Space Cases
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| Space Cases | |
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| Genre | Science fiction, Childrens |
| Creator(s) | Peter David Bill Mumy |
| Starring | Walter Emanuel Jones Jewel Staite Rebecca Herbst Kristian Ayre Rahi Azizi Paige Christina Anik Matern Cary Lawrence Paul Boretski |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of episodes | 27 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 22 minutes |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | Nickelodeon |
| Original run | March 2, 1996 – January 27, 1997 |
| Links | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
Space Cases is a science fiction television series that aired on Nickelodeon for two seasons. Its premise revolves around a group of misfit students and two adults who get themselves stuck within a strange alien ship that undergoes accidental deep space travel, stranding them in a region of space far from home. Their attempts at journeying back sees many fun or dangerous adventures and controversies. Each student also possesses a special power that each of their races evolved to acquire. This fact, along with the space themes and issues of being lost, lend the show to being best described as a pre-adolescent version of "X-Men", and "Star Trek" or "Lost in Space", with some occasionally more mature themes.
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[edit] History
Space Cases was created by Peter David and Bill Mumy. The show premiered on March 1, 1996. Almost exactly one year later, the show was cancelled. The show aired for a time on Nickelodeon's Saturday night block of shows known as Snick. Although the show is no longer aired on Nickelodeon, it was sometimes seen on the Family Channel in Canada. It has yet to be released on DVD.
[edit] The characters
- T.J. Davenport is the children's vice-principal, but serves as their teacher aboard the Christa. Davenport takes herself and the rest of the Universe a little too seriously. She has a habit of fainting at the first sign of danger, but on several occasions has stood strong in the face of terrible danger, even though she ends up bluffing some of the time.
- Commander Seth Goddard is a former Stardog, and fought in the Spung War. Busted in rank from Captain and forced to teach the "Space Cases," Goddard is tough enough to whip the kids into shape, though his rigidity sometimes entices the kids to provoke him and Ms. Davenport with practical jokes. He has a long and bitter rivalry with a space pirate named Reaver.
- Harlan Band is an American from Earth and is attending the Academy to become a Stardog like his biological father, who was killed by an Andromedan during the Andromedan War. Because of this, he is often antagonistic and prejudiced against Radu, at least during Season One. Harlan is headstrong and the self-appointed leader of the students, acting as pilot on the bridge. However, he is extremely overconfident, which sometimes leads to his endangering the crew. He displays advanced martial arts and gymnastics skills.
- Catalina is from Titan, a moon of Saturn. Saturnians possess evolved vocal patterns, giving them and Catalina the ability to release destructive sonic screams. Though hers have disabled missiles, floored large attackers, and rattled the ship and all it's contents, her powers are "nothing" compared to the really skilled Saturnians who are known to shatter buildings with a single blast. The rainbow-haired Catalina is the engineer on the Christa, and quite the technical genius, though it is sometimes questionable whether her knowledge is her own or belongs to her invisible friend, Suzee, who supposedly lives in another dimension on a planet called Yensid (which is Disney backwards). The other crew members think that she is merely imaginary and often are annoyed by the mention of Suzee's name. As Season One progresses, the nature of Suzee's alleged existence is explained.
- Radu is an Andromedan, being from the galaxy Andromeda. He has no real family since Andromedans are hatched from eggs. Radu has super-sensitive hearing and superhuman strength, just as all Andromedans do, which was the reason behind the Spung's enslaving them and starting the Andromedan War. Radu suffers from an inferiority complex. The Andromedan culture is based on uniformity of mind and purpose, making Radu's desire to have a family and be his own person an anomaly of character. Radu has an appreciable sense of direction, which makes him the best candidate for the ship's navigator, forcing him to work in conjunction with the pilot, rival Harlan Band. Andromedans not only posess an internal temperature, but an internal barometric pressure as well. It is possible, when ill, for an Andromedan to have snow come from their ears. Radu has a significantly greater molecular density than most humanoids, which accounts for his superior strength, stability and long hair (which is nearly impossible to cut). In one instance, when the ship is being knocked around, the entire crew is thrust about except for Radu who stands comfortably still with his arms crossed.
- Bova is from Uranus. His race possesses an extra appendage: a small, pronged antennae growing from their forehead which can generate powerful blasts of electricity. He has an incredible metabolism that supplements his advanced energy production, which is the reason for his incredible appetite. He will eat nearly anything, and is always hungry. Being from Uranus, and thereby "the butt of every joke", he is consistently pessimistic in every situation, a Uranian cultural trait. Bova is responsible for operating and monitoring the shields.
