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Another amazing episode as the various factions we’ve been introduced to this season start running into each other, and our wild cards keep dropping into play to complicate it even further. The march towards the finale has indisputably begun, and we’ve still got the Avengers 2 in between!
A few weeks ago, we discussed some of the lesser known spinoffs of more popular parent shows. This week, we’ll continue the descent into obscurity with 4 spinoffs that never even made it that far, having died before they even managed to… uh, spin(?) at all, by picking up in the vein of “What Could Have Been.” As they all come from major franchises, it’s interesting to imagine what the consequences of their success might have been. Let’s explore, shall we?
May’s backstory is revealed at long last, and it turns out “the Cavalry” wasn’t quite the badass nickname it always seemed to be. More traumatic, really. We also get to see more of Skye, Raina, and the Inhuman encampment they call Afterlife. It’s not the strongest episode of the season, but last week was a tough act to follow.
This month, the Obscure Sci-Fi Primer returns to take on the little known series Odyssey 5. It’s kind of a generically vague sci-fi title, something that sounds like it’s referring to some space outpost (or maybe it just reminds me of Babylon 5). The truth of the series is actually quite different, keeping a fairly grounded approach to its time travel-based subject matter. Odyssey 5 first premiered on Showtime in 2002, the same channel that hosted our earlier subject Total Recall 2070. The show was created by Manny Coto, who went on to run the final season of Star Trek: Enterprise, right when it started to get good. With that in mind, let’s take a look at this forgotten series and decide if it’s worth digging into.
In shows with a lot of standalone episodes, one of the consequences that crops up is that a concept introduced in one episode ought to have really, really huge implications for the universe. Like, enormous. We’re talking world-changing at the very least. And yet, the events of that episode are rarely ever brought up again. So here we go, 4 episodes that should’ve been rocking the foundations of these shows, but went by practically unnoticed.
Boy, was this episode one hell of a ride. Surprise appearances, twisting allegiances, amazing banter and lots of action. Everything’s so gray and ambiguous right now… and yet perfectly so.
A lot of shows try the spinoff approach once they get successful; that’s how you launch a franchise, after all. Just earlier this week we looked at Babylon 5‘s far less popular spinoff, Crusade, which died very early. The successful spinoffs speak for themselves: Star Trek TNG, or Stargate Atlantis. Sometimes, like in the former’s case, they practically eclipse the parent show in popularity, but those cases are few and far between. Most spinoffs don’t really go anywhere, dying quietly and languishing in the original’s shadow. Today we’re looking at these, 4 spinoffs that are nowhere near as well known as the popular programs that spawned them.
This week’s episode was action packed, and gave us a glimpse at a number of important events and people who we haven’t really gotten to know yet. Flashbacks, Gordon, the “real” S.H.I.E.L.D. and more await!
With Babylon 5 standing as one of the crowning achievements of serialized television in the 90’s, it’s no surprise that it eventually got a spinoff. And Joe Michael Straczynski (henceforth, JMS) had plans that were just as big–a full five season arc, just like Babylon 5 had. Babylon 5 always painted itself as the “anti-Star Trek,” so I think many people were surprised to see it branching out into spinoffs in the same way as that franchise. Unfortunately, TNT executives had little patience or understanding as to what they’d signed up for and didn’t give the show a chance to finish, killing it after only 13 episodes (heck, before they’d even aired). So once again we’re left to examine what could have been: Crusade season 2.
Ever heard of “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?” It’s a little game people like to play with celebrities, based on the idea that you can get from any one actor to another (typically the aforementioned Kevin Bacon) by naming someone who was in a movie with another actor, who starred alongside a third in a different movie, and so on, until you make it to an actor who appeared on screen with Kevin Bacon. Today’s Friday Four (well, six, this week) is going to engage in some fun trivia by pulling the sci-fi version of this–counting each jump from universe to universe, how many jumps away are some of the biggest Sci-Fi heroes from each other? Let’s find out!
