Date of airing: October 8, 1995 (FOX)
Nielsen ratings information: 9.4 million viewers, 6.1/11 in Households
written by: Glen Morgan, James Wong
directed by: Charles Martin Smith
That was a pretty good episode. Even when the show happened to be filled with sci-fi-heavy narratives, the writers still found the opportunity to focus on the characters, and make them suffer for their backstory, or their individual actions and decisions within the episode. I absolutely loved that the episode focused on Shane Vansen, and there is a great chance she will turn out to be my all-time favorite character of the series (and not just because she is the only female main character on the show who is currently allowed to have a backstory), and I liked that the episode went into a darker direction of events, even going as far as putting revenge into Shane’s character arc.
I am almost sure that Shane will not be the person who hunts down the Silicates to kill them all, even if she had all the reasons in the universe to do so, but the writers gave Shane a fate and a future that she will probably ascend into, because it not only needs a person who hunts down the Silicates and eradicates them for good. Just in case Shane does not make it as part of the 58th squadron, or gets lost on the way to the Chigs’ defeat, and gets bored waiting for rescue. It would also be a good-enough story for an additional episode: turning into a bounty hunter, chasing dozens of Silicates through the galaxy.
 |
| This artificial intelligence has a problem with humankind. |
The action-oriented events on the mining asteroid were quite nice. I loved the dark
thriller aspect of it (except for the literally dark scenes, those could have deserved a bit more lighting), though I wondered why the Silicates were not
attacking the impromptu base of the 58th squadron, who have already been
decimated due to a couple of redshirt killings during the first assault. The
Silicates knew that backup would be arriving soon, and that they would
be outnumbered and most likely losing this fight. They also needed the transporter to get off the asteroid,
but they were waiting like they did not know what to do now when they clearly had the goal to save themselves. No wonder the
Silicates lost to Shane's one-woman show at the end, since they never even took the
chance for a second all-out assault on the squadron. But I guess they
were just taking a chance, and taking chances sometimes means losing.
The Black Jack game with Cooper was somewhat interesting, although it was also a little bit dumb. I would take a hazarded guess and say that the Silicates were not programmed correctly, or their software was starting to become faulty, because taking a chance on a game of Black Jack seemed very random. I would have loved to see Cooper win, just so the Silicates had to let the soldiers go, and then they could have decided to take the chance and go for battle, since that would have spoken to their survival instinct (if they even had one) instead of the "take a chance" mantra they were living by. Because if constantly taking chances leads to losses and death for the Silicates, then why should they continue taking chances in the first place?
But I can understand why the Black Jack scene needed to happen.
Shane was busy interrogating the other Silicate, she needed the answers she was
looking for, and she needed the time to do so. The way Shane got ready for
the assault was cool, however. Roping down a shaft made this episode look like Shane was Black Widow in CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, although I was just slightly disappointed that the rope-down was not followed up by a worthwhile close-combat action sequence, in which Kristen Cloke could have shown the world how she kicks butt. But yeah, Shane looked cool and exciting throughout the entire conflict, especially when she was just standing there after decimating all the Silicates, ready to be thanked by the remainder of her squadron for saving their lives. In the end, Shane had all the rage and anger she needed to get rid of, but the episode did almost all of that off-screen – that is one way to make an episode for cheap, but it would also have been a good way to show off the action talents of the cast and crew, and in that regard, SPACE: ABOVE AND BEYOND failed.
 |
| Shane has a lot of stuff to go through – good thing she can release all that anger on hostile aliens. |
The rest of the episode was okay. I wondered how the soldiers were
able to survive on the mining asteroid, waiting for the convoy, after
Shane blew it up with the remaining Silicates on board, considering
their O2 was pretty low already. I also wondered why it was not possible
for the team to have been split in two – one team on the ground doing
the assault, one backup team somewhere circling the asteroid,
just in case. But I guess I am not a soldier, so I should not ask too many
questions, eh? Realistically speaking, the 58th squadron did a crap job defending this mining outpost, and they were lucky to come out of there with only a few casualties.
