Although hailed as a major contribution to American telefantasy prior to its launch, Space: Above And Beyond - created by former X-Files producers Glen Morgan and James Wong - failed to be renewed after only one season.
Kathleen Toth visited the set in March at a time when the creative duo were awaiting news on its fate and spoke to them both and various cast members - including guest star Doug Hutchinson - shortly before the decision to cancel the show was officially announced..
Dreamwatch: Where did the idea come from, that you were doing this co-ed unit living together with no sexual tension?
Glen Morgan: When Peter Roth, the head of the studio, came to us and said, "The head of the network put together The Next Generation when she was at paramount, and she wants a space show." They wanted TOP GUN in Space, and we knew we hated that idea. We thought about what we would like to do, and we thought about a futuristic war thing. But at first we started out kind of doing Westerns, like John Ford movies, where they are really talking about the Depression; we could set this in our future and try to have kids look at the problems today in a different light. Well, to do this, we thought, we are going to have to have some things that they will want, we can't just set up a platoon; that's all the same. It seems that by then it would be all integrated anyway. We knew we were going to want to have a featured Asian character but decided to never bring up race, which is a way of saying, hopefully, that this is where we can go. It's not an issue. Then we created Tanks, or In-Ivtros, so a white person or an African-Amercian person could look at them and not have a whole bunch of baggage based on their own experience.
Do you are saying that putting the genders together would just never become an issue?
Well, in R&R, Wang and Damphousse find themselves in a situation where sort of out of nowhere there is an attraction. This sort of started in Dear Earth and we decided to just carry it over.
What has been the reaction to Vansen?
Nine out of ten or so are girls or mothers saying, "Oh, it's great that there is this character on TV for our daughters", or "Shane Vansen is our hero". Jim and I did get a letter from somebody - anonymous of course - from New Jersey, saying, "Dear Misters WOng and Morgan, the fact that your show has strong female characters indicates to me that you are obviously homosexuals".
I wondered because Vansen seems more confidently in charge just about any female character in combat situations, without attracting a lot of that 'she's too butch' type of comment.
I think there are three elements to it. Years ago, when Alan Aida or some man who wrote female characters that women liked, who said he doesn't worry about it being a woman. He just writes about it as a person, like being anohter guy. Then when a woman plays it it's not forced or anything. Second, when you talk to Kristen in an interview, she will say that she doesn't want to play a strong woman, it's a person with this backstory who is strong. I agree with that I respect that. Thirdly, Kristen is an actor who can have that tautness, but then later show her sexy side, or whatever.
Is her special relationship with Hawkes a type of brother/sister affection?
Yes, I noticed, going through the Internet one day, that someone said that Hawkes sees McQueen as his father and Shane as his mother. That feels right. Looking back, you kind of see that if it is a military or In-Vitro question he takes it to McQueen. When it is trying to understand why he feels sad or whatever, he takes that to Shane. I think that's the way we are going to play it.
Why did he get his hair cut? Did you listen to all the grumbling that
he sis not look military? First off, Randy Stone, who - no matter what you may ever hear - cast David and Gillian for The X-Files, went through the casting process with us, and I just so trusted hiim about the people that we saw. Kristen everyone liked immediately. We were in Australia and had read several hundred people before he brought Morgan in. Two days before I had to go to Australia I was on the telephone saying this guy is great. So, witht hat in minf, he brought Rodney in once to read. He said, "This guy is a GQ model, he's really new." He came in and read, and he was really nervous or something. We just went, "no he sucks". Randy said, "No, he's a star". He brought him back in with, unbeknownst to us, a fever of 103 qand we said, "This guy is drunk!". Out of respect to Randy we said we would take him to the networek, but we wanted this other guy. Then in the network meeting we both suddenly arrived at the conclusion, individually that yes, Rodney was a lot better.
Then Randy said, "Whatever you do, don't cut his hair". We heard all the grumbling about it. Along came Who Monitors The Birds? and we thought how cool it would be if we brought the camera in and he looked like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now. So we asked him, and he said he had been thinking about it too. I think he looks a lot cooler with it this way, but the network complained. They know how to promote [Beverly Hills] 90210 and Melrose Place: the more it was like something they were familiar with, the most they liked it.
