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About the Series:
Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers
by
Elizabeth
'Fatima' Bales
"In 2086, two peaceful aliens journeyed to Earth, seeking our help. In return, they gave us the plans for our first
hyperdrive, allowing mankind to open the doors to the stars.
We have assembled a team of unique individuals to protect Earth and our allies. Courageous pioneers committed to the highest ideals of justice and dedicated to preserving law and order across the new frontier.
These are the Adventures of the Galaxy
Rangers."
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Combining elements of Westerns, space opera, and even a touch of
sword and sorcery st-style fantasy,
"Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers" brought to television a unique and often
tongue-in-cheek spin on the space Western subgenre. Aired in 1986, the
half-hour cartoon lasted only one season. Its 65
episodes, which ran five
days a week, starred four unusual law enforcement officers (their slogan: "No guts, no glory") working to
bring law and order to the new frontier of space. Although the animation was done in Japan by Tokyo Movie Shinsa, "Galaxy Rangers" was one of the first anime-style shows to be created, scripted, storyboarded, voiced, and produced in the United
States.
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"Galaxy Rangers," produced and created by Robert Mandell, director of
F/X (1986) and the pilot episode of "The X-Files" (1993), offers a well-developed universe, strong characters, and stories that push the boundaries of children's programming.
The show follows the exploits of
Zachary
Foxx, a by-the-book cop with extensive bionics; Walter "Doc"
Hartford, a computer genius and hacker with a penchant for outmoded slang;
Niko, a mysterious psychic archaeologist who's also an expert in tae kwon do and a crack shot with her energy shotgun; and
Shane "Goose"
Gooseman, the shape-changing final
product of a government supersoldier program. Together these four Galaxy Rangers form the Series Five team, named for the experimental brain implants that enhance the rangers' special powers and abilities. As members of the law enforcement arm of the Bureau of Extraterrestrial Affairs (BETA), the Series Five rangers face situations
as diverse as environmental disasters
on low-tech planets,
outlaw incursions
on mining towns, and invasions of
one sort
or
another.
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Supporting characters include
Waldo Zeptic
of Andor and
Zozo of
Kirwin, the "two peaceful aliens" of the
introduction;
Princess Maya
of the tech-shunning world Tarkon; the rangers'
commanding officer, the gruff and forgiving
Joseph Walsh;
and the robotic ranger Buzzwang,
who holds the dubious distinction of being the
most disliked character on the entire show. |
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The Series Five team faces a number of enemies. Perhaps
chief among them is the
Queen of the Crown, the evil ruler of
a galaxy-spanning empire. To keep her empire from crumbling, the Queen has developed a technology based around psychocrystals that allows her to use the psychic essence of captive beings to create
slaver lords, ghostlike spies through which she can see and hear. In
the pilot episode, the Queen captures Zachary's wife
Eliza and uses her to create a slaver lord. Although the Series Five team rescues Eliza's body from the Queen's Psychocrypt, the Queen still holds Eliza's essence. Zachary's quest to rescue his wife forms one of the central threads of the series. |
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Other notable enemies include
Mogul, a four-armed sorcerer whose schemes frequently fail courtesy of his bumbling demon assistant
Larry;
Ryker
Killbane, an insane, embittered survivor of the Supertrooper Project that also produced Shane Gooseman; the outlaw
Black Hole Gang, led alternately by Macross, a swarthy alien, and red-haired Irish gunslinger
Daisy O'Mega; the
Scarecrow, a horrific being left over from wars of millennia past; and
Lazarus Slade, a "Southern gentleman" mad scientist bent on world domination. |
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