- Rosie Ianni is from Mercury, and has the ability to produce vast amounts of heat at will. At the beginning of the series, she wore a helmet to help her control this ability, but it was removed in subsequent episodes, revealing her inherent bald head, which is a trait of all Mercurians. Rosie is the mothering influence within the crew, always trying to make sure that her fellow cadets are happy and getting along (because Mercury is so close to the Sun, all Mercurians have a tendency to 'look on the bright side' of things). She serves as doctor/scientist and has a tendency to adopt seemingly cute things that turn out to be troublesome for the crew. At one point in the series, Rosie temporarily took on the power to generate telekinetic energy blasts, on top of her fire-based powers.
- Thelma (Techno Human EmuLating MAchine), the mysterious ship's only native inhabitant, is an android who often malfunctions, owing in no small part to the fact that when Harlan first found her, he accidentally broke her memory chip, a small gem. She has a habit of taking things too literally and often does not realize moderately obvious things.
- Suzee is Catalina's best friend, and is believed to be imaginary by the crew throughout Season One. Following Catalina's apparent death at the end of Season One, Suzee joins the crew in her stead. Suzee's hair is similar to Catalina's, but is longer and actually shows up as colored streaks interspersed through her predominantly brunette hair. She is immensely intelligent, and has two sets of gills just beneath both sides of her clavicle that allow her to breathe in any atmosphere, though not in the vacuum of space. A bit overconfident herself, and sometimes at odds with Ms. Davenport for being treated like a child despite not being one of her students, Suzee's plentiful character traits also include telepathic abilities that allow her to depict her consciousness into others, letting her do things such as read minds and take over enemies' bodies. On one occasion, she even projected her mind into a sentient space satellite.
- Warlord Shank is a villain in the Space Cases series, portrayed by actor George Takei. Warlord Shank is a Spung commander who is a deadly space pirate and adversary for the crew of the Christa, having elite Spung officers under his command. He first appears in his Killcruiser when he intercepts and threatens to destroy the Christa after discovering that his daughter Elmira, a Spung princess and love interest of Radu, could be onboard. He develops into a major villain throughout the run of the series.
[edit] Series Overview
The series opens in a Space Academy orbiting Pluto, in which a small group of misfits are kept behind from a field trip. Nearby, an odd bird-like alien ship appears and Harlan Band decides to sneak onto it. The other students, all of which are younger and much less troublesome, follow Harlan onto the ship. During their exploration of the ship's interior, the seemingly organic space shuttle appears to bond to each student when each touches a bulkhead.
Their teacher and their principal go after them, and in a series of unfortunate events, become separated throughout the vessel. A disorientated Bova falls out of the Jump Tube system, a network of tubes used by the crew to transport throughout the ship, and accidentally fires an electrical blast that charges the engines, hurtling the ship off into a spatial rift. By the time everyone figures out that only the children who bonded to the ship can actually control it, the ship is stopped and it is discovered that they have traveled light years away from the academy, and it would take a direct journey of seven years, four months, and twenty two days at maximum speeds to make it back home the soonest.
A cybernetic female is discovered on the ship, but Harlan accidentally damages her, leaving her somewhat unreliable for the rest of the journey. Also as a result of the damage caused to the crystal in her forehead, she cannot offer much of any expertise as to how to operate the ship, but does explain that it is named "the Christa," in memoriam of Christa McAuliffe, a science teacher from Earth who passed away in the infamous explosion of the Space Shuttle Challenger in 1986. Resigned to their fate, the group of lost "Space Cases" must establish a chain of command and schedule in order to find their way home. Along the way, the Space Cases meet new allies and deadly enemies, most notable of which are the malicious Spung, a lizard-like race ruled by Warlord Shank (who has a particular hatred for "Earthers"), who is also the father of a young oracle, Elmira, who seeks to escape the evils of her race, and takes brief refuge aboard the Christa. Though she begins a subtle flirtation with Radu, some of the other crew members are wary of the girl because of her notoriously villainous ancestry. Harlan especially does not trust her, being that in the Andromedan war that ended years ago, the Spung forced Andromedans to work for them, attempting to take over and, in the process, caused the death of Harlan's biological father. Eventually, Elmira leaves the Christa in order to distract an attacking Spung vessel who was overwhelming the harmless Christa.
