Replacing Who on Fridays: Odyssey 5

Now that season 3 of Doctor Who has been completed, the 8 o'clock slot on Sci Fi's Friday night schedule is being taken by the underappreciated sci fi drama Odysssey 5, which aired a single season on Showtime from 2002 to 2003.

The premise in a nutshell: a routine space shuttle mission takes off with three astronauts, a reporter, and a scientist aboard, only to witness from orbit the fiery destruction of Earth. On the brink of death this crew of strangers encounters an alien, the Seeker, who tells them about the creature who destroyed Earth and fifty other worlds. The Seeker sends their consciousnesses back in time 5 years to try to prevent the catastrophe, struggling against the complexity and momentum of the flow of events.

I'll admit upfront that I never saw this series when it originally aired. But a big Jake 2.0 fan like myself certainly couldn't pass up a show that co-stars Christopher Gorham, and the other names associated with Odyssey are also intriguing. Aside from Gorham the show stars Peter Weller (forever to be remembered as both Robocop and Buckaroo Banzai), Sebastian Roché (Tygath in Earthsea), Leslie Silva, and Tamara Craig Thomas.

The show's creator, Manny Coto, was later the driving force behind the relatively strong third season of Enterprise, leveraging there with the Xindi War the idea of the isolated crew facing vast enemies that he first explored in Odyssey 5. (Coto went on to help executive produce 24.)

The unusual approach to time travel is one of the refreshing aspects of the series's premise. "We're not dealing with a time paradox here," Coto explained in an interview with Science Fiction Weekly. "They're allowed to change history, but they ... actually have future memories. So our heroes remember the way things originally happened, and now they're happening completely differently. These people are changing history as they go along. This is not a show [where] you can't change history. This is a show about changing history. Basically they're creating a whole new alternate future as the series goes. Part of the fun of it is actually as the days progress, as they get more involved in uncovering what it was that destroyed the world, events could accelerate."

Showtime canceled Odyssey 5 without airing the entire season (the balance surfaced later as "missing" episodes), even though it was one of the network's most-watched original series; but this week it's back in prime-time, and a whole new set of viewers will get a chance to see Coto's firstborn child.

Odyssey 5 is also out on DVD (compare prices).