Odyssey 5 is a
CanadianCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
science fictionScience fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
series that first ran in 2002 on Showtime in the
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and on Space in Canada.
In the United States, the initial run of the series ran for 14 of the 20 episodes, leaving the six remaining episodes unaired for a period of roughly two years. (They aired in 2004 on Showtime as "missing" episodes, which ostensibly included the open-ended series finale.) The series made a full run of all 20 episodes in the
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on
Sky OneSky1 is the flagship BSkyB entertainment channel available in the United Kingdom and Ireland.The channel first launched on 26 April 1982 as Satellite Television, and is the fourth-oldest TV channel in the United Kingdom, behind BBC One , ITV and BBC Two...
and on
Sci Fi ChannelSyfy is a television channel service specialising in science fiction, fantasy and horror shows and movies. It is available via digital cable, IPTV, satellite television and Top Up TV platforms. The channel launched in 1995 in the UK a sister channel to the US Sci Fi Channel , with a similar...
and in
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
. In 2004, the series aired in
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on
NelonenNelonen is a Finnish commercial TV channel. It started out as Helsinki's local television channel PTV in 1989 on the HTV cable network, which name was changed first to PTV4 and then to Nelonen. It started on June 1, 1997. Nelonen, in Finnish, means the glyph of the number four. The channel is...
and thus could also be seen in
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, and in June 2004 it premiered in
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on
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. In 2005, it aired in the
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on
NET 5NET 5 is a commercial TV channel in the Netherlands owned by Sanoma and Talpa Holding . Other channels of the group in the Netherlands are SBS6 and Veronica.- History :...
after midnight. In addition,
Odyssey 5 is being or has been aired on
RTL KlubRTL Klub is a television station owned by RTL Group and broadcast in Hungary. It was one of Hungary's first commercial TV channels and was only two days after the main rival TV2 to begin broadcasting.-About RTL Klub:...
in
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, and premiered in
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on the
Sci Fi ChannelSci Fi Channel is an Australian subscription channel that airs science fiction, fantasy and related programs. It is available on Foxtel, Austar and Optus Television's subscription platforms. It is currently the only Sci Fi channel worldwide to keep the Saturn logo.-Shows:Sci Fi currently airs...
in December 2006 and on channel
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in
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in 2008.
Currently the series airs on Cadena 3 (channel 28) in Mexico, the
Sci Fi ChannelSyfy , formerly known as the Sci-Fi Channel and SCI FI, is an American cable television channel featuring science fiction, supernatural, fantasy, reality, paranormal, wrestling, and horror programming. Launched on September 24, 1992, it is part of the entertainment conglomerate NBCUniversal, a...
in the United States,
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in
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,
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in
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, tv 3 in
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, extreme tv in
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and
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in
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,
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and
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.
Odyssey 5 is the brainchild of
Manny CotoManny Coto is an American writer, director and producer of films and television programs.Coto was the executive producer and showrunner of Star Trek: Enterprise in its final season, and executive producer of four seasons of 24...
, who served as a script-writer and executive producer during the series run. Through his website and in interviews, Coto has expressed his interest in returning to the series at some point, either continuing it or giving it a conclusion.
The series was produced in
TorontoToronto is the provincial capital of Ontario and the largest city in Canada. It is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario. A relatively modern city, Toronto's history dates back to the late-18th century, when its land was first purchased by the British monarchy from...
,
OntarioOntario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
,
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
.
Plot
The story revolves around a set of people on a routine spaceflight of the space shuttle
Odyssey, on August 7, 2007: four astronauts, a scientist, and a television news reporter. However, during the course of the flight, the Earth rapidly dissolves into a fiery ball and suddenly implodes. Before regaining control of the
Odyssey, one astronaut is killed. The remaining five crew members resign themselves to death, but a non-organic being called the Seeker rescues them. Fifty other worlds have been destroyed in the same way as Earth, but the Seeker has always arrived too late to observe it or find survivors. However, this is the first time he has met survivors of such a tragedy. He offers to send them
back in timeTime travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
five years (and therefore to present day, at the time of the series), so that they can prevent the disaster. In a twist, their consciousnesses are sent back and not their physical bodies, as physical time travel is impossible. The mission commander knows only a codeword associated with the disastrous event: Leviathan.
The villains seem to be a race of artificial intelligence. These AIs are trying to learn about humanity through human-mimicking surrogates, called "
Synthetics-Sentients:The Sentients are an inorganic artificial form of life that feed on information and exist almost entirely in the Internet. They are unable to interact with the physical universe and must produce human appearing avatars known as Synthetics...
". In the course of their learning they apparently destroy the Earth. However, during the series, another group of Synthetics are discovered to be from
MarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
and that in the original timeline, all the Synthetics created by humanity are destroyed by a satellite designed for that purpose by a cabal within the US government. Whether this act of destruction is seen as a declaration of war by humanity's AIs or the
MartianAs an adjective, the term martian is used to describe anything pertaining to the planet Mars.However, a Martian is more usually a hypothetical or fictional native inhabitant of the planet Mars. Historically, life on Mars has often been hypothesized, although there is currently no solid evidence of...