Throughout the season, Catalina and Harlan would compete more and more for their dominance over the rest of the kids, with Catalina arguing that Harlan is rude and Harlan insisting that Catalina is crazy for having an imaginary friend named "Suzee", but Harlan and Radu's rivalry would prove to be the most controversial. Harlan would continue to be unwilling to trust Radu for being of the same race that killed his father, despite Radu's rationalization that the Andromedans were enslaved by the Spung, thus making them victims as well, and hostiles only as a result of that. On several occasions, these rivals would be forced to set their biases aside and risk themselves to save the other's life.
The Christa would remain a mystery to the crew for the entire season, with many controls, decks and rooms that they know nothing about. At the end of the first season, the Christa comes across a debris field filled with the remains of an exact duplicate (save for it's color) of the Christa. Also among the debris are the remains of several Spung Killcruisers, revealing to the Space Cases that if the sister ship was an exact duplicate, then their own ship must contain the same powerful weaponry that allowed the destroyed ship to defeat that many Spung ships. Seeing it as essential to their survival to research the secrets of their own vessel, Commander Goddard leads an exploration of the sister ship, sans Bova and Ms. Davenport who remain on the Christa. A damaged ship's log is discovered that reveals that the owners of the ship, a race called the Lumanians (also the creators of the Christa), had managed to escape the destroyed sister ship after destroying several Spung ships. On top of that, they reveal that they left the ships remains to self-destruct in order to destroy the surviving Spung, prompting Bova and Davenport to get to the sister ship and warn the others. Much to their surprise, the ship traps the exploring crew inside with the surviving Spung, which includes Warlord Shank and Elmira.
With the Spung still seeking to put Elmira's fortune-telling gifts to military use, Elmira has continued to distance herself from her race, but before the crew can return to the Christa, each member is systematically incapacitated and captured by Warlord Shank. Seeking information about the Christa's weapons, and believing the Space Cases to be responsible for his defeat, Warlord Shank uses Catalina as a hostage but just before he can kill her, Harlan saves her life by offering Shank fake information that confuses him.
In the meantime, Ms. Davenport and Bova manage to sneak onto the sister ship and Bova battles down Shank with his more formidable electrical abilities (Shank wields an electrical scepter) while Ms. Davenport releases the tied up crew. The newly freed Commander Goddard instructs Ms. Davenport to return the crew to the ship, and then home (in a moment of high emotion, regarding each other by first name for the first time ever) before he enters the battle and takes Shank on directly, allowing his crew to escape. Ultimately overwhelming Shank, Goddard joins the others and helps guide his crew through the airlock, with Harlan and then Catalina at the back of the line. As Goddard traverses the airlock to get to Catalina and help her through, Warlord Shank leaps from the shadows and pulls Catalina back into the sister ship just before the airlock closes and seals them inside. The rest of the Space Cases are pulled back into the Christa which automatically departs as an emotionally charged Harlan tries to break thru the air lock door and save Catalina. Unfortunately, his efforts are futile and the sister ship is destroyed in a massive explosion. In the end, Commander Goddard gives Catalina's eulogy, apologizing for failing to care for his crew, and insisting they carry on nonetheless but Harlan is saddened that Catalina would never know that he really did like her (Catalina kissed him on the cheek after she awoke and heard that Harlan saved her from Shank). But in the final moment of the episode, a cloaked figure appears, confusing the crew with the fact that she seems to know all of them despite none of them recognizing her. Who was this cloaked figure?
In the beginning of the second season, the cloaked figure is revealed to be none other than Catalina's "imaginary friend" Suzee. The highly intelligent Suzee explains to the crew the nature of her situation: apparently the powerful explosion that destroyed the Christa's sister ship opened a dimensional tear that threw Catalina into Suzee's dimension, and knocked Suzee into their dimension, safely within the Christa. It turns out that the ship responds to Suzee's control as well, because she bonded with it at the same time that the rest of the crew did at the start of the series. With Catalina safe at Suzee's home, and Suzee the new engineer of the Christa, the crew heads for home (something is blocking the sonic frequencies that allow Suzee and Catalina to communicate inter-dimensionally).
The crew will spend the majority of the rest of Season Two stranded on an unknown planet following a violent attack by the Spung. Here, the crew must learn to survive in their new environment as they dedicate themselves to repairing the ship and going home. At several times in the season, the Space Cases come across different technologies that offer the lost cadets hope. In one such encounter, the crew discovers technology that will allow each of them to talk briefly to a loved one back home (Suzee gets to speak to Catalina, who makes her only appearance in this season). Harlan and Radu would again become rivals over the romantic interests of the attractive, rainbow-haired Suzee.
