Well, if nothing else, you have to admire the nerve of the CBS schedulers.
The same week that Paramount's "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" is premiering in syndication across the country, CBS debuts "Space Rangers."The CBS entry does not fare well in comparison.
As a matter of fact, "Space Rangers" wouldn't fare well even if there were no "Star Trek" series to compare it to - it's a crummy little cops-and-robbers show under the veneer of science fiction.
"Space Rangers" is a shoot'em-up show set in the 22nd century in which the good guys battle drug dealers and budget cuts. But judging from tonight's pilot (7 p.m., Ch. 5), the money they saved on special effects (which are extraordinarily weak) wasn't spent on the script.
Tonight's plot looks like something that already been recycled countless times on network police shows.
And the let's-replace-the-Rangers-with-Androids subplot is also something that's been reworked time and again since television began.
The premise for "Space Rangers" is that a motley crew of good guys, based on Fort Hope on the planet Avalon, try to police their section of the galaxy.
They're commanded by the studly John Boon (Jeff Kaake), who may or may not be an actual actor - it's hard to tell.
His crew includes a beautiful but macho female warrior (Marjorie Monahgan); a weird, mystic alien (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa); a dumpy maintenance man (Jack McGee) who, after frequent rebuildings, is largely mechanical; and a gung-ho youngster (Danny Quinn).
About the only face you'll recognize is Linda Hunt, who won an Oscar for "The Year of Living Dangerously" and who looks faintly embarrassed to be in this show.
The dialogue is stilted and cliched. The action is predicatable. The humor is lame.
But the biggest shock may still be those special effects, many of which look like something out of the original "Star Trek" series.
It's hard to believe the producers and the network thought they could get away with making a science fiction series that looks this cheap at a time when sophisticated, state-of-the-art effects abound on the new "Star Trek" series.
Perhaps they still haven't realized that viewers watch shows that aren't on the networks.
But, on the other hand, the crummy effects go nicely with the other crummy aspects of "Space Rangers."