The new Earth 2 thread has referenced this show repeatedly -- particularly with regard to the character Shane Vansen -- so I thought I'd create a new thread. :)

The show was on Fox and lasted just one season (1995-96). It ended with a whopping huge cliffhanger: one character definitely dead (Wang), two characters probably dead (Shane, Vanessa), one character alive but out of action (the Colonel), two characters alive but unsure of what to do next (Nathan, Hawkes), and the war with the aliens still raging.

So what happened next?

Other questions:

Did anyone ever care about Nathan's girlfriend? I was much happier with her lost in space.

Were Shane and the Colonel ever going to get it on?

Did Hawkes ever meet up again with Coolio's character? Because, c'mon...it was Coolio.

My favorite episodes: the pilot; anything with the AIs; the "silent" episode with Hawkes.

Semper fi!

I watched this faithfully every week, but I really only remember 4 epidsodes from it. The pilot being the biggest most important one. I didn't particularly care for Shane, and I wanted to know more about the "nipple necks."

Mostly, I felt that they wasted some of their potential.

I remember this show mostly because hard core porn actress Ashlyn Gere guest starred in a couple of episodes.

You know I loved this show, pinktinker, as I was one of those referencing it on the E2 thread.

grin. I was just the opposite, Fabrisse! I looooved the character of Shane. Wanted to be her. And while I liked the guy that was the 'nipple-neck' [Hawkes?], I didn't care for that storyline.

I actually did identify with Shane. Unless I'm mixing this up with another show, she didn't want to be the leader, had had to take charge her entire life and just wanted to be a 'grunt' for once. However, like other natural leaders, when they find out that things aren't running right and someone has to step up, Shane did that. I so identified with that. Although, with me, perhaps there was a fine line between "leader" and "bossy".


I think the more burning question for me was, "Were the Colonel and ChillinTheMost ever going to get it on?" Because, I was willing, baby!

I know it was only one season, so it probably won't make syndication, but I'd like to catch this one again.

I'm enjoying these threads about old shows that I watched and enjoyed, but don't really remember much about. I have vague memories and general rememberances of what I liked and didn't like as much, but you all have enabled me to really think about my reactions.

Hey, ChillintheMost! Another E2/S:AaB fan. Yes, Cooper Hawkes was a "nipple-neck" (also known as a "tank"), a test-tube baby born fully grown. I myself was a big fan of the tanks plot. It served as a good means of putting Hawkes together with both the Colonel and Shane, who served as his father and mother of sorts. And, of course, it also provided the backbone of the "silent" episode, which was one of my faves.

And yes, you're right: Shane was a most reluctant leader and had joined the Marines as a sort of respite from taking care of her two younger sisters. The three of them were orphaned after AIs killed their parents in a horrific midnight home invasion. (At least, I think that's what happened. I could be wrong. In any case, Shane certainly relished the opportunity to fight the AIs.) The Colonel and the Commodore, however, had great faith in her leadership skills, so leader she was. (She sometimes tried to fob off the leadership role to Nathan, though.)



You were not the only one!



The SciFi Channel used to show it (in conjunction with their reruns of E2, coincidentally), but they've abandoned it in favor of airing reruns of such hits like Starman and Manimal, I think. They'll probably air it again, but it usually takes SciFi a while to run through their circulation of rerun material.

I loved this show! I distinctly remember having a conversation with a friend of mine about why this show was being cancelled - it was a harder edged sci fi show that didn't have trekkian overtones. And damn if my boss didn't chime in late about how this was an ok show, but no Star Trek! I really liked the AIs and the concept of random luck being their religion. The tank plot was just ok. And word on not caring about the love that couldn't be separated by the stars. gah.

Count me in as another fan of this show. I really liked the concept and the fact that though it was set in space, it wasn't all twee storylines like Star Trek could be sometimes. But I agree with Fabrisse, they did seem to waste some of their potential but I vaguely recall an interview where the producers said that Fox weren't exactly behind them 100% and they had problems as the season went on.

