What is Odyssey 5?

Apparently I was the only person who ever watched this show when it originally aired on Showtime several years ago. This was a great show then, and I think that it is still pretty good and very gripping. The question is: why did it die so quickly?

The answer, my friends, is really quite simple: no market would pick it up. Odyssey 5 was fairly inexpensive to produce, however Showtime was completely unable to sell this for syndication as it had successfully done with The Outer Limits, Dead Man's Gun, and Stargate SG-1. In addition, the branding of the Showtime Sci-Fi Friday was already falling apart by that time as the Sci-Fi channel picked up The Outer Limits and was already making noises about taking over SG-1. This failure is what lead to the cancellation of a promising, and very interesting show.

Like Total Recall 2070 before it, Odyssey 5 showed us that the imagination was no boundary for the inventive and clever folks at Showtime. Smartly written, with a great cast and good direction, this show had all the ingredients for another mega hit. Why, then, would nobody pick up the hot potato? The answer: language.

This show was written at a time when The Sopranos and Queer as Folk were highlighting the fact that swearing on cable was A-OK by the viewers. The problem is that this show needed the influx of cash that would come from syndication on Fox or UPN, and without it, even the small production costs of a show like Odyssey 5 could not be funded out of pocket indefinitely.

We should learn a great big lesson from this: cussing is OK if you do not need to sell the show to networks, but it will kill your show if you need the cash.

Thankfully, I will get to watch my old friends from the shuttle Odyssey ever Friday for the next few weeks.

Journeyman & Heroes Premier Spectacular

I am not even going to pretend that I am not a huge fan of Heroes, and if I did, I would expect everyone to slap me one for fibbing. I know that there are going to be many fans out there who are going to whinge bitterly that "Four Months Later" was dull and draggy, and that it lacked the energy and excitement of last season. My response to such criticism is: Of course it did! Last season was like a well made gumbo, it took a while to simmer up to that exciting peak. You cannot possibly expect them to maintain the level of excitement of last season with such a disconnect between those events and the present. Still, you had a murder, a few surprises, some new heroes, a British samurai, and some wonderful scenes of folks picking up the pieces after the 'exploding man' incident. They balanced everything so well, and I thought that the entire episode was wonderfully executed. It was like watching old friends return.

I do not want to give away any secrets about the Heroes season premier, however I would like to highlight a few wonderful scenes that I think may get overlooked. I loved Noah Bennett as Assistant Manager of the Copy King, that was brilliant, and anyone who has ever worked retail will identify with the breakroom scene. Hiro in the past is, and will continue to be, a very interesting storyline, but more important than Hiro are the many scenes of Ando and Hiro's father, aptly played by George Takei. Dr. Suresh shows breadth and depth, and Matt Parkman proves that he is the kind of cop that all police personnel should strive to emulate. Also, the young girl playing Molly Hunter does a phenomenal job of the sulky kid bit, but her stark terror is magnificent during one of the later scenes.

On to Journeyman, which also had its premier this evening. This show is a cross between Quantum Leap and Evening Edition, and it proves that Kevin McKidd is probably one of the most versatile actors out there today. The show was wonderfully done, and explained nothing about the how or why of what is happening. In fact, those who watched were left with more questions than answers on this one. What is actually going on? Who is Livia? Will Dan keep his marriage intact with the stress of the time jumping? If anyone else read Fritz Leiber's Big Time, or any of the Time Patrol series, then you have to know that the answers are never set in stone.

Brilliant acting, great direction, solid writing, this is a show that will make the two hour Monday time slot a winner for NBC. Between this exciting new show, and the exquisite return of Heroes, I have the feeling that the other networks will be left out in the cold. If I worked for NBC, I would be shouting from the rooftops that Mondays means imagination, and imagination means NBC. Then again, I would probably be doing a lot more if I worked at NBC (just a thought).