The World of Computer Software/World_Of_Computer_Software-02-387-Vol-3of3.iso/s/sf018036.zip/SF018036.TXT

Text File | 1993-02-05 | 18KB | 410 lines

SF-LOVERS Digest           Thursday, 14 Jan 1993       Volume 18 : Issue 36

Today's Topics:

                   Television - Space Rangers (12 msgs)

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Date: 7 Jan 93 20:21:10 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Eric Glover)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Space Ranger Review

[e-mail] (Douglas R Fils) writes:
>It was no less than one great big insult to anyone starved enough for
>something to do that they actually watched it.

Really now, come on! The same thing could have been said about 65% of Star
Trek TNG episodes.  Which I am really starting to enjoy less and less each
rerun.

>We deserve better people!  Networks go out of their way to make sitcoms
>and action adventure programing for the people who like to watch that
>stuff.  Then they fead us this crap and we defend it, demand more?  Not
>me!  CBS, if your out there.  This show sucks, this one person (and that's
>all I am) will never watch this garbage again.  You didn't get away with
>it with me.  I and the rest of us who like SF, deserve good SF programming
>and will not roll over and thank you when you pretend to answer our
>desires with something as insulting (I truly felt insulted by this, they
>actually thought I would buy this?) as Space Rangers.

I don't see how you can call this show any more insulting that such
classics as "The Misfits of Science","The Bionic Man","Quark","The Man From
Atlantis" [Boy that was a real winner] or even the utterly dumb "Voyagers"

Space Rangers has a chance to bring a completely different view of SF to
the masses; The eternal portrait of space as a place of "Intragalactic
peace and love inc." only reserved for bald starship captains and highly
trained officers of some psuedo military organization is cliche and one
sided. Not all sci-fi need be so pompus or sterile.

>We deserve Better people!

And we will get better. SR is what I believe is the opening of the door to
new ways of viewing space and hopefully more national interest in pursuing
space exploration. But first and foremost what I liked about the show is
that it is the first series sinse TOS and Battlestar Galactica to go full
out on storytelling and leave the big budget FX at home.

THAT is why there has been so little US SciFi, because everything has to
make your eyes burst out of your head! Check out this cool morph effect,
watch this light effect. WHO CARES! I want shows that you put a blanket
over your TV and enjoy the STORY coming from it, I want action, I want
excitement and I want story telling.

The first episode of SR was WEAK.  No one will argue differently but they
were willing to take risks to tell stories using lower budget technology
and a totally different universe.  For that, count me in for 6 more
episodes.

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Date: 8 Jan 93 11:06:28 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Grade Report: Space Rangers

[e-mail] (Michael Rawdon) writes:
> 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.

I might argue, all right.

I'm really getting sick of spaceships making big banked turns, as if they
were in Top Gun.  At least ST:TNG occasionally remembers that all a ship
must do is spin on its axis and accelerate in the other direction to go
that way.  To 'make a left' you yaw, say 135 degrees to port, accelerate
until the previous 'forward' velocity is cancelled, and/or slowly spin back
to starboard 'til you're pointing in the direction you want to go.  It'd
end up looking a lot more like driving a car on slick pavement :)

[e-mail]

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Date: 8 Jan 93 18:25:39 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Grade Report: Space Rangers

> . . . (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.)

  Space Rangers was *much* superior to Space: 1999.  Not only in terms of
f/x, but acting ability as well.  Jeff Kaake gives the viewer a sense of
command ability to his character.  Martin Landau looked like he was sleep
walking.  The Japanese actor who portrays Zylyn has a much greater screen
presence then that female Spock-clone on Space: 1999.  Space Rangers is
certainly better then that piece of dreck.

  As for V, the two shows are vastly different in style and storyline.
Comparing Space Rangers to V is like comparing The Wrath of Khan to Dune:
the differences are too great to make a comparison with.

  I liked Space Rangers for several reasons: one is that the way the show
portrays the future as not the pristine postcard that so much of early
sience fiction drew.  There's dirt, sweat, bad things like drugs and crime.
Obviously, some things have improved - like computers and medicine, but
there is bad to go with the good.

  Also, kudos to the show for not giving us another Data.  The android
Ringer is much more realistic than Data: AI robots may be mechanically
brilliant in the future, but they'll never be anything more than idiot
savants.

  A lot of reviews I've read were complaining about the characters being
too stereotyped.  Well, point out an original character on TV these days,
please!  Never mind: There aern't any!  The characters in *all* the Star
Treks and any other SF television showf are *all* stereo-types.  Get used
to it, sit back, and enjoy!

Jim

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Date: 9 Jan 93 06:30:49 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Space Rangers !!Spoilers (I guess)!!

