Cedric McAllister

Space Rangers was an obscure and short-lived US science fiction series, hitting the screen during the early 1990s, a period that was an absolute bonanza for TV sci-fi. Star Trek: The Next Generation was just finishing its run, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine hit the screen the very same month, and Babylon 5 would premier later the same year, presaging great changes in the form of narrative fiction of American TV. Space Rangers was not in the league of any of these shows, and audiences apparently agreed, given its very short run of six episodes. But despite a lot of goofy dialogue, stock characters, and production design that could be charitably called "quirky," the show had a good heart and real potential. The cast was surprisingly solid for such a low budget excursion, and while the chemistry between the characters was a little forced in the opening episodes, the dynamic of Captain Boon's crew showed signs of developing into something more by the time the show was cancelled, and individual performances were competent to quite good across the board. Fans of Firefly will find an unmistakable flavor of "Space Western" here, with the characters operating out of a ragtag colony called Fort Hope, a name that wouldn't be out of place in a literal western. Space Rangers didn't play with western aesthetics the way Joss Whedon did in Firefly, but the theme of scrappy underdogs struggling to survive on a frontier by turns ignored and exploited by "Central" will feel very familiar. Space Rangers was not a great show; it honestly wasn't even a GOOD show. But it obviously had the potential to be, had it been given the chance to find its voice, and it deserves a visit by any serious fan of the genre.