Space Rangers

Beowolf666 is thinking of Firefly (http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=serenity), a truly great show and subsequent movie, Serenity.

I do see where Beowolf666 may have gotten the two confused, some characters sound to be very similar, especially the missionary, female second in command, and engineer.

There is also a similarity in the Banshies of Space Rangers and the Reavers of the Firefly universe. After reading the plot summary for Space Rangers, one gets the feeling that Joss Whedon may have been a fan of Space Rangers, or at least the basic idea, which was then refined for Firefly.

Unfortunately, I haven't seen Space Rangers yet, or I'd leave a comment about it. I just wanted to make sure the nice comments Beowolf666 left were attributed to the correct series.

"MAD"'s spoof of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" ended with the space station being under threat from "Babylon 5," "Time Trax" and "Space Rangers." As it turned out, it outlasted all of them; "Space Rangers" was the first to get the chop. Not that it was such a great loss, but it wasn't totally useless.

This action-based show was pretty much a live-action cartoon focusing on our peace-keeping heroes, breaking the rules and irritating their superior (Linda Hunt - a long way from "The Year of Living Dangerously"), and with no story arcs anywhere in sight... or any thoughtful writing or strong acting, admittedly (star Jeff Kaake was last heard of on the even less successful "The D.R.E.A.M. Team" alongside Angie Everhart, Traci Bingham, Caprice and Roger Moore). But when a show has even ONE moment that hangs around in your mind for years - in the first episode's teaser an underground creature that pulls down its prey with tentacles and eats it alive snatches one of the villain's men and later on nearly gets Space Ranger Jojo (Marjorie Monaghan) - it has to have done something right.

Not too bad.

This show about a screw up company of space cops was brilliant semi-satire. It took the nuclear family dynamic of the ultra serious "Waltons" mixed it with the sarcastic "Ice Pirates" crews' family weirdness, added space adventure, and voila--Instant Cult Hit! It brings to my mind a tiny film about a loving family type crew of a "renegade" ship that acquires a 8 yr old kid as a stowaway. Both films have a similar technology level, costuming, and dynamic(inner reality) I LOVE Space Rangers for its' internal consistency, irascibility, excellently built characters, sarcastic/witty dialogue, and great cast(their acting ability is unquestionably awesomely great)

I adored the episodes I saw of this show, and hungered for more. Only the first three were shown during its first run, although all of them may have been shown at a later time. I believe there are five episodes in all, and you can rent them on VHS, I encourage you to do so. Some reviewers at the time called it "A-Team in space," which is quite valid, and it was lots of fun. Great special effects, the actors were really good, and the story lines were not too heavy, but had enough meaning that it's worth watching. I'd love for Sci-Fi Channel to show the episodes regularly or in a marathon. Go watch the video, and enjoy! :)

I wish I could give this series a good remark that would be uplifting to those die hard fans of obscurity. I simply can't. Many episodes were doomed with questionable writing that resembled something out of bad 1970's Flash Gordon knock off. There are many instances where you think that this series will be turned around with good ideas, but at best the writers were only able to depart from the 'science' of fiction and add a lot of stupidity in place of a solemn ending. This is a common mistake with SF series- not realizing that the viewers are smart enough to see through the holes. If the writer asks the audience to skip over a few things, that's left up to the imagination, such a request can be fine in an already 'hit' TV series. But even the jokes weren't that good. These were people of excellent talent, being asked to play pretend on a set that was faker than a spray painted box and the audience was asked to join in. No, this is not even of the same caliber or entertainment value as Irwin Allen's "Lost in Space"- I only hope that it paid well enough for the actors to be associated with it...