Make Space Academy Good.

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.


 
Between season

Between the seasons.
Peter: “My Uncle once said, with great power , comes great responsibility. But Sometime the responsible thing to do is beat the hell out someone who is too dangerous to live”
The Amazing Spiderman: Episode “Goblin part two”
Every one on the Show knew that season three would be different. First Gene Roddenberry had left as Producer. He would go to Paramount to work on the TV show Star Trek Phase II. James Doohan would be leaving midway during the season to go to work on Star Trek.
Mark Hamill had guest star on the CBS show The Amazing Spiderman. A episode planned for the end of the season , The Night of the Clone, had major script problems and would not be produced . The writers on the show decided to do a adaption of the classic Green Goblin Story “The death of Glen Stacey” as the final. Hamill was cast as Harry Osburn, the son of Norman Osburn, who was developing a super soldier formula for the Military.
Threaten with the project being cancelled, Osburn tested the formula on himself. It had the side effect of driving Norman Crazy. He would kidnap Rita, from the Daily Bugle offices and take her to a group of warehouses. During the fight at the end of the episode, Rita is thrown off a building. She is dead before Spiderman is able to get to her. The episode ended with Spiderman holding her body in his arms.
The next week the second part of the episode “The Goblin” aired. Viewer were surprise to see Spiderman brutally beat The Goblin head in to the concrete. Peter Parker would debate with Harry Osburn if letting a mad man live was the correct thing to do, or if killing him would be the more responsible action. The episode did end with death of the Goblin at the hand of a malfunctioning Jet glider.
As another show that had a large youth audience, The violence on The Amazing Spiderman was shocking, and just as the episode “Dogs of War” on Space Academy had also shock parents, leading for parental group calling for the show to be canceled.
CBS did not cancel either. They did call on Space Academy to tone down the Dark tone. They recommended that the show model itself more on a movie that was a huge success in theaters at the time, Star Wars.
George Lucas’s Film Star War had come to Theater with Bruce Boxleitner as Luke Skywalker, Harrison Ford as Han Solo and Carrie Fisher as Princess Liaia . It was a swashbuckling homage to the old movie serials.
David Gerrold found himself promoted to the position of Producer and tasked with toning down the Dark tone that had appeared in season two. He faced a problem. Joe Haldeman stories had been pick by CBS as part of the problem and Gerrold was informed that no more stories would be bought from Halderman. Gerold was surprised because he had written “The Dogs of War”, the episode that had brought most of the complaints, not Haldeman . Still as a first time producer, he had no ground to complain.
Adding to Gerrold problems, was the fact that Larry Niven would not be working on the show this season. Having updated the original Buck Rodgers story for Ace book with his writing partner Jerry Pournelle, Norm and Lou hired Niven and Pournelle as Story Consultants on their forth coming series Flash Gordan.
Gerrold would have to bring in new writers and change the focus of the Show. He faced a huge amount of work,To bring season three to life. In addition, the show success had resulted in a order for not 15 episode as in the previous two season but 24 epsodes.

 
Season Three

Season Three
Mortimous : “I will destroy all of Creation, and then rebuild it in my image. All of creation will then bow before me, a true and Mighty God.”
Episode “There is a Storm Coming” by Jim Starlin and Chris Claremount.
Gerrold had problems. He lost all of his Science Fiction writers for the show. Some like Norman Spinrad and Ben Bova had return to writing novels. Larry Niven had been given a show to develop. He could not buy any more scripts from Joe Haldeman . And the regular writers in Filmation stables turn in weak and putrid scripts.
How was he going to produce this season? However he would surprise when two comic writers Chris Claremount and Jim Starlin ran into him a science fiction convention on the west coast. They both enjoyed the show and had some ideas. The Three would ended up writing 21 of the 24 episodes this season.
A fan writing in Starlog magazine stated that the third season was based more on Flash Gordan serial from the 1930’s and 1940’s than Star Trek as the show was under Roddenberry. It currently manage to put the cliffhanging thrills of a old Republic serial in to, each set of three episode.
The new format of the show had every three episode be a self contain story. The overall plot of the season had Loki powers begin to grow to a level that threaten to destroy a large a part of the universe. He would be kidnap by first the Lizards and then the Kzins who each wanted to use his power to destroy the others.
(The format of this season is base on the format used for the show Jason of Star Command. This season would take the place of that show)
The first three part story would end in the kidnapping of Loki and the death of Chris ‘ Girlfriend Adrian who was killed trying to save Loki. Chris would spend much of the season fighting his own darkside that arose from her death. Mark Hamill would give an excellent job combining the swashbuckling activities needed for this season with the acting to show the internal conflict in the character.
The Station Robot would be destroy preventing a nuclear reactor from melting down in episode 9. Much of the Academy would be destroy and only the death of the Commander prevented the complete destruction. The Commander was kill to allow James Doohan to go do Star Trek Phase II.
(James Doohan was the commander for the show Jason of Star Command and did leave the show after episode 15 to do Star Trek in the OTL.)
Jonathan Harris of Lost in Space fame, would come in to serve as the Academy Commander for the rest of the season. He brought a much need lighter tone to the show.
(Jonathan Harris had play the Commander in the OTL Space Academy. Here he is the replacement for James Doohan.)
As the Season progress, the surviving members of the Academy Blue team, Chris , Tee Gar and Ginny would discover that there was a force behind the ongoing war and that the force had plans for Loki that would endanger all of the Universe. Mortimous, an alien overlord plan to use Loki power s to destroy the universe and then rebuild it in his image. The task of stopping Mortimous would be more complicated when Ginny would abandon Chris and Tee Gar, to save her own life leaving them in danger.
(This is a mixure of Starlin Warlord-Thanos story and elements of Claremount Phoenix saga from X men)
As the season ended Ginny would give her life to save Chris, Tee Gar and Loki and redeem herself .
The fans enjoy the episodes , but they were very different from the first two season more intellectual stories. Gerrold was successful in changing the tone from the darkness that had appear in the second season to a swash buckling feeling. This was despite the death of four Characters, this season, Adrian, The Commander and Ginny and the Robot and the ongoing battle of the main character with his own darkness.
One major problem with the third season was a lack of money. The finical inflation of the late 1970’s mean that the show had less money to deal with more ambition scripts. Whereas the crew was able to deal with this successfully during the Second season, it was obvious at time that the crew were unable to achieve the goals, this season. Many of the episode look cheap and the aliens seem at time to be falling apart.
Rob Bottin did the Design for Mortimous. Fans of Both Marvel comics and Dc Comics would claim that the design look a lot like Thanos or Darkside depending on which comic one preferred.
CBS would not renew the show for a another season. Filmation would syndicate it to local television stations. Some of the station would show the Episode “Dogs of War’ and some would not. Some Southern Stations would also pull the episode” Kings and Pawns” because of the perceived inter racial relationship in the episode.
The show would aired on the sci fi channel in the 1990’swith all the episodes aired. It has since aired on Nickelodeon and more recently on the Hub without “The Dogs of War’. But that episode pops up on You Tube all the time.
The Show would be released on VHS in the 1980’s and on Dvd in the mid 2000’s. A plan release on Blue Ray is due in July of 2012.
Next will be the effects of the show on Roddenberry and Gerrold. Or whatr are all these butterfly doing in my timeline.

 
I have two more part to write on this Timeline. The first is The butterfly effects on Roddenberry and Gerrold.
And the second is the butterfly effects on the actors careers.

Should get posted some time this weekend. Please let me know what you think.
 
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