I liked the characters but sometimes I wondered at the acting, especially West and Shane. It didn't always seem right.

Recently, I came across a box of VHS tapes I had put away years ago and lo and behold, what's on them but none other than Space: Above & Beyond. I can't tape over them. They're a reminder of my carefree college days where one of the most important things in life was having enough blank tapes to record all the tv shows I lived for and had time to watch almost immediately. *sigh*

Well damn. The one episode I did watch only had Coolio and David Duchovny in it.

Hey, I came very close to starting this topic myself not so long ago. I caught the whole run again recently, having good memories of the show from the original broadcast and was very disappointed. There were a couple of good ideas here and there, but on the whole it was just bad. The AIs were especially laughable: people with contact lenses obsessed with gambling and shambling around making loud bleepy noises. The leads were all incongruously pretty and horribly inept at acting. Vansen wore half a ton of make up in every scene, trapped in space or trudging through jungle, you name it. On top of that the writing wasn't very good - episodes were very slowly paced and dialogue was usually painful. There were only a very few good episodes in the whole bunch.

They made an interesting choice for the end of the season, though when the leads betray the entire war effort by stupidly telling the enemy of the planned invasion. I wonder if they would have been court martialled had there been a second series.

Well, they didn't know they eere telling the enemy. They thought they were protecting a helpless native of that moon. Up to that point nobody knew what the enemy looked like.

And I doubt they would've been court martialed, since it was that "humanitarian" act that convinced the aliens to send an emisary to negotiate, IIRC.

That the humans didn't know what Chigs look like would be a good argument for not telling random aliens top secret battle plans IMO. Especially since they were on a moon that was deep inside Chig territory and may even have been a satellite of their homeworld (I forget). Someone in the finale compared it to telling people about the Normandy landings and I agree - that information was so crucial that taking such a risk was just nuts.

The aliens' motivations for sending the emissary were never made clear. It may have been a good faith gesture in recognition of the 58s' "humanity" (odd expression to use in this case, but you know what I mean), but it could have easily been meant to stall the human fleet while the Chigs deployed defenses around that moon. That the emissary brought a bomb with him suggests that he wasn't necessarily acting in good faith to me.

Apparently, S:AaB is going to be out on DVD soon, this summer perhaps.

I really only remember the one where West was left behind to say his team was dead so they could avoid an ambush. This show was good at the time because it was such a different take than Trek. I was reminded of Starship Troopers so much. The only thing was all the patriotic stuff made me gag.

But the Colonel being on 24 has been making me happy. He even lived to the end!

I remember that there was a guy looking for his sister. But I liked the show and I'd recently been missing it, so this is great news!

Thank you GOD! Profit's coming out, now S:AaB! Now I only need American Gothic to make me deliriously happy with my dvd collection.

Damn, I still miss this show!

"OMG, you must be my other half! I will be one happy girl once I have Profit, S:AaB and AG in my greedy little hands. :-)

I LOVED S:AaB. Watched every ep. My family knew not to even look at me while I watched it. I had the biggest crush on Hawkes and I didn't care who knew it. I also remember feeling giddy, giddy!, when he and Shane guested on X-Files (in different eps). Good times...

Yes! I so need American Gothic. I've heard good things about Profit; I might pick that up too.

I remember there was one guy who looked like Jack Black but was not Jack Black. And there was an Asian guy. And probably a hot chick or two. I don't even remember why I liked the show. But it was good.

By Asian guy, do you mean Joel de la Fuente? He's on Law & Order: SVU now as a computer techie guy.

I loved this show when it was on. But I'm worried that if I ever saw it again, I would realise that it sucked. This has happened to me with several old shows that I remember being amazing, but just look cheesy now.

I remember one specific episode in which the AI's capture the squad on Mars (?) in some sort of factory and torture them. And Vansen goes all medieval on their asses.

I hated that goody two shoes guy, the one with the possibly-dead girlfriend. He had that talking picture frame necklace...I wanted to vomit everytime he played back the message.

