Nice effects though.

Don't Believe the Hype

Am I Missing Something?

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

On the heels of "Ark II," Filmation Studios put together another science fiction-oriented, Saturday morning, live-action show. Here, Harris (playing a 300 year-old character who doesn't look a day over 70!) plays the instructor of the title school, a large facility built into an asteroid, which collects all the brightest young minds and trains them for duty in space. Though the school contains red teams and yellow teams, the show focuses almost exclusively on the blue team. Psychic siblings Carrott and Ferdin, somewhat flippant Henderson, martial arts trained Tochi and dedicated, pretty Cooper made up the main team, though they were soon joined by pint-sized Greene, an orphan who was rescued from a dying planet. Also scooting around was a robot, Peepo, voiced in a deliberately monotone way by the daughter of the producer Scheimer. Each episode pitted the team against some sort of outer space emergency or an alien presence or perhaps a fellow team member with an attitude problem (one of these was portrayed by Paula Wagner, future power player and business partner of Tom Cruise!) The kids were practically all earnest and sweet to death, though occasionally a difference of opinion or a bit of mischief, primarily by Greene, would provide some conflict. Everything was lorded over by Harris in his inimitable over-the-top acting style. Sporting near "Baby Jane Hudson" level makeup and a hair helmet made up of combed over, fuzzy S.O.S pad, he did occasionally come off as a bit preposterous, especially when a significant amount of derring do was required. Carrott, though fresh-scrubbed looking, was actually quite a bit older that the others and had even done a T&A movie or two before this! His thick northern accent came out frequently. Ferdin was by now a veteran child star. Her voice had developed into an almost cartoonish delivery, no doubt a side effect of the animated voice-over gigs she had landed previously. Her career only lasted a year or two beyond this. She and Tochi had appeared together in an original "Star Trek" episode. Here, he is more than a little "on," constantly shaking his hair and reacting in a very over-eager way to everything. Considering the time this was made and the budget available, the special effects are actually quite good! The seekers, small ships the team took to explore other planets or phenomenon, were partially based on and constructed from the main vehicle from "Ark II." There's a bouncy theme song to grab the attention. It must be said that, though the uniforms of the students are well made and inventive, they really display some seriously bad panty lines, especially on the guys for whatever reason. It's an undeniably cheesy and goofy spin on "Star Trek," sort of "Star Trek Jr.," but it's also a fun throwback to the simpler style of kiddie television. It also, like most every Filmation program, encourages good moral judgment and the importance of doing right.

Those of you who said that James Doohan (Scotty) was on Space Academy made a mistake. He was on the spin off series Jason of Star Command. Anyway Jonathan Harris was great on this show as Commander Gampu and how he would help the cadets on their various space missions. It was fun to see what missions the crew would go on every week and the things they would learn from their missions. Who could forget Peepo and his personality and wisecracks. This show would come on either before or after Fat Albert depending on the year it was on. I'm sure Space Academy will come out on DVD someday. R.I.P. Jonathan Harris (Gampu) and James Doohan (Scotty). You'll be missed but the memories of your shows will live on forever.

This was an ambitious Saturday morning science fiction series which had some pretty cool model work & fx for its time. Plus, we all know that the live action Sat a.m. shows have tight budgets which doesn't make it easy to attain quality productions.My problem with the premise was that the academy instructors had no difficulty sending students out on dangerous missions that should have been for adult senior officers. These kids didn't even have an adult supervisor with them as they flew off in their Seeker spacecraft into potentially life threatening assignments. Does that make sense to you? The cadets at West Point, Annapolis, and the Air Force Academy have to at least graduate before being placed in harms way, and even then they are junior officers with superior officers over them. The premise simply wasn't realistic or practical, and that is a major drawback in any genre, especially for sci fi. An audience must have a willing suspension of disbelief. But don't ask us to discard logic or common sense because it suits you.

This was one of those shows that was produced by Filmation that tried to teach a weekly morals lesson in the guise of a science fiction show. The only memorable thing about this series was the fact that Jonathan Harris, who played the villainous Doctor Smith on a true classic in "Lost in Space", is cast as the 300 year old mentor to a group of teen-age cadets as they explore the universe and take time each episode to learn a valuable life lesson. Unfortunately, to me this show was just produced as a way to cash in on the monster success of the classic film Star Wars, which had come out earlier that year. The plots were dumb and the all the characters weren't memorable at all. Too bad Jonathan Harris had to waste his talents on this turkey.