Space: Above and Beyond
Cast & Key People
▶
Our Review
The most unfairly canceled show of the ’90s. Space: Above and Beyond is Band of Brothers in space, a war drama about the 58th Squadron, the Wild Cards, fighting an alien species nobody understands, created by X-Files writers Glen Morgan and James Wong. It aired on Fox in 1995, right when Trek style optimism was the only sci-fi anyone wanted, and its grim military realism got it killed after one season.
What holds up: the show treats its soldiers as people first (tank bred In Vitro humans are its underclass, and the discrimination allegory is blunt but effective), and the combat is genuinely tense, the Chigs are an enemy that’s never cartoonish. Who Monitors the Birds, a nearly wordless episode where a Marine is stranded behind enemy lines, is one of the best hours of ’90s sci-fi, period. The finale cliffhanger will break your heart. Bring a helmet.
Verdict: Watch it for the best sci-fi war story before The Expanse came along. Then curse Fox, as is tradition.