And Hawkes had to catch up on American culture or something, and he bought an antique CD player and listened to Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon (har har).

Ah. Good times.

I actually got to see the series again a couple of years ago and liked it just as much. So I think it will hold up.



That's the episode she finds out the AIs attacked her family because of a flip of a coin, right? That was a good epiosde. I think its that one that they're in low gravity and one of the guys tells another to "go long, go very long" and throws a football very very far!

Yeah, Nathan was annoying. My sister and I would mock him. But I thought the character grew somewhat and I liked how his (not-so) dead girlfriend became a symbol for them for never losing hope.

I liked Vansen, Damphouss and Wang and McQueen. Didn't the series end with all of them dead, or something?

One thing I didn't like was that they didn't seem to spend much time piloting, considering they were pilots.

And one of the best episodes(Stay With The Dead) had McQueen and Nathan as the two central characters. He WAS awfully annoying at times; I think it was at least partly the actor's voice.

The worst thing about the series' cancellation was that it ended with Wang almost certainly dead, Vansen and Damphousse on the way to being MIA, and McQueen with half his leg blown off. One more reason to hate Fox.

Did the football glow? Cause I remember a scene like that, but my brain put it into some crappy movie, like Pitch Black or Starship Troopers or something. Ah how the mind plays tricks.

Hmm, I remember lots o' flying. But my memory obviously isn't so good, so what do I know? And there was a corny bit where they blew pancakes out the airlock in tribute to some fellow flyer who got sucked into a blackhole.

Lesse, tiny recollections...they were each named after a face card and they had that painted on their helmets. Does anyone remember the name of their squad?

I liked the show 'cause it was reminscent of a Vietnam War movie. Plus, it had the darkness and violence of Babylon 5, but without all the people in funny makeup and the endless negotiations and diplomatic bickering.

The 58th Squadron, aka The Wild Cards.

I watched the first couple of eps of this show way back when it was being aired in Malaysia. For some arcane reason, the local censorship board pulled it (and DS9, which aired immediately after it). I managed to get the entire series about a year ago and watched it over a couple of weeks. It's aged pretty well, actually. There's some instances of scenery-chewing, and the Nathan West character *really* grates in the first few eps, but it's eminently watchable.

Still the most fucked-up unresolved cliffhanger of all time though, and not just the revlation about the aliens either.

Yay! A S:AAB thread! I still love this show, and have all but 3 episodes on tape, although I do have to agree that it was overacted at times. A few months ago I rewatched some episodes after a long time viewing them, and that one episode where they're trapped on that planet with the Chig weapon that makes everyone's fears take over was pretty laughable. I always remembered that as being really good. Oh, well, I was 16 when it was on.

I even liked Nathan, although he was very annoying with the girlfriend. Kylen. Does anyone remember in the last episode when they rescued some Tellus colonists, including her? I like to think that in the second season Nathan and Kylen would have realized that they had changed during their experiences and drifted apart. She would be changed from being held captive for a year or whatever, and he would've changed from fighting in a war and losing his brother and all that. It would've been realistic, and nice to never again hear, "I believe in you." Stupid photo tag.

Maybe I'm blinded by my love, but I thought the acting and writing was good overall. Shows like this are always going to be a little cheesy, but this remains one of my all time favorite shows. I know it's TWOP, but don't mock my adolescent-like adoration. The cliffhanger still drives me mad.

Does anyone else remember the one with David Duchovny?

Hi; I'm Actionmage and I came late to the Space:Above and Beyond party, but loved it!

My favorite episode was the one where Damphousse was thought to be psychic, but it was Richard Kind's character (RK-Paul on Spin City).

I thought Damphousse and Wang got a bit lost in the shuffle, though they were strong characters. I loved McQueen and the Commodore (when TS was playing his guitar near the end of the run), but it seemed that the writing was about West, Shane, and Hawkes when not about the war. As I said, I came in really late, so I may have missed a good Damphousse or Wang ep.

