Today kids, Uncle Jackson tells the tale of yesteryear scifi: Jason of Star Command. This Buck Rogers-for-kids live-action show is so bad, so howlingly hilariously bad, that you’ll never complain about Marvel or Star Wars again. Take a look, and then let’s discuss:
For all it’s faults, there’s one thing that blows you away about Jason of Star Command – the casting. You’ve got James ‘Scottie from Star Trek’ Doohan, Sid ‘THX-1138 / Star Trek / Dukes of Hazzard / Quentin Tarantino projects’ Haig? Dude, sign me up! Other than that, the cringeworthy dialogue and straight-from-the-back-of-a-cereal-box characters tell us that the real story of Jason of Star Command was some cigar-chewing studio exec going “Kids love Star Wars – make us a space show!” and their production team pulling all-nighters to create a storyline that didn’t completely suck.
But it does suck. Jason of Star Command is awful and here’s why we love it anyway. Like any other science fiction project, it’s not so much about the power, but the potential. People know that scifi is capable of amazing, gripping storytelling now in 2022. We had to get there, we had to try and fail, and try again. Think about the growth of character development, story, and dialogue that’s taken place between 1978 and now. None of that would be possible without watching people try and fail on projects like Jason of Star Command. This show makes you scream “This could be so much better!” and then a little voice in the back of your head goes: “Okay, prove it.” Thus the genesis of many great scifi projects.