Who Monitors The Birds was very unusual with so little dialogue, and clearly designed to showcase Rodney, is everyone else going to get their chance at a show like that?
That was at a time when we had gone through a couple of problem scripts. Jim and I did a bad job of overseeing Hostile Visit and Choice Or chance. We were not good supervisors on it and we felt bad. Having gone to film school and everything, we said, "Okay, we've got our own show, we could be cancelled at any time, we'll probably never have our own show again - I'd like to so one where you have no dialogue." and everybody said, "No way".
We had read a lot of things avout people saying they has this vision of the Whore of Death. Researching further, we found it was a common thing for men to connect sex and death. Men had seen visions of a kind of witch who was enticing them, and they knew if they went there it would be the end for them. In fact, the guy who played the other officer who went on the mission with Rodney and who was Oliver Stone's advisor [Dale Dye], went to Kristen when she was all in makeup and said, "I saw you when I was in Vietnam". We were disappointed that we had to have one scene with dialogue to explain what the mission was.
Later I was going through a laser disc bin after it aired and I came across DUEL. There was stuff across the back about how there was only 40 lines of dialogue in the film and I remembered I loved that film as a kid.
Doug Hutchinson is set for a third go round as Elroy; do all Elorys habve
the memories of all the other Elroys? Yes, that'S right. He wants to come back as a reformed Elroy, but I am horrified of a Hugh the Borg scenario. I am not too familiar with it, but that seems to like the big mistake among Next Generation fans.
Are we finally going to see an alien who is not just a puddle of goo?
In And If They Lay Us Down To Rest they go down to this planet on a recon mission that is basically Omaha Beach. This is where Operation Roundhammer is going to take place. They are testing the soil and checking for enemy activity. We are going to try to do a reversed point of view kind of thing where we just come across bits and pieces where you see this extra-terrestrial creature. From his point of view, a ship lands and these things get out, which are our Marines. Then we go back and forth between them as the Marines become aware of this creature, and they come to believe that it is the last of a species. And they go to tell it, basically, that this is where D-Day is taking place. (This is part of the horror of war, that you are hot supposed to think of these things). So they try to communicate, to tell it that this big battle is coming. As they are flying back in their ship, to where the troops are set to invade, this allien arrives in a ship, like Rudolph Hess, with a peace proposal. And when he comes in to a prepared room and can take the helmet off, it is indeed the creature they thought wasn't the enemy. So they have told the enemy where D-Day is going to be.
In Tell Our Moms We Did Our Best there is this tentative peace. We can't figure out if they really thing we can beat them, or if this is just to stall so they can swing their troops around.
Are we making progress towards understanding why the war has started?
Yeah, a little bit in [the last episode]. We always wanted to see the war from the point of view of the grunts. And grunts in Desert Storm were never going to see George Bush or COlin Powell. They are not going to be interacting with them, so we had an episode that sort of explained the state of the world - because people said they didn't understand how the world was set up - showing what the Secretary General was doing. We used an actress [Harriet Harris] because she was very good in The X-Files, in Eve.
But it seemed as thought here was a big conspiracy going on. We have not seen much revealed or explained about that, but seemed like an X-Files element going on in the background! But you are saying that it will bever be centrepiece of what you are doing?
It will come up, but I don't think it will affect our guys as much.
Anything you want to add in terms of people in Britain why they ought to watch?
James Wong: I think it is a good show. As it progresses, the actors and the characters really gel. I think what we have is an enjoyable adventure with heart. If they give it a chance i think they will enjoy it.
Glen Morgan: We were just talking the other day abvout how frustrated we are for the cast. They are all wonderful actors and their rate of growth within their characters in a single season is just the fastest and teh deepest we have been involved with. We like them all a lot. To see James Morrison and what he went through personally to come in and audition and get walk on parts, and you see what a terrific actor and a nice man he is, you just want them to get known and be able to do features. Kristen's agency called up and said, "We need another Kristen Cloke type".
That what we want for all of them. They are all good kids. And reaching over to Tucker, he nearly died in Vietnam. We get these kind of programming decisions and we think it's another battle for them. With a dark cloud of cancellation hanging over your head, I think about these guys not getting the exposure to the industry that they should. I think what TV is all about it wanting to watch people again and again. These people are worth spending an hour with every week.
Glen Morgan, James Wong, thank you very much.
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