Space Above and Beyond - The Complete Series

A show I thought I would never get to see again. It was made for sell in Europe so I had to get a new DVD player so I could watch it.

1995 was a great year for sci-fi buffs over here in Britain, Babylon 5 was in full swing, this was followed by the excellent American Gothic and there was a buzz in the air about a new series that was about to start on BBC2. It was already popular over in the States and was brought to the screen courtesy of Morgan and Wong (the team behind The X Files). This show was Space: Above and Beyond.As with the other shows, S:a+b was slotted into the schedules ridiculously late to allow room for sport and reruns of vintage comedies on a Friday night but like many loyal fans I stayed up religiously to watch it every week and I wasn't disappointed with a single episode, not one!The show, at a glance could be linked to the likes of 'Starship Troopers', with the marines pitted against bug like aliens called 'chigs' in the far reaches of space, but it is altogether more gritty, sacrificing blatent gore for character driven storylines allowing every one of the mains a moment in the spotlight. Don't get me wrong, it can get bloody when needed but just enough for realism.Time for some Space:Above and Beyond 101 - it's the second half of the twenty first century - man has started to colonise other planets. Back on Earth, the A.I.s were created (artificial policemen to keep the population in check). A computer virus (take a chance) drove them mad and they left for space. In Vitros (Humans grown in large tanks) were created to fight these A.Is who were now plundering the galaxy obsessed with risk taking and chaos. After being treated abominably the In Vitros also rebelled (does anyone else see a pattern here) but were given 'rights' and the platoons were dispanded.It's here where we join up with the series and the 58th squadron (also known as 'The Wild Cards'), each marine has a reason for joining the corp or a back story, which are too long to get into at this stage but what I can say is there's a healthy mixture of In Vitros and natural born humans thrown together and forced to put past grievences and prejudices aside when just days after the completion of their training, an intergalactic war breaks out, up to a point its all very 'Topgun' in space but it expands on this from ariel battles to ground assaults and back again. The show is rivetting from its quiet beginnings to its emotional 'wild bunch' style series finale (not giving too much away, there are losses, it's quite devastating)! Since you care about all the characters, its worse. There's romance and intrigue, there's heartache and also some lighter moments, there's life lessons to be learnt, I could go on for ever but I won't, I'll just say, WATCH IT, YOU'LL LOVE IT!Like American Gothic, Space: Above and Beyond was cancelled too soon. It finished and left a lot of people wanting more. The boxset also unfortunately shows similarities. The special features are non-existant and the discs are double-sided, but like I said with the other series, it doesn't matter, the show is what counts and after ten long years I can be proud to say it's in my collection, A MUST WATCH FOR ALL SCI-FI FANS! BUY IT NOW!

let me say this the series itself is great from the first disc to the last but i felt fox cold have done more with this.First off let me get some pet peeves out of the way.I HATE DOUBLE SIDED DVD'S OR BLU RAYlook i get it it is a way to save money but I HATE THEM why they dont have a safe side and it is way to easy to get them dirty. i understand you got to cut costs to bring this out on the dvd set but doing the whole double sided dvd is a lazy way of making a quick buck when you could do a single side with a safe side to make getting them dirty a lot less easy and making it easier for someone who aint very dvd friendly.PUT SOME EXTRAS ON DVDSsecondly if you are going to bring out a dvd set put some extras on it. This is a straight to dvd show wile the show is great some extras, trailers, out takes, visions of what would have happened in the future had the series continues, reflections something and this dvd set would have been better. this really makes me mad when tv companies bring a great series out without any extras for the fans.With the pet peeves out of the way lets get to the goodthis is a great series, if you love scifi, halo, action, story telling that aint rushed then this is the series for you. You could see where CGI on tv was going by looking at this series, the space dogfight scenes are like a mixture of star wars and the old war movie midway. The characters are not perfect from the daughter trying to run from the memory of her parents deaths to the guy trying to find his wife missing among the stars, to the human born in a test tube but forced to join because of a bad turn of events these are characters that you can relate to. this was before American Idol, Survivor, the voice, or big brother ruled the tv. This was the time of storytellers and this series is a great story of fighting not for a country or an idea but for the man, or woman beside you. If you can get beyond the bad choices the network made in using the double sided dvds and lack of extras this is a seriesPS. I put in disk one in my blu ray player on both sides and it worked great i have heard there have been disc read errors but that did not happen to me.

At that time of this series it was original abd really like it now i can watch every time i want

This is the second 2005 set I have purchased the first being years ago. Disk 5A had a data corruption at about the 2:40 mark. I put up with it because I didn't find it until it was too late to return. I bought this one in the hopes that it would be cleaner but alas no joy. It also has the same corruption at the same mark. This is not the fault of the sellers as it appears to be a transfer issue of the manufacturer. I won't be returning it because I already highly suspected as much and knew better. I have instead ordered the region 2 2012 version from a seller in England in the hopes that the updated version on region 2 was not burned in by the same machines as the region 1 was. Plus, I already have a player dedicated to region 2 since some movies and shows never had a US/Canada release like Stan Lee's "Lucky Man". As for this move SAAB, I have always like it and also wished it had been renewed much like Firefly.

Saw someone bitchin' about a reviewer giving details of the film on a DVD, soo....😜For those who only want a review of the physical item: DVDs secured in a plastic book style case with a picture and some words on it.If you are interested in the content: SAAB was yet another series never given a fair chance by the company concerned. Good characters and stories and groundbreaking CGI for the time. My only reservation was fighter pilots being as grunts when your fleet consists of huge ships with substantial ground forces available. Recorded to keep on VHS when it aired and am now glad I've bought it on DVD.

