Tag: space above and beyond

I was excited about the TV series Space: Above and Beyond (SaAB) from the moment I first heard about it in 1995. Back then, the series The X-Files was one of the biggest and most exciting things on television and was riding a creative high to boot. And other than The X-Files series creator Chris Carter the two people most responsible for the look and direction for that show at that time were writers Glen Morgan and James Wong. And those two would be the producers and lead writers on SAaB.

What wasn’t there to be excited about from a sci-fi geek like me?

Set in the year 2063 where space travel is common, the world is at peace and human beings can be created wholly inside a lab, SAaB follows a group of Marine Corps recruits who’ve joined up for various reasons; to follow a girl to the stars, to stay out of jail, out of a sense of familial duty… But when an alien race known as the “Chigs” begins attacking Earth colonies across the galaxy, and beating our forces badly, these recruits are thrown into the battle to try and stop the alien advances.

And that’s what most of SAaB is about, this galactic war, the people caught up in the conflict and their losses.

It’s probably been a good 15 years since the last time I sat down and watched the whole SAaB TV series. It was so long ago that I remember the last time I watched the series it was recorded from TV on VHS! But back at the end of 2013 I decided to sit down and watch the show again and review all the episodes leading up to the show’s 20th anniversary this September 24. And while I did watch and review about half the series, I wasn’t able to watch the entire series run again. (Alas, life.)

However, after having watched 14 episodes I can happily report that not only does SAaB hold up today 20 years after it originally premiered, it’s actually still a quite good show. Well, “good” with one caveat.

When I first started re-watching SAaB I was a bit taken aback that while the show does have a central story narrative, namely the progress of war, the actual stories of SAaB sometimes carryover between episodes and sometimes do not. Things will happen in one episode that will directly affect the next but other things are completely ignored.

In one episode the story deals with a character who is suffering from brain damage who must remember a specific piece of information or his friends will be killed. In reality any soldier who has an injury like that would be shipped back home. In the universe of SAaB this character is seen piloting a ship the next episode seemingly injury free. And in more than one episode the Chigs develop weapons that would turn the tide of war in their favor, but these weapons are forgotten by the next episode.

I had a hard time coming to terms with this all until I began taking each episode on its own terms. I would almost imagine that each episode was a “reset,” that we’re meeting the characters of SAaB for the first time in every episode — that the story before may carry over to each new episode but that the details of the previous episode may may not.

It’s not like SAaB was unique in this regard, lots of similar series of the ‘90s dealt with stories the same way. That each episode was separate, fresh and new from the previous. I think where SAaB almost went from a good show to a great one was the inclusion of the overarching galactic war storyline. It’s something that a show like Battlestar Galactica would take and run with less than a decade after the end of SAaB to great effect.

Now that The X-Files is getting a reboot series set to premiere early next year, let’s hope that a SaAB reboot, like Battlestar Galactica was too, isn’t far behind. 🙂 Currently, the single season of SAaB is only available on DVD.

Original air date: February 4, 1996

The war has started to turn in our favor when the Chigs launch an experimental fighter that’s capable of wiping out entire squadrons in the blink of an eye. When the 58th are thrown into the fray looking to eliminate this threat will they be be able to take out this alien Red Baron or will they become yet another statistic?

“Never No More” is probably the best episode of Space: Above and Beyond, it’s certainly the best up to this point. While other episodes have dealt with things like the war with the Chigs and what it’s like to leave loved ones behind and sometimes see them die, “Never No More” is the first episode in the series to handle all that in one episode so succinctly.

Here, the tables are finally starting to turn and the Earth forces are beginning to make advances against the previously seemingly unbeatable Chigs. But whenever squadrons of our fighters go off to patrol around a certain planet they end up getting wiped out by a single, special, Chig ship. And even when we send scores and scores of fighters against this Chig fighter dubbed “Chiggie Von Richthofen” we’re only able to score a temporary victory over it after having suffered massive losses.

The Earth is set to mount a major new offensive against the Chigs, they think they know the location of the alien’s home planet is, but in order for it to start we first must destroy this new fighter less it continue to kill Marine pilots.

With “Never No More” we get a whole heck of a lot of Shane Vansen’s backstory here. This is mainly of her turning down an engagement proposal from her high school boyfriend in a flashback before the war, which with these two characters is where the real interest in this episode lies.

In flashbacks the character of Capt. John Oakes (Michael Reilly Burke) is a bright-eyed kid who’s excited to fly off to a great adventure after graduation in the Marines. But that adventure turned to something darker after the outbreak of the war and more recently with the loss of his girlfriend to this Chiggie Von Richtofen.

And Vansen, who’s been so closed up to this point with the loss of her parents as a kid, comes off as someone in “Never No More” with a bit more heart than I think anyone had expected. She’s in love with Oakes but with the realities of what’s going on around them their relationship is something different. Them being together even for a little while is some small respite from a war that’s taken so many of their friends and comrades.

“Never No More” has more gut-wrenching emotion than all the previous episodes combined. And after watching this episode when it originally aired I was never able to hear the Patsy Cline song “Never No More” the same way again.

“Never No More” also features what I’d guess is the most special effect shots of any episode of the series up to this point – even if some of those shots were cribbed from earlier episodes. There’s shots of Marine Hammerheads stalking this Chig fighter and the battles fought between them too. While these shots look a bit dated today none-the-less they were groundbreaking for the time this episode aired.

We also get a bit of the wider scope to the war here too. There’s an (I think) Israeli pilot playing cards with the 58th in one scene and in another the “Fighting Finns” who are I’m assuming Finnish pilots in another.

Grade: A+

Goof
The Chigs develop a fighter that’s practically invisible to the Marines yet after the next episode they never use this again. Chig technology that could seemingly turn the war in their favor yet they only ever use it once is a common theme throughout SAaB.

Favorite dialog:

Capt. John Oakes: “He disappeared about 100 of these ago.”
On who he is now compared to as a teen when receiving death notices is a normal occurrence.

TC McQueen about Chiggie Von Richthofen: “You might as well be talking about ghosts and werewolves because there is no such thing.”

Shane Vansen: “The only certainty is now and I sure don’t believe in forever.”
Capt. John Oakes: “I hate the word you said to me that night, but I’ve come to believe them.”

TC McQueen: “You’re sending them into the dark without a light.”

Shane Vansen: “I’m so sorry that she’s not here, but I’m not sorry that I am.”

Pilot: “Sir, how do we detect it?”
TC McQueen: “When a plane in your formation goes down, you know you’re in the schoolyard.”

Commodore Ross: “Abandon all hope my ass!”

Stray observations:
Oakes girlfriend Brandt is leader of the “Soaring Hornets.”

Cooper Hawkes has no poker face.

“Never No More” takes place around February 14, 2064. Valentine’s Day.

Vansen and Oakes went to El Cajon Valley High School.

Oakes went to the Marine Corps High Intensity Survival Training on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility.

The operation the Marines are participating in at the start of the episode is “Shadow Watch.” Later they join operation “Red Baron.”