After the botched ascent of a newly repaired Christa, another attack on the ship not only damages it further, but causes it to land on top of Commander Goddard, crushing him and critically injuring him. He would then spend the majority of the rest of the series healing in suspended animation. Eventually he heals by the end of the series.
Because of its cancellation, the series has no true ending, and leaves several storylines open. One such storyline comes about in the episode "Trouble With Doubles," in which the crew becomes cloned and must each battle their own evil selves. At the end of the episode, it is explained that Goddard has been cloned before. When asked what assurances the crew has that he isn't a clone of the real Goddard, the episode ends in ambivalence, with no true answer to the question.
The final episode sees the crew responding to a distress call coming from a satellite that was ravaged by an attack from the Spung. When Commander Goddard leads Suzee, Harlan and Radu on an away mission to the satellite to find the originator of the distress call, they instead find that the satellite itself is the originator. The sentient, lonely satellite, known as Pezu (patterned after a fermale), is elated to have company after so many years, becoming particularly bonded to Suzee who is similarly intelligent and comes to understand her after Suzee reads her mind. Pezu eventually turns hostile, capturing the visiting crew members when she feels betrayed by Suzee who has the others distract her while she searches Pezu's systems for the truth behind what Suzee senses she's hiding. In the meantime, the returning Warlord Shank and his henchmen invade the satellite and attack Goddard, Harlan and Radu, after losing to them in battle so many times in the past. Eventually, Pezu releases the crew when Suzee convinces her that she can't force people to like her and that Suzee would hate her forever for trying to. As the crew departs to adventures unknown, Pezu is left with the Spung who damaged her trapped inside her for her to exact revenge upon.
[edit] Main cast
- Walter Emanuel Jones as Harlan Band
- Kristian Ayre as Radu
- Anik Matern as Thelma
- Jewel Staite as Catalina
- Rahi Azizi as Bova
- Paige Christina as Rosie Ianni
- Cary Lawrence as T.J. Davenport
- Paul Boretski as Commander Seth Goddard
- Rebecca Herbst as Suzee
[edit] Supporting cast
- George Takei as Warlord Shank
- Mark Hamill as Pel
- Bill Mumy as Jin
- Katie Emme McIninch as Elmira
- Serge Houde as Neinstein
- Daisy Eagan as Sofiana Mrtz
- Mark Camacho as Warden Opus
- Jim Bradford as Dram
- Zachary Ouimet as Kirge
- Peter David as Benn
- Chip Chiupka as Reaver
- Alexander Chapman as Ubi
- Robin Leach as Utz
- David Schramm as Yee Haw Jones
- Marcel Jeannin as Jesse
[edit] Trivia
- Since the series mostly takes place in space, it is can be considered similar to the TV series Lost in Space (which starred series co-creator Bill Mumy), Star Trek Voyager, Power Rangers in Space and Power Rangers Lost Galaxy.
- Supposedly, the Starcademy is located in orbit around Pluto.
- Catalina is often heard using the term "Grozit" which appears to be a Saturnian non-vulgar expletive, similar in usage to the word "Heavens," in context such as "Heavens, no/ Grozit, no". Peter David has used the curse "Grozit" in his Star Trek: New Frontier novels and Captain Marvel comics.
- The episode "Who Goes Where" ties this series to Babylon 5 in that the teddy bear that John Sheridan received and then released into space in the episode "There All the Honor Lies" ended up on a planet where it was found by the characters to have been infected with a virus that causes Radu to become violent with the crew until Rosie (who he retrieved the bear for as a gift) battles him with her fire powers, ultimately incinerating the infection from his body.
- Though Catalina explains that all Saturnians share the ability to vocally discharge sonic blasts, it is unclear whether all Saturnian sonic screams take on the same form as Catalina's, which discharge as a continuous projection of transverse circular shockwaves, similar in effect to the rings that are produced in water when a foreign object is dropped in.
- There seems to be a discrepancy in the way Catalina and Suzee communicate inter-dimensionally. In Season One, Catalina explains that their brainwaves are attuned to the same sonic frequency, allowing them to speak and even see each other as though they are in the same room (Catalina even turns to face Suzee as she talks to her). Catalina even tells the others that she can see Suzee, but no one else can. In Season Two, when Suzee and Catalina trade places, Catalina lives at Suzee's home and is not present on the ship in the same manner that Suzee seemed to be during Season One. During the Second Season, Suzee explains that something blocks off her ability to communicate with Catalina inter-dimensionally, which may have something to do with the reason why Suzee can't see Catalina the same way Catalina saw Suzee in Season One.