Classic 90s TV series that only last one season from the writers who brought you some classic X- files episodes.A sort of cross between starship troopers and battle star Galactica, we follow the wild cards as their go to war with an invading alien army or are they in search of their friends and families and putting some of their past behind them.Even though you don't really get a finale worthy of such a good show like this it well worth a watch.

Watching this again I was struck by the excellent picture and visual fx of the show. OK, the fx are cruder than today’s visuals but I still think they hold up remarkably well. This was from a period where cgi fx were still in their early stages so I find it interesting to compare.The picture quality for a dvd is far better than many in my collection. There are certain scenes where you see quite a bit of noise but they are few. It tends to show up if someone is standing in front of a really bright background. I found it acceptable since this set is the only way I currently know of to see the show.If you’re an old fan I’m sure you’ll love this set. I haven’t seen it since it was first broadcast and I’m watching it with my nephew who is 30. We are both thoroughly enjoying the whole thing!

I never saw this when it was on telly, so I bought this set to see what I missed. So, what did I get for my money ...1. Well, some of the stories are awful, most are good, a few are awesome - typical episodic sci-fi TV in other words.2. The SFX show as being very dated now, especially on a modern widescreen TV - at some points you can almost count the pixels. That said, refer to 1. above - on the OK and awesome episodes you won't notice the poor SFX.Otherwise, it's a hoot - check out those bad 90's hairdo's!I did have one query for the shows writers/creators though - bearing in mind just how long & expensive it is to train standard fast jet pilots, it follows that training fast jet/space pilots will be even longer & more complicated and expensive ... so why on earth hand them a rifle and then treat them as ground infantry grunts? So, it's 5 million credits each to train them but just one 5 credit bullet to stop each of them dead ...Come on, fellas - whoever heard of an infantry squad made up of nothing but aircrew lieutenants?

I bought this on faith, I couldn't remember if it was something I'd seen bits of at the time or not. Certainly the graphics are more like something past 2000 and it does deserve a lot of credit for presentation.THE SIDES - the four main categories are humans, in vitros, AIs and "chigs". Humans and in vitros are pretty much the same thing, although the plot makes in vitros 2nd class citizens. AIs are pretty much robots made to make human life easier, and their creator sets them free with a "take a chance" virus or something like that. The chigs are the alien enemy with whom the AIs ally themselves, we don't see much of them only a tin-like suit that reminds me of the slayers in "Krull".STORY - Earth sends out colonists and the chigs massacre them. They then enter a war in which earth loses battle after battle, until the 58th become heroic and legendary leading the forces for Earth. The feel thereafter is like many series like "Battlestar Galactia", "Andromeda", "Firefly", "Star Trek", even "Tour Of Duty" and "V", where there are adventures involving the main cast and only the newly introduced characters ever seem to die. How many "one way missions" can a team go on and all return?!?!?CAST - I couldn't really relate to the central characters, they didn't seem to have the charisma of a Starbuck, a Geordi, a Kirk, Spock, Bones, a Data, a Malcolm Reynolds, a Jayne Cobb, a Dylan Hunt, Seamus Harper etc. Their acting was fine, but none were what I'd call particularly likeable.I can hazard guesses why this didn't last more than one season, the first might be it was up against "Star Trek" in all its forms and other similar series with a host of instantly likeable main characters. If it had focused on the overall story more, the war with chigs, it would have offered a lot different to most series on offer. When it goes into psychological storylines, drug addiction, and becomes a series of missions, if offers little more than series of old like "Battlestar Galactica".All said and done it is still a solidly made sci-fi series with some very good episodes. When they are stranded on a planet by friendly fire, facing booby traps and weapons aimed at their minds, it takes on a whole new dimension. Other episodes are very run of the mill, where they take R&R, when Cooper Hawkes, their IV, is on a solo mission and others just don't make most of awesome graphics. I liked the idea and episode about a tank come APC called "Pearly", the driver of which is played by Adam Goldberg (Eddie in "Friends", also in "Saving Private Ryan"). It has so much potential, but the focus is on Paul Wang's torture at the hands of AIs and him being captured and coerced into stealing a power cell to wipe the records of his forced confession.The overall feel is slightly wrong as well, the chigs seem to have supremacy yet the 58th and the whole of earth's forces somehow seem to come out on top with no real explanation. One of the latter episodes, "Sugar Dirt", involves an assault on an airstrip the chigs had taken heavy losses to take from Earth's forces in the first place. The plot was nicely set, the marines land with little resistance and then the fleet find themselves ambushed and change their battle plan leaving the marines to battle on alone. From there on the potential is unfulfilled, apart from status updates on the battle situation and some occaisional action and debris. At one point the fleet faces defeat, the commander decides they should stand and fight, and next you know they're talking about their victory.If you're a fan, you'll probably hit out in spite at an honest review aimed at people who are looking for something new not for people to fawn over their favourite/beloved series. If you're looking for a great sci-fi series then I'd not recommend this, try "Firefly", "Andromeda", "Farscape" or even "Battlestar Galactica" or "V" (old skool) This is worth watching, but I'm not sure I'll be hurrying to watch it again anytime soon. I'm annoyed "Firefly" didn't get more than one series, I'm annoyed with the makers of "Space Above and Beyond" for not doing more with the series, it had oodles of potential as "Firefly" did and could have done with the "Unification War" where Mal Reynolds and the "browncoats" battle the Alliance.