Return To Jupiter

YouTube, Return To Jupiter (1996) TV series, 13 episodes

After enjoying 'Escape From Jupiter' I was glad to know there was a sequel I could revisit to stay in that world, though I had hardly any memories of this one beyond some young Professor type riding a bicycle around a command centre in order to work something out at top speed, as well as the vague impression of things happening around a rocky cliff face. It turned out to be no wonder I didn't recall much from the series because it wasn't nearly as entertaining as its forebear. The big draw is that it continues the story of some of the characters who escaped from Jupiter, though it was slightly disappointing to find it was only three and a half of them: Gerard, Michael and Kumiko are the main ones, and we have Gerard's younger sister Anna along for about half the series. I wonder why they wrote her out, maybe she had other commitments, because there was no particular reason for losing her (she goes off to a medical facility to stay with their injured older sister Sam), replaced by the 'feral' Zac and her robot companion Quadro. Things have moved on, this coming out in 1996, so the children or teens are a couple of years older now and we're seeing them take their first steps into careers, with Gerard taking the lowest role aboard the Icarus, a new ship designed by Dr. Ghrobak, with a mission to take much-needed supplies to Ganymede, a moon of Jupiter.

I'd always thought they were going back to the same place they escaped from, perhaps to fix the base and start up that mission again, but the two series' aren't really connected aside from the returning characters and the general Jupiter direction. In fact I was thinking through much of it that it may as well have been called 'Return To Mars' for the amount of time they spent on and around the red planet! They had the same issues as the first series with finding things to do in space when it's really just supposed to be an uneventful journey, captained once again by an uptight adult, this time Commander Dent. As was the case with Duffy on the first mission, she's not fond of the children and the little escapades they go on, though there is less of this since they're older now, so it's left to a new character called Abe to cause the problems and misbehave. He takes Kingston's role - Kingston does get a couple of mentions, but Abe is even more extreme in his imaginings of worst case scenarios, and Anna didn't really fit with him so much, maybe another reason they brought on the obnoxious Zac to be his buddy. She's a bit of a tomboy from Mars, having run off from her colony with Quadro who's very much influenced by C-3PO in his polite pessimism, but does eventually turn into his own person and a fun character.

One issue with the series is that the adults aren't as well sketched out or as sympathetic. There's really only Dent and Ghrobak on the ship, and while they aren't bad(Dent comes to appreciate the youngsters before the end, as well as getting the chance to have a bit of a heart to heart with the promising Gerard, revealing some backstory about the loss of her first command), they aren't close like the children/parent situation previously. This time there are actual villains, a couple of thuggish scrap merchants on Mars that want to capture the Icarus to make themselves rich, but as fun as Selby and Glovic can sometimes be, they are very cartoonish, and the series, despite being a little more mature in the average age of the teens, feels more childish because of them. Selby's the moustache-twirling type, Glovic the violent heavy (nowadays I'm not sure they'd allow her torture of him - twisting his injured foot repeatedly!), and though there is some threat at first, by the time they're aboard Icarus towards the end of the series, and being kept out of a room by Abe and Zac throwing mouldy cake out the door, it's just a little ridiculous when much of the series is quite realistic. The realism is helped by the good work on space models, the CGI has really come on in the two years since the original, and it's fascinating to see more technology from this world. The station they launch from is called ES-2, in keeping with the designation of KL-5, the vehicle for their escape from Jupiter, so you can see some care has gone into keeping the terminology and setting part of the same world.

Technology continues to play a part, from pads that can x-ray a patient in real-time, to bracelets that allow you to pass through forcefields for good security, and even showers that clean both body and clothing at the same time in a blast of light, or can neatly fold garments. Even Sega get a credit again for providing some holographic computer games, though not as elaborate as the three-dimensional versions from before. So the credentials are all there, and that goes for the casting, too. It's great to see the old characters a bit older, and Abe isn't too annoying, but I was amazed to realise that David Wenham was a part of the series, years before he made his name as Faramir in 'The Lord of The Rings' - it took me a couple of episodes to work out who he was playing because the cast for every episode gave the whole series' list with only one word names. I assumed it was 'the' Wenham since it was an Australian series and he was from that part of the world, but it was still a surprise to realise he was the buck-toothed boffin, Dr. Ghrobak, the only new character I had any memory of from original viewing! So I was impressed by his performance, so vastly different from Faramir (that's acting, folks). He wasn't the only name from 'The Lord of The Rings' as Bruce Spence (The Mouth of Sauron, as well as roles in 'The Matrix' and 'Star Wars'), played the disembodied head of the 'Ed Unit,' a holographic, floating tutor that was Abe's nemesis in the first episode.

It's great fun spotting familiar names or faces, but apart from that I found the early episodes to be a touch dry. There isn't the danger and imminent destruction bubbling just under the surface thanks to the deep drilling that created a tension in the original series, and the sets of this brand-spanking new ship are a bit ugly compared with the 'Star Wars' approach of battered old technology they made do with before. Once the series gets going, with some good sequences on Mars and a bit of tension over the barely concealed contempt Glovic displays towards the crew, with Selby constantly having to smooth over her inability to control herself, it's better, but it still doesn't have the family atmosphere and camaraderie the group had originally. Once Dent has been impressed with them it's a bit more inspirational, but it then degenerates into running around dealing with the villains again and it ends merely functionally without the rush of good feeling 'Escape' concluded with, though the same formula of the minors solving the problems and the adults having to depend on them, is followed quite closely. It just didn't work quite as well this time. I was hoping for a big reunion where they met up with their parents, but maybe that was too much to expect for a children's TV series, and rounding up the old cast, two years after the original, just for a cameo, was too much to ask?

The series was simply a lot less memorable than its predecessor, though it still made me wish that there could be more within that universe - even now, more than twenty years later I think it would be terrific if they could round up those original actors and show them deep in their space careers. Call it 'Beyond Jupiter' or something. Space drama is still very much in demand, and the series' links to other sci-fi was quite apparent, whether it was the C-3PO influence, or the desert locales that recall 'Star Wars,' or the shiny technology of 'Star Trek.' One thing we still don't know about this world is whether there are aliens or not - Zac tells tall tales about them, but that turns out to be only a robot guardian programmed by the villains to keep out ferals, so we never find out if humans of this time are alone in space, or not. Given the realistic approach I would suggest that it's probably not the case, but that's what's so interesting about both series': we know so little about this world, unlike the big sci-fi franchises which had time to grow and explore over many years, this is just twenty-six episodes spread across two series which came out two years apart, so there are many questions.

The series is at its best when it's about the two boys' friendship, with a great cliffhanger following Michael going down to rescue Gerard from a brave, but rash course of action to save the ship, then we don't know what's happened to Michael, so that was the high point of the series, and they seemed like they were finally getting a handle on it, then it turns into a comedy runaround with Selby and Glovic. Would I recommend the series as I did the first one? I would have to say, on balance, I wouldn't, unless you're a child, because in some ways it's more adult in that the young characters are growing up, but also more juvenile in the choices it makes to prolong the drama, but if the first series has been enjoyed and you want more, then I would watch it, but with the caveat not to expect much. I'm just glad some kind person on YouTube saw to it to get this stuff up there as it's never been available and has always been one of those series I thought well of, even though I didn't remember the details, and like I said, if they'd made more I'd have been queuing up to watch that, too, so while it's pretty average, it is watchable and completes the set.

**