Space Cases

Fandom
Name:	Space Cases
Abbreviation(s):
Creator:	Peter David and Bill Mumy
Date(s):	1996-1997
Medium:	tv
Country of Origin:	USA
External Links:	wikipedia, IMDB
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Space Cases was a science fiction series that ran for two seasons on Nickelodeon.

One of the characters was named after Harlan Ellison.

Peter David Talks About "Space Cases" Pilot

Originally published June 2, 1995, in Comics Buyer’s Guide #1124, it was posted at Space Cases, part 1 in 2011.

An excerpt:

In conjunction with another client of Deitz’s, my sometime collaborator Bill Mumy (of Lost in Space and Babylon 5 fame), we developed a series entitled Space Cases. (Space Case, singular, was my original title for my Star Trek novel A Rock and a Hard Place. Paramount thought it sounded a bit too juvenile. So what better place?)

What Nickelodeon was really looking for was a show about kids at a space academy. But I shuddered at the notion of a weekly show about an entire class of Wesley Crushers. There’s a notion spawned in hell for you. So we went in a related but totally different direction that would still be simple and kid-oriented:

A group of misfit, goofball, remedial students at the “Starcademy” sneak aboard a mysterious ship that has appeared in orbit around their space-floating school. Upon discovering the kids are missing, their teacher (a burned-out fleet captain who is himself a screw-up, demoted in rank, and assigned to teaching remedial students so that he can “re-learn” the basics himself) and the assistant principal (Miss Jean Brody, without the warmth) go after them. Through a series of mishaps, the ship gets activated, hurtles away from the Starcademy, and then falls through a spatial rift that deposits them at the far end of the galaxy. The rest of the series would be about their adventures getting home. To put it on Hollywood terms, it’s kind of No Exit meets Summer School.

Fan Reaction

One of the best things to come out of Space Cases for me (besides an impressive amount of VHS tapes still sitting in my parents’ video collection) is that it led me to alt.tv.space-cases and my first exposure to fans beyond my own circle of friends. I read the newsgroup, posted occasionally, I got the zines, I wrote some terrible Mary Sue fanfic - all of my babysteps into being a part of a fan community were with Space Cases.

Fanfic

In January of 1999, niviene posted an announcement to alt.tv.space-cases that he/she was starting a badfic site which would mock Space Cases, X-Files and Dawson’s Creek.

Fanzines

• Gizbot Follies