Space Cases

I have such fond memories of this show. I vividly recall rushing to the TV Saturday nights just to watch this show. It was original, funny, cute, and related well to its target audience. I was crushed when it stopped airing on Nick, and still think about it to this day (whenever I see the girl who played the rainbow haired character, Staite or something similar I believe). I really wish the show would have continued, that someone would have at least tried to tie up some of the loose ends. They could have done so much more with this show in my youth, and I feel sorry for the many people who will never get to see it for what it was. This was far to excellent a show to just slip away and disappear into the corners of young people's memories....

I remember this show. I watched it when I was little and actually really enjoyed it. I just watched a terrible movie (on purpose) and was discussing how space actually works when I felt I absolutely needed to look up the name of this show I'd watched so many years ago. Space Cases actually came up first on my search and here I am. Wow. To be honest I don't remember much about it, except I believe that the ship was different in each room for each person. I think I started somewhere in the middle of the series and only managed to watch a couple of episodes. Still it was good and I remember being unhappy when the show as taken off the air.

Despite bad a few bad choices by the higher-ups at Nickelodeon, the show managed to do well the during couple years it aired, and still maintained a rather large fan following in the years after its cancellation.

Space Cases had diverse characters and an extensive background story. The show itself was co-written by a comic book writer, and it shows in the direction and set designs. If you could ignore the special effects and make up designs that occasionally borderlined into downright cheesiness (Catalina's rainbow wig being the most memorable) it had a cute, campy flavor to it that made it very enjoyable. It's a shame it was canceled so early on, there was a lot of questions left unanswered and development we never got to see.

Overall, I would group "Space Cases" in with other Nick cult-hits of the 1990s like "The Adventures of Pete and Pete" and "Are You Afraid Of the Dark?". You've got pop-culture in the Petes, the horror following for "Are You Afraid..." and we sci-fi geeks got this.

The feel of how this show was filmed reminds me of "the tomorrow people". Group of young cadets let curiosity get the better of them and sneak aboard a strange alien space cruiser. Suddenly, they find themselves in unknown space, trying to get home while battling a race called the "spung". Like most good shows however, it died too soon because most viewers prefer "stupid-vision"(aka "reality shows").

I at least would very much like to see this series released on DVD, or for some other station(COUGH~independent~COUGH)to broacast this show on the air again. Barring that, if I could gain permission to do so - I would start a LPTV and broadcast it myself! Shows like this should NOT be allowed to drift into obscurity!

"Space Cases" was obviously aimed at a younger audience than the Star Trek generation (both 1 and 2), and I think it hit the mark very well. Not only did it let younger actors in on the space race, the writing and character development was much better than some of the so-called adult Sci-Fi TV of the same period. It was written somewhat tongue in cheek, but always involved a morality lesson of some sort that I suppose an older viewer might see as banal. But let's face it; just about all TV (and movie) Sci-Fi has done the same, usually to a greater than necessary degree. I was sorry that the series was canceled, as I thought the second season showed definite improvement over the first. There were also unresolved issues that I wanted to see wrapped up. I became quite fond of the characters, and thought they interacted well and were quite believable. I would like to see both seasons released on DVD to add to my collection.

I think Bill Mumy should be proud of his writing on "Space Cases".