I caught the Duchovny ep. They were in a SpaceVegas and DD was a holographic pool hustler. I liked that McQueen watched cartoons/Westerns(?) and that he tried to pass that onto Hawkes, or at least trying to get Hawkes past his "I'm just a Tank" mindset.

I also liked the letters-from-home episode. It seemed pretty well-written. I know it happened after the stuff with West's brother and there was fallout addressed, but it seemed kinda more rounded out.

Oh, and yes- that was one balls out, f'd up, "screw you" ending. What I sorta love is that it kinda made sense too. Don't get me wrong, I wish it'd stayed on at least one more season,but damn!

David Duchovny played an AI and did a very poor Clint Eastwood impersonation. Doug Hutchison played an AI named Elroy El on a couple of episodes. I always think of Space when I see him anywhere else.

The letters to home episode was Dear Earth, and that's probably one of my favorites. I also really like Stay With the Dead and Toy Soldiers. I guess West really didn't bug me that much. I bet he would now, though. Hawkes' special ops mission episode was good, too. That's one I don't have on tape, but I still remember it. Vansen remains one of my favorite women characters, I agree with others here who pointed out how nice it was to see a strong female.

Damphousse and Wang did kind of get the shaft. I guess it's because West, Vansen, and Hawkes were supposed to be the three main characters. Even several publicity photos for the show featured those three, and left out Wang and Damphousse. Wang does have one of my favorite moments, though, when he did his McQueen as a plumber bit.

For anyone interested

Space: Above and Beyond - Best Buy Lists Set
Posted by Gord Lacey
7/08/2005

Nearly a month ago we brought you news that Space: Above and Beyond would be coming to DVD, first through Best Buy, and then through other retailers. Best Buy has just posted the set on their site with a release date of October 4. They're preselling it for $44.99.

Since this is a Best Buy exclusive title we'll likely get information in pieces, whenever Best Buy posts it to their site. Right now they have it classified as a "documentary," which they should correct soon.


I remember loving this show,because It was on Friday nights,and I didn't have to be in bed early for school.I was like 11,the cliffhanger haunts me to this day!

Certaintly one of the more interesting plot twistsThe Chigs who are basicly evolved Humans were not the ones invading,but defending against the invasion from earth and the aerotechin a series.

I'm looking foward to the DVD's I don't even care if the show isent as good as I remember it,I've got to have them.

I thought I read somewhere that it was a fucked up ending because Morgan and whoever were pissed off because they were canceled. They even put a AMF (adios, mother fuckers) in the credits. Anyone else remember this, or more about this?

I don't remember this, but then it's been so long since I've seen the show.

I will pick up the DVDs, because I remember loving this show.

Yup. I remember that being in the credits. Morgan and Wong were really pissed at the shabby treatment S:AAB(along with Morgan and Wong) suffered at the hand of FUX. The ending of S:AAB was pretty much the true beginning of my Chris Carter hatred. God, I remember reading somewhere about how Morgan had to watch S:AAB's sets be razed for the utter shit that was
LA Firefighters, or whatever the hell that crappy show that replaced S:AAB was called.

As for that rumored spoiler, I remember hearing about it. And I thought that it had tons of fantastic possibilities. Fucking FOX!

It was LA Firefighters. They used the flight deck as kindling, or so it was reported.

I loved this show. I'll pick up the DVDs even if it's aged as badly as B5 has....

Huh. I kind of liked the last episode. But I'm often a fan of "blaze of glory" endings that don't end happily.

Yippee! I bought the dvds at Best Buy today! I also picked up the Millenium season 2 dvds---so I got $20 off the pair. I've just watched River of Stars and Who Monitors The Birds? and they were just as great as I remember them the 1st time around. I don't think that the decade since their original airing has eroded how great the show really was. It has weathered time pretty darn well. Much like my beloved Profit series did. Even the FX weren't bad.

