Television Tuesdays: Space Above and Beyond

Back in 1995, there was an interesting FOX show called Space: Above and Beyond. It was a great show, about fighting off alien invaders called the ‘chigs’. What made this show interesting (beyond the sci-fi nature of it) were the various societal conflicts between the ‘invitros’, humans bred to fight the battles of ‘natural’ humans, and who are treated as second class citizens, except when they join the USMC.

There are also cyborgs that were made before invitros for the same purpose, but they revolted and they are still around. I guess the lesson is if you are not man enough to fight your own wars, don’t expect others to do it for you. The show was promising, but it was plagued by bad programming decisions on the part of FOX. It didn’t have a regular night, it kept being shifted from time slot to time slot, and it kept being postponed for baseball or hockey games. In the end, it was cancelled after one season due to low ratings.

The show is unavailable on Hulu, but rather cheap on amazon.com

The show might remind you of Startship Troopers, but just remember: it predates Starship Troopers and it is actually better than that movie!