Name that series

[Reet]

There was this american scifi-ish series I saw just the first episode of when I was in Japan a while back, right? There were a couple astronauts off on a trip with the space shuttle, and while they were out there the earth pretty much exploded or imploded or whatever, leaving them as the only humans left alive... then they encountered some alien that sent them back in time to try to prevent it from happening. I was wondering... does anyone know what this series was called? Was figuring maybe I'd try to get a hold of more of it and see if it was any good...

[Xtrophic]

Sounds like Odyssey 5.

Quote from IMDB:

The astronaut crew of a space shuttle looks on in horror as they witness the violent destruction of the Earth. However, they are given a chance to change humanity's fate when a sympathetic alien sends them five years into the past. Their mission--find out who's responsible for the plot to destroy the planet. Can they deal with their own pasts while saving the world from the mysterious organism known only as "Leviathan?"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0318236/

[Boinky]

Not Planet of the Apes?

[Reet]

Thanks, X... yeah, that's the one. Cancelled after season 1, eh... oh well.

[Nexeus]

I don't remember this series at all, not even a bit, Reet, how good is it?

[Myz_Lilith]

It was pretty good... the big strength was the characters, each one sympathetic enough that you actually cared about them, and enough of a bastard that you quite liked them too... It kept quite a good balance between the sci-fi babble and the human story too, and picked the right elements of the human story to focus on - on the one hand, they have this five year deadline hanging over the heads at the end of which the Earth is going to go boom unless they do something NOW to fix it so history is asking them to be self-sacrificing heroes - but on the other hand they're back 5 years in time with a big chunk of future knowledge to play with that could make a massive difference in their own personal lives and, well... what would you do with that sort of power? What wouldn't you do? And it turns out that the things you can do may be more limiting than you think, and the things you know but can't do anything about may tear you to pieces. And it deals with the time paradox thing from the off in that they do change things, and the timeline does run differently... but there was also the underlying suggestion that their investigation and digging into conspiracies may be what casued the world to get destroyed, even though they knew nothing of it the first time round...

And then it got cancelled. Bastards.

Course, as Lykeios will rant given half a chance, having a plotline that states from the start that you've got a story arc of five years is a red rag to the bull of a TV exec with his itchy little finger on the "cancel" button...

[Reet]

Of course it got cancelled, just like, say, Firefly. Why have shows with interesting plotlines when you can have things like American Idol or Jackass ripoffs?