Created By:  Lloyd Eldred and Patrick Foley

Starring:  TELF, Michael O'Brien, Kim Swartz, Chris Impink, David Goshorn, Deirdre Root, Amy Sheets, Chris Lauricella, Patrick Foley, and Lloyd Eldred.

Production:  Galtham Films, a Lloyd B. Eldred Production

Web Site:  http://www.universe.digex.net/~galtham/srtse.html  (information on the film and on how to order it for FREE! (you need to send a tape and return postage for the "free" tape, or you can just send 5 bucks for a tape and special box, a bargain!))

Here's how the Space Rogues T.S.E. box describes the series:

"Following the collapse of the Earth's Biosphere, in the mid 22nd Century, mankind scattered throughout the galaxy in slow moving colony ships.  One such expedition was organized by the Tomorrow Space Enterprises corporation.  Upon arrival in the Paradisio system, the expedition acted with single minded devotion to its sole goal:  developing the technologies to reunite humanity's scattered tribes.  It is now 2508 and the time of those breakthroughs is now at hand.

The T.S.E. Mirage is chosen as the first manned test vehicle for the revolutionary Inversion Star Drive.  But, when the drive malfunctions, Captain Janet Vanderdecken and her crew mysteriously disappear.

System Director Murrow is forced to put his plans on hold while he dispatches Captain Wyst and the new gunship prototype Superion to locate and recover the Mirage, one way or the other."
 
First off, any of you who haven't read the review of the first episode of Space Rogues (and we know who you are), go check it out.  This review's going to be short because, well, not much happens in episode 2 (cheekily titled "Wherever we go...", part of a joke from Buckaroo Bonzai, wow).  That's not quite true.  Stuff happens, but it's just a bunch of boring stuff that leads to some boring action which invariably leads to a good deal of boring sarcasm.  All right, it's not all that bad, it's just that it kind of drags upon second viewing.

There's some good stuff here, though.  There's the six-inch high hologram of a girl which appears on the evil Director Murrow's desk.  The effect is pretty nifty, but you can't really see her too well.  Our feeling is that this wasn't so much a fault with the effects as the effect of her not wanting to be in the series too much.  Just a thought.  There's also the introduction of a new ship which is going to hunt after our lovable band of rogues, the Superion.  It comes complete with a nifty bridge (they go with a curtains motif instead of the wood paneling we've grown to love on the Mirage), a new and truthfully less disinteresting crew (the captain adds an interesting amount of gravity, sort of), and some more Video Toaster Amiga effects of a pretty nice docking procedure.

Unfortunately, this episode's not that great and is chock full of some bad stuff.  There's the guy with the fake Britishy accent, the evil boss-type with the Post-It notes from the future who looks like he's clearly reading his lines from a computer monitor, there's a space battle which isn't so great, and there's a level of sarcasm so great, Dennis Miller would be proud.  Actually, he wouldn't, because it just ain't so great.  The whole Space Rogues crew just tries to infuse every spare life-sucking moment of boredom with a jocularity unheard of since the golden age of vaudeville.  Much like vaudeville, though, most of it just isn't funny.  Still, I must say that after seeing episode 3, things get a lot better.

Things to watch for:
-The Lost In Space/Star Trek Voyager/Lost In Space Movie "the computer can't match the stars where they are with anything in their databanks" type thing
-The captain's obvious... how do we put this delicately?... obvious "pleasure" at the thought of "warming up the weapons"- it's a little strange and one can't stop put making some sort of "she's got to have it!" joke- that Telf is some kind of vixen, we figure
-All the "special options" that both ships have

That's about it.  The guys and gals at Galtham films seem really cool from e-mail and stuff, and like I said, the series gets a little better with episode 3.  They seem really committed to the whole project (they even built a nifty new bridge set which looks much less like a den than the old one- you can see it on their web page).  I just hope you all survived this review long enough to want to read another one.  It's can only get better, my web friends!
 
Next Time:  Episode 3! This time, with an actual discussion of what happens in the episode!  Fun!