Well, it’s been almost 6 years since this show was taken off the air, but I finally finished watching Odyssey 5. In case any of you are wondering…..

Spoiler Alert!

Odyssey 5 is about the 5 man crew of the Space Shuttle Odyssey who witnesses the entire Earth explode. Just as they are ready to run out of air in the shuttle (who knows how they survived the Earth turning to shit), an alien being who calls himself the Seeker rescues them and sends them back in time 5 years to figure out what destroyed the Earth and how to prevent it from happening. Well, as it turns out, they find that a new type of gene therapy programming has developed a sentient entity that lives in cyberspace. It creates material versions of itself in the form of humans known as Synthetics. Well, as it turns out, a rogue branch of NASA is aware of the Synthetic problem on Earth, and they plan a mission called Bright Sky to eliminate the Sentients in one foul swoop. But apparently, Bright Sky malfunctions and that’s most likely what happens to the world.

Manny Coto, the creator of Odyssey 5, never finished the storyline which I always thought to be disappointing. But I watched the final episode they had and I realized that the cliffhanger at the end isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. At the very least, they tell you how and why the Earth is destroyed but they never tell you if they ever do save it. I was thinking they would just leave you hanging with no knowledge of what was going to happen.

I know most of you have never seen the series, and I watched it when it was on Showtime Beyond in 2002. But there it is. If you don’t mind a slight cliffhanger rather than a major one, definitely get ahold of the DVD’s and watch them.

I’m certain Jim would definitely like it since a lot of the series has to do with networking code and computers. Hear that, Jim?! Once your done with my Voyager DVD’s, I’ll loan it to you. lol

That sounds pretty awesome, actually. I’ve never watched any sci-fi TV series, really. Then again, I never watch TV to begin with. This intrigues me, however. I may check it out.

Sounds like my kind of show. That it ended before done is only a testament of how good it possibly is… since all the best shows out there never got finished (like Firefly). I can get it a decent price from play.com, so I’ll keep it in mind for sure.

Whaleman - 14 September 2008 03:47 AM

Sounds like my kind of show. That it ended before done is only a testament of how good it possibly is… since all the best shows out there never got finished (like Firefly). I can get it a decent price from play.com, so I’ll keep it in mind for sure.

Yeah, it was sad that they cancelled it. They spoke with Manny Coto later and he said that he does have an interest to return to finish the work. But let me put it this way, if Scifi buys the series from Showtime, that will tell you that Showtime are a bunch of retards for giving up a money-maker to begin with. I hope that he does, and I hope that Peter Weller continues his role. He’s one of my favorite actors.

I think I remember seeing the first episode a long time ago. Perhaps it was you who loaned me the VCR tape.

I do recall Odyssey 5 airing on Sci-fi sometime ago, just as Firefly was, but it was probably on too early or real late for me to watch it. Since both it and Firefly are really short series’ they don’t often rerun them for very long.

The difference between Odyssey 5 and Firefly though, is that Firefly started out on Fox rather than on Showtime and more people saw it. Firefly ended up being more successful in DVD sales just enough so for a feature film (Serenity). Odyssey 5 was one of Showtime’s highest-rated original Showtime series’ though, which makes me curious why it got canceled? By comparison, it’s surprising how long Stargate SG-1 ran new episodes (5 seasons worth) on Showtime before it was acquired by Sci-fi. Stargate had two things going for it though, MacGyver and the already established feature-film.