[e-mail] (Palit, Suman) writes:
> [e-mail] (Scott Streeter) writes...
>>
>>I had thought the reason for the machine guns, were because of the
>>budget cuts on the Ranger Force. They couldn't afford to have anything
>>more high tech. This is also why the ship was a piece of sh*t too.
>
> So how come even the bad guys had guns that looked like AK-47's ?
>
> I thought the bad guys had a lot of dough, compared to the Space Ranger
> crew?

Come ON, guys! Get a CLUE.

I, for one, am GLAD they skipped the stupid beam effects.  You may argue
about whether they got it right by accident or by design, but they did get
it right.

Could someone explain to me how you distinguish between an "AK47", a gauss
rifle, and a pulse laser?  Not by seeing the shot, that's for damn sure.

If you want to complain about the "realism", start with the stupid space
chase scene, the ridiculous robot self-destruct, and what was with a
"thorough search" for drugs that didn't use chemical sniffers, and didn't
even LOOK UNDER THE BINS.

I liked it.  It was horrible SF, but what the hell. So's Star Trek.  It's
fun. It has energy. It's a breath of fresh air after years of painfully
nice TNG.

My capacity to watch sf on tv is far from overloaded.  I say, watch it,
prove there's a market for more, and dump it when we do get more and
better.

Colin

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Date: 9 Jan 93 23:11:38 GMT
From: [e-mail] (rabjab)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Space Rangers

Space Rangers is definitely Space Opera, designed to be wrapped around
commercials.  It's so bad it might even be fun to watch once a week.  The
sleazeballs at CBS who are guiding this project will cut and run quickly if
they encounter turbulence.  My hunch is that stories loaded with real
sleaziness are in the pipe, explaining why it's not seen Sat. morning.

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Date: 11 Jan 93 15:09:31 GMT
From: [e-mail] (PAUL D CHAPIN)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: _Space Rangers_ (pilot's position)

Craig Becker ([e-mail]) wrote:
>Sure, I can dig it: there's lots of advantages to being prone while
>piloting. But gee, it would sure make a lot more sense if one were lying
>on one's _back_.

We're talking space here. Up and Down determined by acceleration.  Given
how the others were sitting, she was looking sideways in relationship to
the direction of travel.  And to do that she had to tilt her head back.  If
she let her head hang at the natural angle for a prone position, she would
have been looking backwards.

They should have put her in the correct orientation to the craft for stress
purposes, then had her pilot from screens mounted in front of her face.
This would involved her facing sideways in relationship to the flight path,
but I don't think you're going to get a lot of visual flying at the speeds
involved.  In fact, manual piloting seems a little silly.

I give them credit for trying to do something new, but it didn't work.
Mostly they did nothing new, and none of it worked.  Six weeks, tops.

------------------------------

Date: 11 Jan 93 15:04:01 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Space Rangers

[e-mail] (Ann M. Davis) writes:
>> [e-mail] (Palit, Suman) writes:
>>> the android was annoying, but then, any android character is going to
>>> get compared to Data in ST:TNG...
>
> I liked the android.  Especially the smiles.  I was a little disappointed
> that they got rid of him.  He was the result of some good lines.

He reminded me a lot of the android on "Red Dwarf", with all the angles
smoothed out of his face.

> The only special effect I "noticed" as being an effect was when she was
> piloting the ship.  Everything else I could pretend away.

I didn't like the ship. Actually, I prefer symmetry in design (it seems to
make sense when your ship is supposed to be atmosphere capable), so the
truncated starboard wing section leaves me wondering what's going on with
this otherwise more-or-less aerodynamic craft.

Joe
[e-mail]

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Date: 11 Jan 93 15:14:28 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Space Rangers

[e-mail] (Stephen Holland) writes:
> Space Rangers, on the other hand, did not impress me at all.  The
> characters were cliches, as was the plot.  Intergalactic drug wars?  This
> was truly painful to watch.  This sort of science fiction has never
> survived on tv before, what makes the networks think that it will now?

This was commented on on a tv news show (I think CNN). The "BIG THREE"
stations (CBS NBC ABC) appear to have run out of creative drive, and in a
time when money belts tighten, have gone into re-introducing old adventure
formats or old sit-com formats. It's a trend that may harken their demise
as major competitors in the entertainment field.

By the way, don't be upset about the cliche angle. If you want to talk
about lack of creativity in tv, up here in the Great White North, some
bright-eyes at the CTV network (one of our two major tv networks) decided
they could make good by running half-hour collections of the old Ed
Sullivan Show. Yech!  (Thing is, with the increasing "Golden Years"
population, they might be right)

Joe
[e-mail]

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Date: 12 Jan 93 14:50:55 GMT
From: [e-mail] ("Michael K. Jacobs")
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Rangers (Captain Power in Space)

For months I have avidly read the postings on this list, but this is my
first message that I have posted.

