Spiral Zone

I was pleasantly surprised to find that J. Michael Straczynski was involved with the writing on this show. When I first watched it some 10+ years ago, I wasn't impressed with the obviously 'toy oriented' hardware the various heroes and villains used, but rather with the potential depth shown with the characters. IE the character Tank had evacuated the Zone in the initial attack, and ended up leaving his loved ones behind (His daughter, maybe a wife, too). This tortured him and was especially touching in one ep when he attached himself to a young girl that was seemingly immune to the Zone. Another where one character froze up during combat and was assigned to the rear, humiliating him into becoming a trustworthy soldier again. These came to a somewhat 'stunted' ending, it being a 'kids' show and all, but that's what I mean when I say it was as well developed as the demands of the late 80's allowed.

I don't think it was ever repeated since it's initial showing and I know that I didn't see ALL the eps that were made (No idea why, the local channel only showed 20-30 out of the 60 ep run). Knowing JMS (Babylon 5, Murder She Wrote, The New Twilight Zone) as I do, I am sure that they wouldn't have disappointed me. Perhaps they even would have filled in some of the blank spots in the characterization. After all, JMS has a reputation of forcing genuine quality down the throats of executive types that only care about selling a related toy line. Just look at "The Real Ghostbusters" that JMS edited for, and "Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future" that has a strong cult following. Both, like Spiral Zone, had genuine character development, as opposed to simply having a background story. This series is not his best, but it definitely puts He-Man and Brave Starr to shame. (Not that it was hard to do for those series).