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I finished Dark Skies TV series, now starting Space Above And Beyond

Gingerbread Demon

Gingerbread Demon

Yelling at the Vorlons
Premium Member
This one I haven't seen since it originally aired on TV. Set in Earth of 2063 when two off world colonies are attacked by aliens as of yet unknown origin. Which isn't the whole truth because one of the corporations that helped put together the colony missions we find later on had some idea about the aliens existing but chose not to tell anyone for their own reasons. This show had a bit of everything, shooting aliens, an AI rebellion which is mentioned and we see parts of that in the form of silicates, artificial people which rebelled upon the human race on Earth because of a bit of dodgy programming thanks to a virus called the "take a chance" virus. It's never fully explained. There's a lot of themes here too which show the darker side of humans because creating AI people wasn't enough they bred "invitros" fully artificially gestated humans grown in tubes disparagingly referred to by humans as "tanks" and bred as some kind of worker fodder I think.

Anyway I'm in the middle of the pilot episode..... So far it still holds up pretty well to me.
 
Enjoyed it back in the day, but even here (and not preempted for sports), I think it was typically on vey late on a friday night:(
 
John Clark said:
Enjoyed it back in the day, but even here (and not preempted for sports), I think it was typically on vey late on a friday night:(
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Same here in Australia. It started as a relatively early show at 830pm but after a while got shafted to the 1030 / 1130 late night slots
 
Gingerbread Demon said:
This one I haven't seen since it originally aired on TV. Set in Earth of 2063 when two off world colonies are attacked by aliens as of yet unknown origin. Which isn't the whole truth because one of the corporations that helped put together the colony missions we find later on had some idea about the aliens existing but chose not to tell anyone for their own reasons. This show had a bit of everything, shooting aliens, an AI rebellion which is mentioned and we see parts of that in the form of silicates, artificial people which rebelled upon the human race on Earth because of a bit of dodgy programming thanks to a virus called the "take a chance" virus. It's never fully explained. There's a lot of themes here too which show the darker side of humans because creating AI people wasn't enough they bred "invitros" fully artificially gestated humans grown in tubes disparagingly referred to by humans as "tanks" and bred as some kind of worker fodder I think.

Anyway I'm in the middle of the pilot episode..... So far it still holds up pretty well to me.
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First time watching? If so i'll be careful with spoilers.
 
Gingerbread Demon said:
First time for you?
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No, i have seen the show back in its original run ages ago. I'm asking you so i don't spoil later events even if the rules of this board would allow me to. I don't want to spoil it for you if it's the first time watching.
 
FPAlpha said:
No, i have seen the show back in its original run ages ago. I'm asking you so i don't spoil later events even if the rules of this board would allow me to. I don't want to spoil it for you if it's the first time watching.
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No no I saw the whole series in its original run when it was on TV here in Australia, it started in the 830 slot but later was in the 1030 / 1130 slot late in the evenings but I caught nearly every episode. I'm not that worried about spoilers.

Right off the bat the first few episodes have trodden over familiar ground here with things like right wing government, strife on Earth and that episode with the loyalty tests, struck a chord considering current world politics and certain governments who shall remain nameless. Loyatlty tests really? The Republicans were going on about that at one point were they not?

I love how the producers love to sneak in their little conspiracies here and there. That woman in the same episode was up to no good and she just walked off and took back the medal she was about to present when he asked her the awkward question, the one you can't ask haha. So far I'm enjoying it.
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Just getting back to Dark Skies though I did not mind so much the history bending they did

Even when they took it a bit too over the top blaming aliens for everything that happened in the 60s. The show was a fun watch. What I did not like is the lack of worldbuilding.

Would have been good to find some kind of POV from the aliens and why their planet got taken over by the hive parasites, and why did they choose Earth when there must be billions of other planets in the solar system why Earth, and how far back in time did they land on Earth, it's never completely explained but the oldest date on the show via flashback is somewhere in the late 1800s.

I can see why the show tanked, though which is a shame.
 
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I didn't mind the history bending in Dark Skies even when they took it a bit too over the top blaming aliens for everything that happened in the 60s. The show was a fun watch. What I did not like is the lack of worldbuilding.

Would have been good to find some kind of POV from the aliens and why their planet got taken over by the hive parasites, and why did they choose Earth when there must be billions of other planets in the solar system why Earth, and how far back in time did they land on Earth, it's never completely explained but the oldest date on the show via flashback is somewhere in the late 1800s.

I can see why the show tanked, though which is a shame.
 
While it was an amusing enough premise, I guess Dark Skies couldn't really compete for the viewers' attention in the same ecological TV niche as The X-Files.
 
Expensively trained fighter pilots doubling as grunts is a weird trope that would be repeated in new Battlestar Galactica.
 
Gingerbread Demon said:
That one was the better show
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Even so, Dark Skies had promise. At least, one would hope it would not have insulted the viewers' intelligence as much as Lost or Heroes had it continued. The mythologising in The X-Files was also confused and inconsistent by the end of its run, but it's a lot more rewatchable.

I've been let down so many times by serialised TV shows getting cancelled or descending into nonsense like Game of Thrones did that I don't bother watching any now unless and until the story arc is complete. If I read a novel, it's up to me if I get bored and abandon it.
 
I wonder if humanity today would get to the point where making invitros seems possible or even given consideration.

It just seems like a line we should never ever cross
 
I could see us getting to that point technologically, since it's probably not much farther than what we already do, the big question is will we be allowed to legally and should we ethically. It's basically the same kind of thing we are going to run into with human cloning.
I hope one of the streaming services picks up Space: Above and Beyond sometime, I've heard people talk about it on here quite a bit, but I don't really want to buy it.
 
Asbo Zaprudder said:
Expensively trained fighter pilots doubling as grunts is a weird trope that would be repeated in new Battlestar Galactica.
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I think they tried to explain it ( very loosely) as a sort of air combat unit that can perform special forces missions but then again send them on ground missions that are really grunt work.

TV reality vs. realism, TV always wins.
 
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