First of all, after watching Space Rangers (and not really liking it) - I
began to think of this show as a combination of T.J. Hooker and Captain
Power.

It resembles T.J. Hooker in the fact that the first couple of episodes were
just terrible - another excuse to see William Shatner in another role
besides James Tiberius Kirk.  Later, T.J. Hooker grew into a good show.

It resembles Captain Power in the fact that the shows have characters that
could easily switch roles (they both had women pilots - Yeah, both leading
male roles could be considered "heroes", etc.)

Please don't think that I am making fun of T.J. Hooker and Captain Power, I
really did enjoy the shows - Space Rangers just reminds me of them.

I realize that there are many different points-of-view about the universe
we live in, and many different dreams and events take place.  Trying to
compare Space Rangers to a "Star Trek kind of universe" is futile.  The
Rifleman wasn't the only type of western show on television years ago.
Thank goodness Wagon Train came around as the GREAT BIRD OF THE GALAXY did
get an idea from that.  I, for one, still enjoy TOS and TNG for the
adventures of the E - not because of the crew (I almost cried when Kirk
destroyed the E in TREK III - but it was a valiant and glorious death.)

In summary about Space Rangers - I will continue to watch it as some of the
good things about life (love for example) need time to grow and will enjoy
it for what it's worth - entertainment, not some sort of Newton's Apple.

Michael K. Jacobs
Georgia Southern University
Landrum Box 8122
Statesboro, GA USA 30460
[e-mail]

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Date: 12 Jan 93 17:43:00 GMT
From: [e-mail]
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: Space Rangers

> I think the best thing to do would be to write CBS with our grievances,
> suggestions, and thanking them for putting "real" sf on a network.  I
> know this was probably hacked out in time to beat DS9 and B5, but maybe
> with fan support something can be made from it.

Don't waste your time. Judging from the feedback it's not going to be
around long enough for CBS to consider worth the effort. I don't know how
many shows are already in the can but I think it's too many.  Of course the
grievances could be used to put us out of our misery faster.

Jennise

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From: [e-mail]
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 93 22:02 EST
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: SPACE RANGERS - Review

                               SPACE RANGERS
                   A television review by Mark R. Leeper

   The premiere of CBS's SPACE RANGERS is a fast-paced hour, but at heart
just an empty cops-and-robbers story stocked with what at first appear to
be thinly veiled stereotypes.  The series will have to work very hard to
cultivate real audience interest in the characters.  The setting is Fort
Hope on the planet of Avalon, essentially a police station.  The main
characters are a squad of five good cops who got a hard time from their
superiors.  There are three cops in the twenty-ish range who look like they
belong on a disco floor - one of them, Jo-Jo (played by Marjorie Managhan)
is a Rebecca-DeMornay-style blonde who wears too much make-up.
Unfortunately, two better actors, Linda Hunt and Gottfried John, are
relegated mostly to background roles.

   Much of the dialogue is snappy, but that is no substitute for
intelligent writing.  And some of the writing is notably bad.  For example,
the main character says, "Anybody else would call us misfits, but I call us
'family.'"  Elsewhere the script steals a line from LAWRENCE OF ARABIA.

   Visual effects for the first episode range from acceptable to downright
impressive.  However, it is questionable if the quantity and quality of the
effects will be sustained in subsequent episodes.  The over-use of sound
effects on the soundtrack eventually becomes oppressive.  Combine that with
overly cute wipes between scenes and you have a series that is visually a
little more than it needs to be, but one light on ideas.  SPACE RANGERS
will appeal to action fans but it will probably win few fans from STAR
TREK.

Mark R. Leeper
att!mtgzfs3!leeper
[e-mail]

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Date: 13 Jan 93 23:09:44 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Bill Sherman)
Reply-to: [e-mail]
Subject: Space Rangers

The best thing I can say about Space Rangers is that it wasn't entirely
awful.

   Space Rangers seemed to have almost nothing in its favor.  I think my
biggest complaint is that the love/hate relationships among the crew (i.e.
they always argue, but don't want someone else to work with them) were
completely unconvincing.  In fact, almost all the acting was atrocious, and
I usually don't get bothered by bad acting so much.  Further, all the
characters were such incredible stereotypes that there seems to be
virtually no thought/imagination devoted to their creation (the characters
of the A-team, which I was never particularly thrilled with, were original
by comparison!).  Even the psychic/martial artist was pretty generic.  If
he were placed in surroundings with other decent characters/actors, he
wouldn't look particularly good.
   The plot also wasn't particularly good.  It seemed to be a rehash of
some bad cops'n'robbers tv show.  If they'd picked a good show to crib, I
wouldn't be so unhappy.

Cheers.

Bill Sherman
Dept. of Physics
University of Pennsylvania
[e-mail]

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End of SF-LOVERS Digest
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