It’s been almost seven years since the show “Space: Above and Beyond” first aired and six since it was canceled. After all these years I still miss the show.
I first wrote about the demise of the show here on Dangerous Universe four years ago – it was one of the first things I wrote for this site. The article expressed my feelings over the death of the show and why I thought it should have never been canceled.
Guess what? It’s 2002 and I still feel the same way.
Since the show last aired I never really found another show to follow that was the same caliber/ genera of “Space: Above and Beyond”. Sure, there was “Deep Space Nine” with the “Dominion War” raging and the animated version of “Starship Troopers” (which was also canceled after just one season). Still, no sci-fi show has taken the mantle of “Space: Above and Beyond” in all the years it has been off the air.
There’s a multitude of really bad sci-fi shows on the market right now. Just by picking up the local television listings I see shows of low quality like: “Andromeda”, “Mutant X”, “Earth: Final Conflict”, and “Tracker”. These shows are nowhere near the caliber of “Space: Above and Beyond” yet they seem to last for years and years. Maybe the real secret of a television show to have holding power is to cater to the lowest common denominator. A show never gets canceled by being popular.
Since I realize there’s no way a new episode of “Space: Above and Beyond” will ever air, I am a realist after all, I propose a compromise: I suggest to the smart television executive that they pick up the rights to the book “The Forever War” and take this to HBO and develop it as a mini-series (akin to “Band of Brothers”. (Major elements of “The Forever War” were incorporated into “Space: Above and Beyond”).
Maybe “Forever War the Series” (one of the most popular/ highly regarded sci-fi novels of all time) could replace “Space: Above and Beyond”.
One more request: let me be the production designer on the show and write a couple of episodes. Or would that be asking for too much?