Synthetics are to blame for the Earth's destruction is never resolved.
While they deal with the search for the truth, the team must also deal with being back in the past, with memories of what is to come. A running plot through the series is reporter Sarah Forbes trying to save her five-year old son, who died of
cancerCancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
. However, her efforts to get him experimental help end up with her husband leaving her, taking the boy with him. Astronaut Angela Perry must deal with her Senator father's corruption that would ultimately destroy her family. Commander Chuck Taggart must try to keep his family together, while his son Neil, a computer whiz who was also assigned to the
Odyssey, deals with being back in his seventeen-year-old body, when he was known as a screwup. The last member, pessimistic scientist Kurt Mendel, doubts they can change history at all and wants to live his life as much as he can before the end.
The series is very different from most science fiction because it is set in the present day – in a fashion similar to
Stargate SG-1Stargate SG-1 is a Canadian-American adventure and military science fiction television series and part of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's Stargate franchise. The show, created by Brad Wright and Jonathan Glassner, is based on the 1994 feature film Stargate by Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich...
and
SlidersSliders is an American science fiction television series. It was broadcast for five seasons, beginning in 1995 and ending in 2000. The series follows a group of travelers as they use a wormhole to "slide" between different parallel universes. The show was created by Robert K. Weiss and Tracy Tormé...
– and also because the team of five is not a group of friends who always get along; the humanity of the team is shown through arguments, jokes, and their attempts to maintain social lives and help the world with their limited knowledge of the future.
Many of the show's plotlines revolve around technologies like
AIArtificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
,
nanotechnologyNanotechnology is the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale. Generally, nanotechnology deals with developing materials, devices, or other structures possessing at least one dimension sized from 1 to 100 nanometres...
and
neuroimagingNeuroimaging includes the use of various techniques to either directly or indirectly image the structure, function/pharmacology of the brain...
.
A recurring theme is that the actions of the group may
hasten the timetable to Earth's destruction. A character who was supposed to live until 2007 ends up dead in the first episode after helping the group out. They learn that defeating history isn't as easy as it sounds; the interweaving threads adapt. In one episode, Sarah and Angela, knowing a girl will be kidnapped, keep an eye on her to make sure it doesn't happen. However, the kidnapper simply takes another child in her place. History in the show is malleable in smaller ways too, as Kurt makes a rather large bet on a football game to which he knows the outcome, but the knowledge and pressure of knowing has an adverse effect on the kicker who would have won the game, causing him to fail.
Cast
- Peter Weller
Peter Frederick Weller is an American film and stage actor, director and lecturer.He is best known for his roles as the title character in the first two RoboCop films and Buckaroo Banzai in the cult classic The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension...
— Chuck Taggart
- Sebastian Roché
- Early life :Roché was born in Paris, France, on August 4, 1964; he is of Scottish and French ancestry. He is also fluent in four languages: English, French, Spanish and Italian. On General Hospital, he spoke in Russian, Spanish and French, and on the pilot episode of Odyssey 5, he spoke in French...
— Kurt Mendel
- Christopher Gorham
Christopher David Gorham is an American actor.- Early life :Gorham was born in Fresno, California to David Gorham, a certified public accountant and Cathryn Gorham, a school nurse. He attended high school at Roosevelt School of the Arts and graduated from UCLA with a BA in Film & Theater Arts...
— Neil Taggart
- Leslie Silva
Leslie Silva is an American actress who is best known for her role in Odyssey 5 as Sarah Forbes. She was also a regular on the Providence as Dr. Helen Reynolds....
— Sarah Forbes
- Tamara Craig Thomas — Angela Perry
- Catherine Black
Catherine Black is a Canadian film, TV and stage actress. Black is best known for starring opposite Peter Weller in one episode of the science fiction Showtime series, Odyssey 5, playing Vanden, opposite Christian Bale, in the 2000 cult thriller classic, American Psycho directed by Mary Harron,...
— Young Paige
Episode list
(numbered as on the DVD)
- Pilot (1.5hrs, usually broadcast in two parts)
- Shatterer
- Astronaut Dreams
- Time Out of Mind
- Symbiosis
- The Choices We Make
- Rapture
- L.D.U. 7
- Flux
- Kitten
- Dark at the End of the Tunnel
- Trouble with Harry
- Skin
- Begotten
- Vanishing Point
- Follow the Leader
- Half-Life
- Rage
- Fossil
DVD release
The series was released as a Complete Box Set (Region 1) on April 2006, and in Region 2 territories on the 26th June 2006
http://www.play.com/DVD/DVD/4-/923167/Odyssey_5_The_Complete_Series/Product.html. As an extra feature, the DVD set has a commentary track on the pilot episode by Manny Coto and Peter Weller.
External links