Just needed to add another review. One is not enough.
This little Gem was originally created for a new cable youth channel in Quebec called Canal Famille (which was turned into Vrak TV in 2001). It was written by Claude Legault who plays the naive but heroic Flavien. Later Legault would produce and star in the brilliant Minuit Le Soir and Les Trois Ptits Cochons.
To watch a couple of episodes is to become hooked. This little parody of American science fiction television from the sixties (Star Trek and Lost In Space in particular) hits all the marks, from the pompous captain to the hand made robot that keeps saving the day and then breaking down. Video taped in cheap studio sets with fairly low budget effects (but who cares, its a parody, right?) the series has a no- frills quality that somehow just makes its earnest-ness funnier.
The crew is Canadian (predominantly french-Canadian) and their ship is shaped like recycled tuna cans. In fact the Canadian-ness of the series is most of the fun. Americans would quite frankly be lost (unless they have lived in Quebec for a while).
Legault was smart enough to sprinkle all kinds of contemporary and less contemporary pop cultural references throughout the series. For instance when ever the crew goes on an away mission (using the telefax machine to copy themselves down to a planet) the captain would call out defensive formations "Lemaire-Shutt-Lafleur" based on forward hockey lines from the 1970s and 80s.
The whole purpose of the mission is to find a new habitable planet to re-locate the 10 billion "tatas" (idiots in Quebec slang) on earth after we've destroyed our ozone and layed waste to our rivers and lakes. A very Canadian mission, that. From week to week, the hapless crew either run away from planets where the native life forms are just too powerful for us to dominate or get evicted from various worlds who would not have us because of our barbaric nature.
The series was soon discovered by adults as well as teen-agers and the ratings were good enough (in re-runs, natch) that two movies came out of it.
