Space Academy

Infobox Television
show_name = Space Academy


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genre =
creator = Allen Ducovny
director =
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presenter = Filmation
starring =
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composer = "Yvette Blais" and "Jeff Michael"
country = USA
language = English
num_seasons =
num_episodes = 15
list_episodes =
executive_producer = Norm Prescott
Lou Scheimer
producer = Arthur H. Nadel
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runtime = 30 min. (with commercials)
network = CBS
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first_aired = 1977
last_aired = 1979
preceded_by =
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related = Jason of Star Command
website =
imdb_id = 0075585
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"Space Academy" was a live-action sci-fi children's television program, produced by Filmation and airing on CBS television on Saturday mornings from 1977 to 1979. A total of fifteen half-hour episodes were made over two seasons.

Cast

The program starred veteran actor Jonathan Harris (best remembered as Dr. Smith from "Lost in Space") as Commander Isaac Gampu, the head of the academy. Among his costars (and academy students) were Pamelyn Ferdin, Ric Carrott, Maggie Cooper, Brian Tochi, Ty Henderson, and Eric Greene. The program also featured a pint-sized robot called Peepo (actually a radio-controlled machine, voiced by Erika Scheimer through a vocoder). A frequent element in stories was the use and display of telekinesis. Orders were acknowledged by saying "ORACO" ("Order [s] Received And Carried Out").

Plot

Much like the premise of "Star Trek"'s Starfleet Academy, the Space Academy (located on an asteroid, and occasionally shown on camera) brought together the best young minds, and those with special skills and abilities, to learn and prepare to experience the unknown, as Earth people continued to branch out into space during the 38th Century A.D.. Gampu's earlier space explorations had exposed him to conditions that immensely slowed his aging process; though appearing in his sixties or seventies, his true age was well over 300 years old, giving him a unique perspective on history, and some ideal qualifications as a teacher.

Each of the students had their own unique aspects: Ferdin's character Laura (and her TV brother Chris, played by Carrott) had highly-developed telekinetic and psychic powers. Greene's character Loki (an orphaned alien, discovered in the first episode) was a playful young prankster (hence his adopted name) who could teleport and see in infrared, and who often used the catchphrase "Camelopardus!". Tochi's Tee Gar had super-strength and continued the martial arts traditions of his Asian ancestors, augmenting them with newer disciplines, some originating in space. Henderson's character, the highly intelligent Paul Jerome, was described as coming from an Earth colony; although Jerome appears as a Space Academy crewmember in the first episode with Loki just joining the Academy, Jerome is reintroduced as if he were a new character in the second episode with Loki already an "established" member, an apparent continuity error acknowledged in the program notes of the show's DVD release. (However, the error can be reconciled. None of the characters introduced to Paul in the second episode had actually met him in the first. In the first episode he only appeared in the control room, while the others were away on a mission.)

As with much 1970s children's television fare, lessons and morals were taught in each episode, including the ideas that even super powers, as possessed by some academy students, weren't a cure-all for problems or a substitute for logic, reasoning and compassion, and that even the old and wise could still make occasional mistakes. As the students encountered members of extraterrestrial races, and even mutated descendants of Earth colonists in space, they developed their own wisdom and understanding.

The common spaceships in the series were called Seekers, and were used much like a spacebound van or passenger truck. (The Seeker's nose was a re-used prop from an earlier Filmation series, "Ark II".)

pin-off

A spin-off came in 1979, titled "Jason of Star Command" and starring Craig Littler and James Doohan. While the same sets and locations were used, and it was explained that Star Command was a special section of the Space Academy, almost no crossovers occurred between the two shows.

BCI Eclipse released "Space Academy: The Complete Series" on January 16 2007; included on the DVD besides the actual episodes are all the scripts and the original writers' guide (or "series bible"). The episodes are presented in order of original airdate.

Taglines

*"Study hard. Meet aliens. Take tests. Fly starships...Class was never this much fun at YOUR school."
*"Enroll now for the coolest military school in the cosmos...Where the students major in adventure!"

Episode List

1. "The Survivors of Zalon"
*"A field trip discovers Loki, an alien refugee whose parents are dead."2. "Castaways in Time and Space"

3. "Hide and Seek"

4. "Countdown"

5. "There's No Place Like Home"

6. "The Rocks of Janus"

7. "Monkey Business"
*"Adrian has limited success with her latest project: telepathic communication with a chimpanzee."

8. "The Phantom Planet"

9. "Planet of Fire"

10. "Life Begins at 300"

11. "The Cheat"

12. "My Favorite Marcia"
*"An old flame of Gampu's visits the Academy."

13. "Space Hooky"

14. "Star Legend"

15. "Jonny Sunseed"
*"Gampu's anti-technological half-brother comes, to inspect (and possibly condemn) the Academy's space-farming program."

External links

*imdb title|id=0075585|title=Space Academy