Dark Skies first aired on September 21st, 1996, till May 31st, 1997. It contained 20 hours of TV, 18 episodes and a two-hour pilot. Which of course is only 90 minutes, just as the episodes are approximately are 45 minutes. Of course this show happened because of the success of The X-Files. SCI-FI suddenly seemed a success on TV and therefore NBC ordered Dark Skies, which should be a competitor for The X-Files.

I thought this show has had a tremendous potential, at the time I had the idea it perhaps even could be more successful than The X-Files. Of course this didn't happen and unfortunately it was cancelled after only one season, like most SCI-FI. For The X-Files was the tagline "The Truth is Out There", for Dark Skies it was "History as we know it is a lie.". In the lead Eric Close who went on to become a very busy actor, my god at one point he seemed to in everything. Megan Ward was his Scully and there also strong performaces from J.T Walsh, Tim Kelleher and Connor O'Farrell. In midseason another actress was cast, Jeri Ryan, yes indeed, who later became Seven of Nine in Star Trek: Voyager, who had a (recurring) role as Juliett Stewart. In fact, from episode 12, she's there every episode.

As said the show got cancelled early on and because it was cancelled before the last episode, they were able to give the show some form of closure. The creators had hoped to create 5 seasons, as is indicated by the shows' bible. (WIKI:) According to Zabel and Friedman's original plan, the pilot and first season (given the overall title "Official Denial") would cover the period from 1961 to 1969, the second season ("Progenitor") 1970 to 1976, the third season ("Cloak of Fear") 1977 to 1986, the fourth season ("New World Order") would cover 1987 to 1999, and the fifth and final season ("Stroke of Midnight") would break from the decade-spanning format to encompass the apocalyptic final conflict against the invaders, taking place from 2000 to 2001.

This sounds pretty interesting, would have loved 5 seasons of Dark Skies, but as we all know this often happens with TV shows, let alone SCI-FI shows. It has been released on DVD in North America and Europe, not sure if this has also been released in Australia. I have the UK version, which unfortunately does not have English subtitles. And with this show, it would have come in handy to have English subs when your native tongue isn't English. On Rotten Tomatoes Dark Skies currently has a 60% Critics rating.

Juliet