As for the dvds themselves.....nothing special. Just the episodes. No commentary, no behind the scenes, no deleted scenes. Nothing. The only extra stuff on the last dvd were the dozen or so cheesy trailers that FOX aired for the show. I really, really wish that Morgan and Wong(along with the actors) would've been on for some commentaries. But I'm a sucker for commentaries. Still, it is worth the $40 for the show so I can watch it over and over again. And force everyone around me to watch them.

ETA: Wow. I stayed up to watch the 2 hour pilot, The Farthest Man From Home and The Dark Side Of The Sun. Kristen Cloke damn near had me in tears(again) with her performance in Dark Side. And I still remember(and still want to!) wanting to be as awesome as Shane Vansen when "I grow up"! I was twenty then......and I still want to be her. *sigh* And I had almost forgotten how much I liked the *barely*in*it Pags. And yes, I see that Nathan West is still as annoying as I recalled.

Ahhh....S:AaB. The memories. I live in Australia, and I remember to advertise the show, they put Nathan's line from the pilot "I will find you!" in every single promo. So it became a bit of a catchcry around school, and sends me into fits of giggles when I watch that part of the episode.

I recently acquired *ahem* the episodes Choice or Chance and R&R, and was very impressed with how well the show has aged (relative to Babylon 5 at least, as mentioned). There's some great writing there. It actually reminds me of a slightly rougher version of the new Battlestar Galactica, which, needless to say, is a good thing.

I've had the theme as my mobile phone ring tone for the last few years too. Can't wait for the DVDs (which, knowing Australia, will only be in about 7 years or so *rolls eyes*)

I wonder how long Best Buy has an "exclusive" right to the show. Since Best Buy was the only place I could find the dvds. The price didn't faze me too badly, a couple of years ago I was severely tempted at buy a pricey set of bootleg tapes. But I decided to tough it out and wait and pray for dvds. Still, it would be nice if the set had a couple of commentaries on it. But this is a bare bones tv series set. You get the episodes and promo shots.

Hey all. To answer a few questions first.
Why did you not see more Pilot Combat ? Well, as Col. McQueen said. "This is the Marine Corp Space and Mobile Cavalery, not the Air Force, so quit the bitching and moaning and pay attention .... " He said something very identical to this. And the reason that that is, since there are not enough humans, you have to train certain individuals to fight in the air, at ground and at sea, and that is the purpose of that unit. Although we really saw no sea battles, besides the one Spec Ops mission with Colquit and Hawks.

Next. The series are actually very well done. The acting is good and it has a good plot. Men created the machines, the machines tried to take over men, so men had to create the "Tanks" to basically send them out as cannon fodder, or to fight for the humans. I mean, this is not bad. And then not to mention why the whole war was created, so that Aerotech and other such multi-billion $ corporations can profit from the war, remember, Aerotech created the war by ignoring the warnings from the Aliens not to enter their home due to spiriual/religious reasons. Obviously that makes the alien uneducated as well, to put religion over progress, but isn't that what we are doing as well these days ? Not to mention, isn't that the real reason why we are in Iraq ? Because Aerotech, sorry I mean Halliburton, and texaco Chevron, Bechtel group etc, multi-billion $ corporations can make a great profit out of that, enabling great profit for the government of Europe and the United States ?

People, Space Above and beyond isn't just some Sci-Fi movie. It is trying to portray War, as it is on earth. Fighting for no real cause, how corporations create wars to make profit for themselves. And who are the guys spending their lives for all of this ? People like the 58th, who all had their reasons to join, look at all these other real Marines these days that join the military ? And really all their fighting for is Multi-Billion $ corporations, and if you do not agree then I am sorry but you have to start stop listening to all the crap you hear in the news and do your own research.

I love Space Above and Beyond because it portrays our problems we have in our own planet! That was the reason to make that show. It is trying to teach us all a lesson, and one more thing, it is ok to be scared LOL jk, that one is from McQueen, but really now, one more thing, at the moment, we are at war, because of multi-billion $ corporations, and this gota stop, and it will, either people wake up and realize, or there will be a real war and trust me, all the wars in space won't look as ugly as the one we all will face, if we don't wake up and do something against it, by that I mean educating others about the real intentions of certain elite corporation owners, and politicians, and other religious leaders, etc, you name it.

