Chigs Unmasked
By Kevin Stevens. Reprinted without permission, Sci-Fi Universe September 1996 issue. © L.F.P., Inc. 1996

Next to who killed Jessica Costello, revealing the Chigs on Space was the TV season's biggest ongoing mystery.

There was one thing everyone who watched Space: Above and Beyond wanted desperately to see: the alien bad guys. Co-creators Glen Morgan and James Wong deliberately drew out the suspense, waiting until the final episodes of the season to reveal the Chigs and their connection to the world they're fighting to exterminate.

"We probably stretched that out a little longer than we should have," Morgan admits a little sheepishly.

"Everyone wanted to see them so badly," says Wong, "and that's a function of our not showing them, I guess."

"We wanted to tell the show from the grunt's perspective," he explains, "and if you were just a typical grunt, you only knew the enemy as somebody to shoot at. That was our justification. It would be a different show if you could go into the aliens' headquarters and show what they were thinking and what they were planning."

Morgan again points to the '40s World War II movie paradigm. "Yeah, in Patton, maybe you see Rommel and what the Germans are doing, but with the Japanese, you really don't see them," he says. "In the '40s, Hollywood filmmakers really didn't get the Japanese, didn't understand them." Morgan wanted the Chigs to follow this pattern.

As a kind of compromise, though, the creators broadened their canvas. Through the recurring character of Commodore Ross, Morgan and Wong were able to show the larger scope of the war effort on Earth.

"Having Ross allowed us to expand the view for the audience, but not necessarily for the 58th," says Wong. "So you at last see what our side is planning in their master offensive against the aliens."

But as the season drew to a close, that offensive was launched, the aliens were revealed, storylines were wrapped up, and the characters had evolved in dramatic ways - but viewers wouldn't see any of it during the May sweeps ratings period as had been planned.

The war continues, regardless of how the battle got called on account of bad ratings.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations of Space: Above And Beyond are legal property of James Wong and Glen Morgan, Hard Eight Production and 20th Century Fox Television. No copyright infringement intended.
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