Pilot

This is one of the best SciFi shows I've seen in a long time. Im very sad to see it canceled. The new Battlestar and Heros are a close second. I wanted to comment more on Author: ben-mcfee from Canada earlier comments concerning the shows cancellation. The notion that a Right-wing political power may have someway canceled this show, is almost laughable if not sad. Read a biography! You watch way to much conspiratorial fiction. If the Right was "so" powerful Micheal Moore and Al Gore's stupid SciFi documentaries would have never seen the light of day. The silliness to think that this show would even be a blip on the Conservative Christian's radar is down right goofy. With shows like The West Wing, Saturday Night Live and The View lasting for years, you have to be an idiot to draw that conclusion.

Previews of this show left me with a bad taste in my mouth, but I was totally wrong. The first half of the pilot has been the weakest segment so far, but stick with it.

Just gets more interesting with every episode. Heavy on plot and characters. The promos compared it to the xfiles -- really a quite inaccurate comparison in so many ways (stylisticly and thematically). This is no vague "oh the truth is out there", but a gritty desperate attempt to prevent a concrete disaster.

Even commerical-free pay channels shows often feel like they have spaces for the future insertion of commericials (ie, they tend to be broken up in 5 mini acts or whatever) but O5 don't play like that. The pacing and style are real breath of fresh air. Resolutions to episodes feel like a natural progression forward of the show instead of a deus-ex machina reset button -- they play right into an overall meta-narrative.

There are places you can nitpick a few technical details (ex. the midi 'code' or the 'feeding on waste code' explanation of the ai organisms) but the fundamental concepts are sound, and very interesting. Check it out. From the beginning if possible, with digital cable showtime shows things a million times on one of the 6 or 7 channels.

It is a well-constructed show with a good pace to it. The cast is brilliant and their on-screen chemistry only adds to the brilliance of the show.

In particular, the characters of Kurt Mendel, played by Sebastian Roché and Chuck Taggart, played by Peter Weller of RoboCop fame, are the most prominent ones in the show.

Kurt is the comedian of the show and the way in which Sebastian has brought him to life on-screen has not been accomplished successfully for a long time.

Peter Weller does a terrific job as the astronaut, Taggart. The role of the astronaut has been played many times before but Weller manages to reinvent it.

The action is also first rate and the storyline is original. Odyssey 5 is also effective in holding the viewer in suspense until the next episode. This is one of the many elements of the show that will guarantee its success in the future.

Long may Odyssey 5 last.

This is probably one of the best written, and performed series' ever made for television. While the astronauts have plenty of opportunity to change history, and also the things that went wrong in their lives, things don't always work out like they hope it would; as you might imagine, it's a little tough to change what people don't know is going to happen without some questions being asked. The show also has brains, and while the concept of the earth blowing up seems completely outrageous, as the story progresses and the astronauts find out a little bit more about what's going on in the world, the suggestions given provide a disturbingly realistic way such an extreme catastrophe might actually happen. Odyssey 5 was Showtime's number 1 grossing television show when it was on the air, so it's a wonder why they canceled it (for no real apparent reason other than... it was canceled) without even letting them shoot a finale to an otherwise complete first season. The only thing I can come up with - and granted this IS just me, but it seems to make sense - is that around the year 2002, the religious right, and right-wing politicians became increasingly powerful in the United States. The show itself was both very left-wing in its politics, and many different religious views were presented without any comment as to which one was right. They even went so far as to have the leader of the group be an ex-Christian. Maybe this had something to do with its early demise.

This show is great! Everything from Peter Weller's piercing glares to Sebastian Roche's comical wit. I love this show, but you should do more on the twins, Kelsey and Bodanis (Mat Langford and Jon Langford), as they are really great characters, and I feel that if they were worked into the script more, that they could make the story alot more interesting. But the show is FUC*ING AWESOME!!! KEEP UP THE OUTSTANDING WORK "ODYSSEY 5"!!