- The series features a multitude of celebrity guest stars throughout its run, including Mark Hamill, Bill Mumy, Katey Sagal, Michelle Trachtenberg, Danny Tamberelli and Robin Leach, to name a few.
- Harlan possesses advanced skills in martial arts and gymnastics. Though the origin of these skills are never explained, it is noteworthy to mention that actor Walter Emannuel Jones previously portrayed the character of Zack Taylor in the immensely popular Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, in which he served as the Black Ranger, who possesses exceptional martial arts, hip-hop dance, and gymnastics skills. The actor is credited as stunt coordinator in an episode of Space Cases.
- Many of the series episode titles are derived from song titles of the 1960's.
- In the episode "Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Court", the crew receives a message from the future that reveals the appearance of the kids in the crew at a much older age, including that of Catalina whose hair is much longer. Because Catalina is replaced by Suzee on the Christa in the final episode of Season one and throughout Season Two, this fact can be seen as a clue that either Catalina will reclaim her position on the ship sometime in the future, or that the message came from a future that did not ultimately occur thanks to the switch between Catalina and Suzee.
- The nature of Bova's name is never explained but in the season two episode Long Distance Calls, when Bova's father, named 'Benn' calls to speak to his son. This is an obvious reference to science fiction writer Ben Bova. (It is assumed that Uranusians have only one name.)
- There are many differences observed in the unaired pilot, which saw many drastic cosmetic changes in the look of the crew, and a notable absence of visible force in Catalina's sonic scream.
- Though actress Anik Matern portrays the cybernetic THELMA throughout the series, in the Season Two episode "Both Sides Now", in which a spatial phenomenon causes the crews wishes to experience life through each other, THELMA trades places with Suzee, allowing Thelma to become human; predominantly blonde with streaks of colors in her hair after she trades places with Suzee.
- It's revealed in the second season episode Long Distance Calls that Goddard was busted in rank for "almost starting a war" with a space pirate named Reaver. Goddard's backstory is one of the least explained in the series, and Reaver's appearance in the episode (who's entrance into the plot is explained by the creation of a communications device that the Christa's crew has possession of and Reaver wants to steal) raises more questions than answers. For example, Reaver can hold his own against a fight against Radu, who is Andromedan and allegedly has the strength of ten Earth men. Reaver even 'psychically' combats Suzee for a time, who up to this point in the series never had problems pitching her consciousness into another entity to control them.
- Because of budget constraints, props from Are You Afraid of the Dark? and other Nickelodeon shows were used in Space Cases episodes. In other episodes, more mundane props were used in the sets that gave Space Cases an often affectionately cheesy feel, like in the episode Homeward Bound the character Suzee is sitting in a chair with compact discs pasted to either side. During the first season, electronic games were used as 'control panels' on walls.
- Space Cases was rife with references to other science fiction shows. One very obvious example is during the first season episode Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Court where the crew slips into another universe and becomes subject to all the physical laws of that universe. Bova and THELMA explain to the crew that this phenomenon is described as "The Lister Effect", a reference to the main character Dave Lister in the British sci-fi comedy series Red Dwarf.
- Jewel Staite would again play a young engineer on a spaceship years later in the cult television series Firefly.
- Co-creator Peter David sometimes gives names of people who ran the August Party conventions to his characters. TJ Davenport shares the same first name of TJ Burnside, who helped with the Filksinging. Rosie Ianni is the name of another August Party Committee member. August Party Chair Rich Kolker wrote the story outline for the second season episode "Runaway."
[edit] Memorable Quotes
- Rosie: I keep warning her not to overdo her sonic practicing. She'll blow a vocal cord or something.
- Harlan Band: Yeah, well that's one of the dangers when you're hooked on sonics.
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- Thelma: As I understand it, family is not just those of whom you are born, but those to whom you belong.
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- Dram: Dream of glory, Mirabella. Dream of life! And dare to fight for both. If you believe in nothing else I say, believe in that.
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- Ms. Davenport's Clone: And now I suppose you'll dazzle me with your intellect or give me demerits or faint.
- Ms. Davenport: No, actually, I think I'll just knock your lights out. Welcome to brown town!
