From: rawdon@colby.cs.wisc.edu (Michael Rawdon)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv
Subject: Grade Report: Space Rangers
Date: 7 Jan 93 22:20:15 GMT
Reply-To: rawdon@colby.cs.wisc.edu
Organization: University of Wisconsin Computer Sciences Dept., Madison, WI

Spoilers for the premiere of Space Rangers...

"Cops in space", take fifty-three.

Much like "Mann And Machine", this series begins with the premise that what
American TV really needs is more cop shows, and proceeds to demonstrate that
it doesn't really have much of an idea of how to do a good science fiction
show.  (Lord knows that V and Space: 1999 weren't the greatest entries in
science fiction television, but Space Rangers isn't even in their class.)

Not only do we NOT need more cop shows, but we certainly don't need one about
a bunch of "misfits" whose equipment doesn't work half the time.  This concept
was tired from the word "go".

The storyline in the premiere was very patchy, ranging from competent to
garbage.  It's hard to envision a much sillier subplot than the one involving
Ringer.  His looked silly, he acted silly, and the resolution was hysterical.
Who writes this stuff, anyway?

As for Our Heroes, well, they're a mixed bag.  Doc, the pilot and the
general's son are all throwaway characters, I think.  (The woman looks
suspiciously Vulcan, though she certainly doesn't act that way.)  Boon is a
stereotype:  Nothing terribly offensive, but nothing very exciting either.
(He even comes with the obligatory ex-wife.)  The one bright spot is the
empathic alien, who seemed well-written, well-acted, and he and Boon make a
pretty good tag-team (or at least look like they *could*).  I might stick
around for a few episodes just to see if they do anything with him.

There were a couple of other bright spots, too.  One was the special effects.
While they suffered greatly from overuse of stock footage, what footage there
was was quite impressive.  One might argue that the spaceships behaved too
much like planes in an atmosphere, but I think that's a necessary evil in
order to make the space shots interesting.  And I think they were MUCH better
than the stiff collection of half-computerized hunks of metal we're stuck with
on Star Trek: The Next Generation.  The miscellaneous effects were well-done,
too.  This show does seem to know how to USE its SFX (unlike ST:TNG, where
they're just window dressing so we can all gosh-wow at how big their budget
is).  In a similar vein, I liked the sets.

The direction was a notch up from TNG, too, though only a notch.  The music
was rather bland.  I had trouble picking out the melodies in the opening
credits, of all things!

Obviously, this episode set up some elements to be dealt with in the future,
none of which I liked.  The Friendly Neighborhood Crimelord seemed completely
worthless (and the scenes involving him entirely gratuitous, serving no real
purpose in the plot).  And the Liason From Central Making A Mess Of Things is
also decidedly uninteresting.

I think that the way to go here is to stop with the faulty equipment stuff,
jettison the crimelord and the Liason From Central, and focus more on our
heroes and their missions.  More importantly, to try to build some sort of
coherent backdrop in their sector:  Visit a few planets, build a small
recurring group of aliens (and humans) who live there, introduce us to the
political arena perhaps, and investiage our characters' backgrounds.  Make it
more than just cops-n-robbers in space.  Otherwise it risks becoming a
hodge-podge with a muddy backdrop a la V and ST:TNG.

This premiere was largely a disaster, though, an indication that they're on
the wrong track - when they're on any track at all.  I give it a few points
for its handfuls of promising bits, but that's about all I can muster.  If
there isn't substantial improvement across-the-board in a few episodes, I'm
outta here.

Grade: D

P.S.:  Did anyone catch if this episode had a title, a la TNG, or was it
untitled?

-- 
Michael Rawdon				  rawdon@colby.cs.wisc.edu
University of Wisconsin Computer Sciences Department,  Madison, WI
( Now in the Boston, Massachusetts area! )

"...I trusted [Ganelon] like a brother.  That is to say, not at all."
				- Roger Zelazny, _The_Guns_Of_Avalon_
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.tv