Space Island One

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.

... 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.

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.

Now this was just awful! When I stayed in Canada, I watched this show one week. I was intrigued by the storyline, but felt my interest waning with each passing week. Soon, I could barely stand it.

It is probably the most realistic science fiction show I have ever seen--more so than Star Trek, Earth: Final Conflict, Babylon 5, ad nauseam. And that isn't a good thing. The realism means that it plays out like "Daily Life on the Space Shuttle", except it's a space station. The characters were all indistinguishable from each other, and the plots generally centered around corporate problems concerning the owners of the station, or a plot about the corporate problems, or one character attempting to seduce another with the use of pheramones.

It's so realistic that you won't enjoy it.

Great concept, engaging cast, excellent production (for its time)... It all added up to much less than it could have, but was still very watchable if you took it with a grain of salt.

I had the feeling that the original intent was to do a truly 'realistic' space show, and that someone chickened out. It seemed like as soon as the first ratings came in, undoubtedly low, increasingly fantastic elements started to creep in to the series. These were fun, but more of a nod to the Doctor Who crowd than at all consistent with the original premise of Space Island One: life on a space station.

Still, I found the series to be an important 'island' of innovation in a perpetually childish and overwrought TV SF landscape. If you want to see a better show built on similar lines, try to track down the 1980s series Star Cops. Or the 1970s series Moonbase 3. Clearly, these low-key SF tend to come out of the UK every decade or so... We're overdue for another!