If you've ever wondered how television shows end up on the air, one usual route is rather unusual.
The network is looking for something. They ask someone to produce it. What gets produced isn't necessarily what the network asked for, but the programmers may end up liking it anyway.Case in point - Fox's new "Space: Above and Beyond."
The programmers at the Fox Broadcasting Co. were looking for some sort of action/sci-fi show. They mentioned this to their counterparts at Fox's TV production arm, Twentieth Television. And they, in turn, went to Glen Morgan and James Wong, who were working as co-executive producers of "The X-Files."
"Twentieth had come to us and said, `Someone at the network would like Captain Kirk at the Academy.' And we thought, `Well, the `Star Trek' people won't like us doing that,' " Morgan said.
"So they said, `Well, do `Top Gun' in space.' So we go, `OK.'
"And then we go, `Wow, we didn't really like that movie too much.' . . . Then you walk off and say, `Well, what would be good?' "
So Morgan and Wong struck out on their own, gaining inspiration - believe it or not - from things like "All Quiet on the Western Front," "Red Badge of Courage" and "Catch-22."
"And I said, `Well, that sounds like what we want to do,' " Morgan said. "And we've gone through the development process and worked it out."
What they've come up with in "Space: Above and Beyond" is "kind of a World War II movie in space," according to Morgan.
"I think we have a show that is really exciting because we're doing a war show," Wong said. "We're putting our characters in the crucible of life and death, fear, courage and all those things that drive drama to great heights."
When "Space" opens (the two-hour premiere is Sunday at 6 p.m. on Ch. 13), it's the year 2063. It's a time of peace and prosperity. Convinced that they are alone in the galaxy, humans have begun colonizing other planets.
But, as it turns out, they are not alone. The first indication of that comes when a mysterious alien race begins attacking Earth colonies and killing the colonists.
And the enemy is massing for an attack on Earth itself.
There is still a bit of that Captain Kirk at the Academy feel, however. The main characters in "Space" are a group of young men and women - very green Marine Corps fighter pilots - who are suddenly thrown into a war for which they're not really prepared.
The premiere deals with several of their back stories. Nathan West (Morgan Weisser) has trained to be a colonist on an expedition to a new planet. But at the last minute, political pressure costs him his spot on the team - and separates him from his girlfriend.
He loses that spot to an "In Vitro" - a race of humans derisively called "Tanks" - who were bred to fight in wars but are not fighting prejudice.
And another of the new pilots, Cooper Hawkes (Rodney Rowland) is a Tank unjustly sentenced to serve in the military.
Still another pilot, Shane Vansen (Kristen Cloke) is a young woman whose military parents were killed by "artificial intelligences" in another war when she was a child.
"Every show should be (about) what's worth dying for or what's the point - what are the people after. . . . I think sometimes we'll probably be clunky and embarrassing, but I think it's a worthwhile thing to explore," Morgan said. "
In the premiere, some of the drama does go over the top into melodrama. And some of it is definitely clunky.
"It's not a flat-out intellectual piece. It's very emotional," Morgan said. "There's sweat, there's blood, there's battle."
There's definitely plenty of action, including the climactic space battle that's perhaps the best the genre has ever produced for TV. The special effects are fabulous, if somewhat reminiscent of "Battlestar Galactica."
(All that action translates into considerable TV violence, which parents of young children will want to consider.)
But despite some failings, "Space" shows promise of becoming one of the better non-"Star Trek" sci-fi series. There is actually a story here - and not one that's either overwhelmed by the special effects or designed solely to serve the technology.
ON A JAG: The two-hour premiere of "JAG" (Saturday, 7 p.m., NBC/Ch. 5) almost looks like a theatrical movie.
As a matter of fact, parts of it were parts of several theatrical movies, including "Top Gun," "Flight of the Intruder" and "The Final Countdown."
But creator/executive producer Donald Bellisario ("Magnum, P.I.," "Quantum Leap") has taken his show about a Navy lawyer, blended that movie footage and turned in a highly entertaining two-hour TV movie - one that bodes well for the future of the show as an hourlong weekly series.
"JAG" - which stand for Judge Advocate General - follows the adventures of the extremely good-looking young Lt. Harmon Rabb (David James Elliott). In the premiere, he's assigned to investigate the murder of a female pilot aboard a U.S. aircraft carrier.
The story includes plenty of flight footage, a couple of battle scenes, and an intriguing mystery. As a matter of fact, it's so good that the question facing Bellisario is whether he can keep up the quality subsequent episodes.
"I'm sure going to try to make it as big and feature-looking as that every week," he said.
And he'll be using other theatrical footage. One upcoming episode not only uses scenes from "The Hunt for Red October" but will be partially filmed on the set of "Crimson Tide."
Bellisario has already proven some his critics wrong. He said that NBC executives, after reading the pilot script, told him "It can't be done, not on a TV-pilot budget."
"Well, we did it on a TV-pilot budget, And now we're going to do it every week," Bellisario said.
He said it's "amazing" the footage that's out there for sale.
"I don't think anybody's done this in TV before. I don't think they've gone through feature films or sets that exist and look for that high-action sequence and said, `What can we take from this and put it into a television show so that in one hour, it looks like a feature?' " Bellisario said. "It takes some digging to find what's out there. And they, you can't just say, `Oh, we got this great stunt, let's put it into the show. It has to fit in the show you're writing."
Not that he's producing "JAG" cheaply, by any means. He put the cost of an hour at $1.7 million, a figure that's he's trying to bring down to $1.5 million. Fortunately, he's already sold the show in Europe, which helps with those production costs.
And "JAG" is not all special effects by any means. Elliott is extremely appealing in the lead role, and - if the pilot is any indication - the writing is above average.
While the main character is a lawyer, the show will deal more with the investigation of crimes.
"There will be very little courtroom work. This isn't `L.A. Law,' " Bellisario said.
Nor is it just a reworking of "Magnum."
"This show is not going to be just another way to do a detective show," Bellisario said. "It has a military overlay - that means a military kind of mindset and thinking and feel about the show."