and something that goes on to this day – at least the 1990's are with us like that. Thank you Fox. And also like its contemporaries, SAAB was big on telling multiple stories at the same time, but none as convoluted and passive-aggressive as the ones we're getting now.SAAB takes place in the 2060's, when humanity's at war with an alien civilization known simply as the Chigs. This is a racist term, not the actual name, which we never found out. Thanks again Fox.In the background are running some very complex themes, but we're privy to almost all that there is to them. InVitros are growth-accelerated humans born in tanks that look suspiciously like what was later used in The Matrix. They're an underclass that was designed for use as soldiers and workers, and by the events of the show, are rather marginalized and hated. Then there's the Silicates, a race of AI's that revolted against humanity and escaped into space only to cooperate with the Chigs, and a corporate-government conspiracy. Plus, creators Morgan and Wong made sure to include a lot of B/G texture and politics. The observant will be rewarded, and note much of that stuff would never go through self-censorship now – like subtle hints that China was retaken by Taiwan-based nationalists (their flag represents China in the inter-planetary war).But the basic premise is simple – five marines, the 58th squadron, are based on carrier USS Saratoga, where life is much like it was in Wing Commander. Missions, cut scenes and endless drinking at the bar. These guys are OK and it's too bad most didn't do too much afterwards. Kirsten Cloke is Californian Shane Vansen, Joel Le Fuente does Chicago native Paul Wang, Rodney Rowland is InVitro Cooper Hawkes, Lanei Chapman is New York geek Vanessa Damphousse, and Morgan Weisser is Nathan West, nominally the main character, although all get developed equally.The real stars, however, were the two officers – the amazing James Morrison shines as Col. TC McQueen, a more human version of Kirk (and an InVitro as well) and Tucker Smallwood puts in a marvelous showing as Saratoga skipper Commodore Glen Ross. The chemistry between these two is palpably awesome, made better by some excellently witty writing and dialogue. SAAB has quite a few LOL moments that are intelligent and genuinely funny, not idiotic. The writing was strong, and the military terminology and protocol quite extensive, although obviously unrealistic most of the time. The 58th are supposed to be flyers yet get engaged in all sorts of mundane tasks like guard duty and resupply runs. SAAB couldn't decide whether they were Top Guns or grunts – which took its toll on ratings, possibly.Also, it had some of the most annoyingly obvious red-shirts and character shields in history. Everyone outside the 58th, McQueen and Ross died sooner or later – mostly sooner, while nothing ever serious befell the cast. Even when stranded for months on a hostile planet they still looked fresher than the Losties, which is saying a lot. Speaking of planets, almost all those depicted in the show had human-friendly atmospheres and looked mysteriously like the Australian outback. But at least the aliens didn't speak fluent Oregonian like in some other shows.For its time, SAAB was very panoramic and included tons of detail. The effects still look passable today, and sometimes impressive. But the clearly unworkable assault rifles and BDU's are now really showing their age, or maybe ours, for back then I actually didn't notice how ridiculous they looked. Or maybe I just forgot.Either way, anyone with any interest in sci-fi needs to make tracks and get this series on disc. Anyone with a thing for the 1990's – doubly so. Now that the new X Files movie is out, there's an excuse to relive that spectacular golden age, so what are you waiting for?