That whole speech made me role my eyes, as it seemed clear to me that it was a speech purely for the audience, which had been commenting that they seemed to be groundpounders, not pilots.

Yep, it was definitely made for the audience. The few space battle scenes were inpressive tho, and from a pshysics aspect correct, especially manoeuvrebility of the Hammerheads, which I can't say for the gun firing noise which you won't be able to hear in space !! Only a small, weird, vague noise perhaps.... that would be a plus in Battlestar Galactica mini series.

If the aliens had put their own religion over their own progress, you might have an argument for "uneducated." But putting their own religion above someone else's "progress" is not necessarily a matter of ignorance. And in this case, "progress" was more along the lines of "expansion," which is quantitative difference rather than a qualitative one, so your whole thesis pretty much collapses.

Sorry Chelsea, maybe I said soomething wrong, but what I meant was the following.
I think it is unintellectual, arrogant and uneducated to close out a different culture, species, whatever, automatically because that is what the Aliens were doing, and what we are doing on earth. We act like all religions should be of the same value but we shouldn't be acting it, we should be normally respecting one another's religions.

Obviously the Aliens were technologically more advanced in some aspects, but they do put their own religion in front of anything else, that is simply the wrong way to do it, and people do the same on earth.

I am trying to say as well, since Aerotech did cause the war to start so they can make money, the Aliens bare some responsibility too, instead of beginning talks etc, they let it all happen so they could start a war as well. All characteristics that to me are the exact same on our planet.

Once again, thanks for the reply.

Well, now. Where has this little thread been hiding? I don't have my Best Buy (something of an oxymoron, don't get me started) DVDs yet, but I'm getting them this weekend, hopefully.

It was all about Col. McQueen for me. I became a die-hard James Morrison fan on the strength of that performance, alone. I loved Vansen, too, but McQueen was the very soul of the show for me. Accordingly, my favorite eps are McQueen-intensive eps: Ray Butts, The Angriest Angel, Dear Earth (that one extended close-up of JM's face as he tells Ty's story to the reporter...utterly brilliant). McQueen is one of those Emmy-worthy performances that never get nominated, because the show is "genre" television. It's a shame. McQueen should have made JM a star. IMHO.

Awful show. The lead looked like a 12 year old boy, possibly the most miscast role in the history of TV. All the other characters/actors were useless, except for Hawks, who was an interesting character.

I liked that experiemental episode 'Who Monitors The Birds', similar to that war movie script the Coen's wrote about a lone soldier trying to walk his way out of a war. If the whole series had been like that, with none of the rubbish main characters being in it, and it just being an interesting, original TV show with the ideas that one episode had, it could have been brilliant.

Unfortunately, it was rubbish. The pilot was watchable, but from then on it became awful, took itself far too seriously without being good enough to do so.

Who Monitors the Birds? was a great episode, although I felt (and feel now!) that I didn't quite understand what they were trying to show. A friend told me that Hawk's vision's of Vansen were actually Vansen as a representation of death - was that right?

Yup. Vansen was Hawk's vision of the legendary whore of death. Who has supposedly visited soldiers during battles. Shane was the object of Hawk's affections and desires(and the only female he even remotely had any sort of relationship with) so it made sense for it to have been her. And I don't think that Hawk had a very strong connection with Vanessa, so she didn't really figure in. Shane was the woman he kissed.

Anyone else hear about problems with any of the disks? I won't mind bitching to whoever put this set out. The lack of any true special features is just appalling to me. I find it hard to believe that Morgan and Wong would ever want to treat this show(their baby) poorly.

I'd read a couple of comments about the possible fragility of the double-sided disks used; one of mine has an odd spot on the hub which so far hasn't created any problems, but the whole set does seem like a bit of an afterthought.
Who did put the set together, anyway? The main menu art has Babylon 5 in the background!

