Season Two
Season Two
Ginny: “We did not create peace, but at least we got them Talking.”
Commander: “Yes but How many Children will die in the meanwhile?”
Dialog from the episode “Dogs of War” by David Gerrold.
The second season of Space Academy started with the airing of Joe Haldeman episode: Kings and Pawns on September 10, 1977. The episode introduced Chris Gentry’s Sister Laura as a Student studying on off World Colony. It ended with Matt Dodson being killed as he saved the people of the colony. LeVar Burton left the show to star in the mini series Roots.
The season had a darker feel to it, this season as the War between the Kzin and their Lizard like Phaestor, began to cross over into Human Space. Refugees became a regular feature in the show as Human Colony after Human Colony were destroy in the conflict between the two races. Chris Gentry and his away team, “Blue Team”, struggled to deal with the effects.
David Gerrold wrote 5 of the season 15. His First episode this season introduced the Lizzard like Phaestor. Larry Niven wrote another. Joe Haldeman had seen the Two part pilot episode and the Ted Strugeon episode at World Con 76. He would write two of the season episodes. DC Fontana wrote one episode. Robert Heinlein involvement with the show had stop. He return to writing novels. However his name remain on the Show for the remaining two seasons.
Harlan Ellison had criized the show in his column for Future Magazine . Therefore it was surprising that he sent in a script. The script turn out to be unusable since it began with Adrian and Chris in Bed together. Ellison would continue to rant against Roddenberry and Gerrold. Robert Heinlein would end Ellison Rants when he sent a letter to Future Magazine that corrected many of the false hood that Harlan was including in his column.
(Harlan often seem to be attacking anything that was at all popular during the 1970’s and 1980’s. So it would not be out of character for him to attack this show. He had done a similar thing for Land of the Lost. He summited a script that was completely unusable and then bad mouth the show because in his words “The producer failed to see the genus of the script and were unwilling to change the show to accomdate him.” )
Episode Nine, David Gerrold “The Dogs of War” had the Commander attempt Peace Negotiations between the Kzin and the Phaestors. He is unable to end the war. During the Negotiations, a renegade Kzin Captain attempts to kill everyone at the negotiations. Chris is able to stop the Captain but not before the Captain destroy the Human Colony where the negotiations are taking place. It contained the most shocking image seen on a Saturday morning Show, that of Chris bringing out the dead body of a young 5 year old girl that he and Adrian had met earlier. The show ended with James Doohan bitterly wondering how many Children would die before peace came?
(According to the Book World of Star Trek, by David Gerrold, the ending of wondering how many children would die in the meanwhile, was first proposed for the ending of the Classic Star Trek episode The Cloud Minders. Since it was not used then, I have used it here)
The Lizard like Phaestor were created by Rick Baker. Rob Bottin a friend of Baker did the episode to episode makeup. Due to the Low budget there were never more than three aliens of either race on screen at the same time. But effective use of Costumes made it look like there were more than the three at any time.
The Special Effect team did not have a larger budget but manage to deliver more including some good looking space ships and a couple of Space Battles . Jim Danford would do a couple of mate paintings for the show. Some of the Planets that the show did this season were more than just a bunch of fake looking rocks on a set. The teams manage a convincing jungle set and a woodland set, as well as the farming Colony seen in “Dogs of War”. Compared to other shows, the sets were nothing special, but it was still light years above the previous season.
Former Star Trek Actors Walter Koenig and Nichelle Nicholls both appeared as guest stars this season. Several episodes had more than the one guest star per episode as happen in season one , making the Universe of the show feel larger.
But this season the darker tone made many parents and politicians upset. Many thought that the friend ship between Chris’ Sister and Matt Dodson in the episode “Kings and Pawns” was a interacial relationship. Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott both pointed out that the friendship in the episode was just that, a friendship. Neither character touch during the episode nor expressed any kind of feeling for each other.
But Both Lou and Norm would not be able to explain away the episode “Dogs of War”. After it aired the first time, A writer for the New York Times questioned rather Children should be exposed to war and death on a Saturday Morning Show. A letter printed in the Science Fiction Magazine Starlog explained the problem very well. “Space Academy during the Second season had changed from a Kids show that Adults could watch, to an Adult show that Kids could watch”
(This is a explanation that has appear in a number of Doctor Who fanzine about problems with the production of Doctor Who)
When it was rerun in early 1978, it was one of several shows that had some conservative congressmen calling for hearing on Kids and their exposure to Violence.
The President of the United States was even asked in a Press conference what his opinion was of kids watch violence on TV. The President responded that it was better for kids to watch violence on TV than to watch violence in real life.
But as Mark Twain once said, it better to be talk about then ignored . After the New York Time article, the ratings on the Show took a great jump. CBS finished the season and then reran all 30 episodes including the episode “The Dogs of War” . The rating were higher than ever.
Both CBS and Lou and Norm wanted a Third Season. However they all felt that the series tone needed to be lighten up. And then came a new movie to the Theatres called Star Wars. And everything would change.
