If you were one of the apparently half-dozen people who subscribed to Showtime on your cable package in 2002, you were fortunate enough to witness two fine attempts at science fiction adventure programming, one connected to that Babylon 5 guy, the other connected to a future Star Trek guy. And you were unfortunate enough to see each of them end before its time, with many plot threads dangling and questions unanswered.

But, hey, if you're an SF fan, this is hardly a new experience (cough Crusade, Farscape cough).

Each of these programs contained both original concepts and very, very familiar elements. For Odyssey 5, future Enterprise producer Manny Coto tried to shoehorn in a lot of X-Files look-and-feel. This was, after all, still the era when X-Files was seen as the gold standard for making SF appealing to the mainstream audience. And JMS's Jeremiah owed a lot to post-apocalyptic works like The Stand and Larry Niven's Lucifer's Hammer, as well as to his own storytelling approach from B5 and Crusade. In other words, both of them were cool, but both had a derivative feel.

Odyssey 5

Buckaroo Banzai is back! But, this time, he (Peter Weller) is not a (deep breath) astrophysicist rock star stunt pilot racecar driver robocop secret agent porn star (okay, I made one of those up — he wasn't a secret agent) who hangs out with Jeff Goldblum, the Kurgan, and Perfect Tommy. This time, he's a gruff-talkin', hard-chargin' astronaut out to save the world from imminent destruction.

Or, rather, destruction in exactly five years, because he's already seen it happen, and then got sent back in time to prevent it.

. . . but can they save — themselves?

The pilot episode has Buckaroo (because who cares what they called him on this show, he's Buckaroo freakin' Banzai) and the rest of the regular cast aboard a space shuttle in orbit, when the world gets "blowed up real good" underneath them. Some kind of cosmic being rescues them and warns them that it was human meddling that caused the disaster. Or maybe it was some kind of alien influence. Or it was something called "Leviathan." Or — okay, my head hurts at this point. So we'll just agree that something blew up the world. Then the alien guy sends our intrepid cast five years back in time.

Yes, he is powerful enough to send people five years backward in time, but was not able to stop the menace in the first place.

Maybe he was just too confused about what it was that needed stopping. I certainly was, after watching the show. But let us continue.

The hook — and it's a great one — is that they have all the knowledge of their future selves, but are forced to try to fit into their own lives from years earlier. Watching Buckaroo's younger son (Christopher Gorham), a straight-laced astronaut, pretending to be his juvenile delinquent self while hanging out with his punk high school friends is particularly entertaining. And you can't beat Sebastian Roche (Longinus from Roar) as the wacky British scientist who can't resist trying to profit from his future knowledge (I mean, who wouldn't drop a bet on the Super Bowl if you'd already seen the field goal split the uprights with your own eyes?). He gets the chicks, too, baby. Oh, yeah.

The show ran into problems when, almost immediately, it got away from its simple formula and moved into "new conspiracy theory of the week" territory. The five former/soon to be crewmembers of the shuttle Odyssey (hence the name of the show) should have been focused laser-like on finding the menace that would destroy the world. Instead, they got pulled into all kinds of apparently unrelated situations involving pod people, vast computer viruses, and whatever else the writers could crib from old X-Files episodes.

In fact, in one episode, they actually met alien versions of Mulder and Scully.

No, wait, that was an episode of Crusade.

No, seriously. But that's another column.

In the end, the show probably would have failed even had it been of better quality. It's hard to imagine anything of this nature long surviving on Showtime. HBO never would have attempted it. So, kudos for Showtime for tantalizing us with Odyssey 5, but a great big raspberry to them for not making it better, and for pulling the plug on it so quickly.

Jeremiah

Ahh, yes. Cheyenne Mountain, 90210.

Some watched because it had Joe Straczynski's name on it. Some watched because it had Theo from The Cosby Show on it (and, inexplicably, a recurring character actually named "Theo," who was not played by Malcolm-Jamal Warner. Given that she was female, that could have been amusing). But, let's face it, most people tuned in to see Luke "Dylan on 90210" Perry drive a pickup truck through the wilderness of post-apocalyptic Colorado.

Okay, maybe not. But a few people did tune in. Enough to bring it back for a second season, eventually.

And by "eventually" I mean, "so much later that no one remembered what the heck it was and no one watched." Not even when they added Sean "Rudy/Samwise" Astin, who turned up to either lead Luke Perry to the Rocky Mountain of Doom or to play for the Air Force football team; I forget which.

There's not a lot to say about the show's plot. Years ago, a disease killed everyone in the world who was beyond puberty. Jeremiah (Perry) and Kurdy (Warner) travel around in the aforementioned pickup, trying to get by, looking for their next meal, and attempting to decipher JMS's labyrinthine plots.

Mostly, though, Perry gets beaten down by other survivors. I can only surmise that, for many viewers, this was the main drawing point for the show.

Imagine The Postman. Now imagine, instead of Kevin Costner with the mail, it's Dylan and Theo with, um, nothing. You can figure they weren't often welcomed by the locals, who'd never seen a single episode of 90210. (And just imagine if they had!)

With no Peach Pit to run to, things could get ugly quick, and often did.

This being a JMS show, a conspiracy subplot indicated the bad ol' government had created the plague and accidentally — or intentionally — set it loose. Then there was the recurring mysterious character who knew all about the protagonist and whispered enigmatic clues before disappearing. All we needed were a lizard guy from Wyoming arguing with a dude with funny hair from Utah, and we'd have been in very familiar territory.

Subplots came and went, small clues fell here and there, and JMS gave his usual indications that he had Something Big Planned. A second season was filmed. And then Showtime pulled the plug.

What a shock.

Where are they now?

Jeremiah has been on DVD for some time now, and I'm sure plenty of copies are still available.

To my knowledge, Odyssey 5 has never come to video — something many would regard as merciful. But there are rumors.

Luke Perry went on to much more important work, such as Dishdogz and Johnson County War. I was excited to see he had played Jack Anderson in Supernova, until I discovered that this was not the same Jack Anderson who wrote political columns in the Seventies, helping to expose Watergate. And I'd gotten my hopes up!

Malcolm-Jamal Warner will probably send me money if I refrain from listing his later work.

Sean Astin's fame exploded after his stint on Jeremiah, prompting the alien from Odyssey 5 to send him five years into the past, where he starred in The Lord of the Rings. So that whole back-in-time thing did work out for somebody.

Peter Weller appeared in the television remake of Poseidon Adventure, in which he piloted the ship, rescued the victims, played a set on the bandstand, defeated the Electroids, and captured Dr. Emilio Lizardo, all while developing a new theory of eighth-dimensional travel.

Manny Coto went on to produce Enterprise even as it was canceled around him, and Joe Straczynski divides his time between writing comic books and churning out never-to-be-produced scripts for a Babylon 5 feature film.

Ratings

Odyssey 5: 7/10

Jeremiah: 7/10