Raumstation Unity

Sky tv are running Space Island One at 1am, but to their credit this is the second time the series has had a run since the summer. A thoughtful, well-written and highly plausible view of the near future, with the desire for exploration and discovery forced into an uneasy alliance with the mega-bucks which fund it through big business. Mostly station based, thus eschewing none too spectacular space walks, etc, but allowing character driven plots to explore the individuals and their claustrophobic but scientifically driven lives. At its best, excellent tv science fiction. Its not ray guns and aliens on the starboard bow sf and thus is likely to be doomed to appeal to a small audience, which is a shame. Good scripts and indoor sets, rounded characters and well acted--Judy Loe is superb-- make this a most enjoyable and thought provoking suggestion of the future.

This show did not have a big budget, or action packed stories, but it captured the feeling of the old British sci-fi shows of the 80's.

I liked the show for it's distinctive atmosphere, and the easily-likeable characters. It was a good break from Star Trek clone shows (although I generally do like those shows too :).

If you liked shows like Blake's 7, this show is for you, although the special effects are distinctly better than the effects in Blake.

... And the sets were on par with early Dr Who rather than anything high-tech like Bab5 or Star Trek, but damn, I loved those people, and I was SO ready for Season 2. Which never happened. If there were a DVD I'd buy it in about a second.

The little robots, the "roams", and their creator the Scots mechanical genius Lyle Campbell were great comic relief; the pilot Shannon and the station commander Kathryn McTiernan were a wonderfully tense pairing, the simply competent Brit and her over-the-hill Yank second-in-command and pilot. "Harry" Escherbach and her foil in the lab, Paula Hernandez were another study in subtle contrasts.

The show was very much character-driven ... but the plots were not bad either. As I say, I've been looking for DVD for about 8 years now.

This is a show that some may think a bit too dry. There are no cool graphics or sound effects. All there is is a good plot and characters with depth. It is not a show to just watch one of -- you will be confused.

One of the things that I like about it is that there are very few people and they are within a limited space. Not a lot of visitors or other distractions. Most of the show is how the group acts within itself and to some outside stimuli. It is definitely more of a character study than anything else.

If you are looking for flashy, this is not for you. If you want something that has substance, then it may be.

It's a shame this show only lasted for two seasons. It wasn't brilliant by any means, but it was surprisingly easy to get into, and after watching a number of episodes I became quite hooked on it. In Australia it was shown at two o'clock on Wednesday mornings, but I found it was the perfect show to have with breakfast on a Saturday and taped it regularly. Unfortunately, I discovered too late that there were only a limited number of episodes, and the show could not be found on video, so I didn't manage to keep any of them.

The show itself is quite remarkable. Unlike most science fiction programmes, it is set in the near future and almost everything used in the series is something that could conceivably be created today. The story lines and acting are a little too cartoonish for the show to be overly believable, but there is a stronger element of believability to this programme than many other science fiction offerings. Produced as a co-operative exercise between England and Germany, with German, British and American actors and characters from Germany, GB, the US and Russia, there is more than one 'double meaning' behind the Space Station's name: Unity (incidentally, the name of one of the modules of the International Space Station). The possible issues of corporate ownership is explored in detail in this series, as are the tensions that arise from isolating a small group of people in a confined space. I wouldn't call the series ground-breaking, but it has it's high points and is worth more attention that it received.