SciFi Channel sucks the soul out of Science Fiction again.

Vang

I guess I shouldn't be surprised, SciFi Channel hasn't done science fiction since they took the 4th Season option to cancel Farscape. But I digress.

First off, if you went into this expecting to hear shades of the 1980 movie's Queen soundtrack, you're going to be disappointed. The opening theme wasn't that bad (it actually has a lot of potential), but the rest of the soundtrack is a letdown. Typical canned music that one would expect if Hollywood ever made a porn movie. If SciFi Channel was going to remix the original Flash Gordon song for their trailers, you would think that it would show up somewhere in the series.

The music isn't the major letdown, however. It's the completely soulless "re-imagination" of a science fiction classic that dumps just about everything that made Flash Gordon - from the original comics, serials, animated series, and movie - so great. About the only thing that carried over was character and planet names. I'm sorry, but it's going to take more than that to make an interesting series. If the comics could be "re-imagined" into the Buster Crabbe serials, and the serials into the animated series, and all of that into the 1980 movie while still keeping the whole Flash Gordon spirit, how hard would it be to make a TV series that can do the same?

The characters lack any character. Between the bad acting and the poor writing, it is impossible to find a character that isn't boring, or even likable. The actors are 20/30 somethings and few of them are well known. Probably because SciFi Channel decided to save on money by hiring their usual low grade, pretty face talent Maybe if the writing hadn't been done by committee it would seem less like "Dawson's Creek in Space", but I doubt it. I can understand the whole "Sliders Rift Thing" as a convention for the characters getting to Mongo - interstellar flight isn't possible for Earth when this series is set and most viewers realize this - but overall there isn't much innovation. Perhaps SciFi Channel should learn to develop their imagination before trying to "re-imagine" any other series.

Final thought: I thought that CBS' "re-imagination" of Kolchak the Nightstalker was the worst remake ever. SciFi Channel has proved me wrong once again.

score 1/10

Vang 12 August 2007

Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1710664/