‘
Season Two
Ginny: “We did not create peace, but at least we got them Talking.”
Commander: “Yes but How many Children will die in the meanwhile?”
Dialog from the episode “Dogs of War” by David Gerrold.
The second season of Space Academy started with the airing of Joe Haldeman episode: Kings and Pawns on September 10, 1977. The episode introduced Chris Gentry’s Sister Laura as a Student studying on off World Colony. It ended with Matt Dodson being killed as he saved the people of the colony. LeVar Burton left the show to star in the mini series Roots.
The season had a darker feel to it, this season as the War between the Kzin and their Lizard like Phaestor, began to cross over into Human Space. Refugees became a regular feature in the show as Human Colony after Human Colony were destroy in the conflict between the two races. Chris Gentry and his away team, “Blue Team”, struggled to deal with the effects.
David Gerrold wrote 5 of the season 15. His First episode this season introduced the Lizzard like Phaestor. Larry Niven wrote another. Joe Haldeman had seen the Two part pilot episode and the Ted Strugeon episode at World Con 76. He would write two of the season episodes. DC Fontana wrote one episode. Robert Heinlein involvement with the show had stop. He return to writing novels. However his name remain on the Show for the remaining two seasons.
Harlan Ellison had criized the show in his column for Future Magazine . Therefore it was surprising that he sent in a script. The script turn out to be unusable since it began with Adrian and Chris in Bed together. Ellison would continue to rant against Roddenberry and Gerrold. Robert Heinlein would end Ellison Rants when he sent a letter to Future Magazine that corrected many of the false hood that Harlan was including in his column.
(Harlan often seem to be attacking anything that was at all popular during the 1970’s and 1980’s. So it would not be out of character for him to attack this show. He had done a similar thing for Land of the Lost. He summited a script that was completely unusable and then bad mouth the show because in his words “The producer failed to see the genus of the script and were unwilling to change the show to accomdate him.” )
Episode Nine, David Gerrold “The Dogs of War” had the Commander attempt Peace Negotiations between the Kzin and the Phaestors. He is unable to end the war. During the Negotiations, a renegade Kzin Captain attempts to kill everyone at the negotiations. Chris is able to stop the Captain but not before the Captain destroy the Human Colony where the negotiations are taking place. It contained the most shocking image seen on a Saturday morning Show, that of Chris bringing out the dead body of a young 5 year old girl that he and Adrian had met earlier. The show ended with James Doohan bitterly wondering how many Children would die before peace came?
(According to the Book World of Star Trek, by David Gerrold, the ending of wondering how many children would die in the meanwhile, was first proposed for the ending of the Classic Star Trek episode The Cloud Minders. Since it was not used then, I have used it here)
The Lizard like Phaestor were created by Rick Baker. Rob Bottin a friend of Baker did the episode to episode makeup. Due to the Low budget there were never more than three aliens of either race on screen at the same time. But effective use of Costumes made it look like there were more than the three at any time.
The Special Effect team did not have a larger budget but manage to deliver more including some good looking space ships and a couple of Space Battles . Jim Danford would do a couple of mate paintings for the show. Some of the Planets that the show did this season were more than just a bunch of fake looking rocks on a set. The teams manage a convincing jungle set and a woodland set, as well as the farming Colony seen in “Dogs of War”. Compared to other shows, the sets were nothing special, but it was still light years above the previous season.
Former Star Trek Actors Walter Koenig and Nichelle Nicholls both appeared as guest stars this season. Several episodes had more than the one guest star per episode as happen in season one , making the Universe of the show feel larger.
But this season the darker tone made many parents and politicians upset. Many thought that the friend ship between Chris’ Sister and Matt Dodson in the episode “Kings and Pawns” was a interacial relationship. Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott both pointed out that the friendship in the episode was just that, a friendship. Neither character touch during the episode nor expressed any kind of feeling for each other.
But Both Lou and Norm would not be able to explain away the episode “Dogs of War”. After it aired the first time, A writer for the New York Times questioned rather Children should be exposed to war and death on a Saturday Morning Show. A letter printed in the Science Fiction Magazine Starlog explained the problem very well. “Space Academy during the Second season had changed from a Kids show that Adults could watch, to an Adult show that Kids could watch”
(This is a explanation that has appear in a number of Doctor Who fanzine about problems with the production of Doctor Who)
When it was rerun in early 1978, it was one of several shows that had some conservative congressmen calling for hearing on Kids and their exposure to Violence.
The President of the United States was even asked in a Press conference what his opinion was of kids watch violence on TV. The President responded that it was better for kids to watch violence on TV than to watch violence in real life.
But as Mark Twain once said, it better to be talk about then ignored . After the New York Time article, the ratings on the Show took a great jump. CBS finished the season and then reran all 30 episodes including the episode “The Dogs of War” . The rating were higher than ever.
Both CBS and Lou and Norm wanted a Third Season. However they all felt that the series tone needed to be lighten up. And then came a new movie to the Theatres called Star Wars. And everything would change.
‘