All that aside, I bought the set and watched the whole thing again and it's still good, and I'm glad to have relatively sturdy copies over my beat-up VHS archive.

I have been debating whether to purchase these DVDs since last fall. Because I continue to hear about glitches and problems, I'll keep waiting.

ITA. I had never heard of the actor before S:AAB, but he quickly became a favorite. I think because in many ways McQueen was the most complex character. And I remember thinking that the actor's voice was so resonant that he could read the back of cereal boxes or something and I would still be entertained.

I've always thought the opposite. The pilot was generic and even hard to sit through in parts, but the rest of the series seemed to improve with each episode.

I don't know who put it together, but they need to taken out and given a good beating. The lack of Morgan and Wong input and commentary is just unforgivable in my eyes. I guess that FOX still has hard feelings against them. I just cannot fathom M&W ever turning down a show that was their baby.



Hee. And oh so very true. JM's McQueen was tied with Shane Vansen as my favorite character. I don't know if I could choose between them.

Regarding the DVDs being released without participation from Wong & Morgan...There's a thread for S:AAB at Fireflyfans.net with posts by a FRUMIOUSB .They claim association with Hard Eight and offer backstory about how FOX's marketing department "did not see this show as viable enough to warrant a 7th disc of special features." Don't know about the posts' veracity, but interesting either way. Fastest way to find them is to search for FRUMIOUSB at http://www.fireflyfans.net/thread.asp?b=8&t=10737

It's one of the few times (ever) where I've stood up and yelled at the TV. Can't remember what I said but I'm sure it was something like "no, that can't be it!" plus profanity.

From what I heard the ending was supposed to be merely cliffhangerish, following the No Body = Not Dead rule. When the show was actually cancelled, the ISSCV explosion was altered to make it look more final, but otherwise if the show had been picked up again they could have gotten the characters back in action without too much fuss.

Even so, I was sad at the end.

I'm just now getting into this show, and watched the episode where the Secretary General is assassinated.

So, one thing I was confused about. Was there a double assassination attempt? Blind Ambassador sent two, and Frenchie was going to send one of his own? Or what? That statement by the assistant to the Frenchie confused me.

The "Secratary Zheneral"?
I dont remember the names so ill call them
'Combat Frenchie': The guy who joined the squad
'Evil Frenchie': Shapu's aide

After the Secretary General was killed, Hayes(blind lady) and Shapu(head french guy) were up for the seat. Shapu came in first looking like the bad guy. When the squad picked up Hayes, they conveniently were able to find the bomb that 'Combat Frenchie' was able to heroically launch out of the ISSCV and make it explode so that it looked like someone was trying to kill Hayes, but really it wasnt armed until after it left the ISSCV.
Then Shapu told West about Hayes' treachery with the colonists and after he left, 'Evil Frenchie' said Shapu wanted West to leave the door open, supposedly to let the two talk (making the audience think that Shapu wanted Hayes dead although EF was working against Shapu), although what he really wanted was for 'Combat Frenchie' to be able to kill Shapu.
When West stopped CF from killing Shapu, EF and Hayes went to their backup plan which was to mind-control Hawks to shoot at the medal Shapu kept on his chest. But McQueen foiled this.

Really a great fake-job by the writers, having the innocent, blind US lady be evil and the supposedly extremist Frenchie be the good guy.

Ah. Well that now makes sense. I didn't grasp all of that.

Shame the show didn't last longer so we could see what was going on.

So, what did "Evil Frenchie" mean when he told West paraphrased about killing Stalin and Hitler before they came to power. Shapu didn't win. And "Evil Frenchie" was working for Hayes, who did win. Confusion.

And as much as I've enjoyed the show, man, did I hate how often they were ground pounding. I think they actually sat in their cockpits like 4 times.

I kinda liked the ground pounding aspect. It made things grimier, grittier and scarier, like the episode where the fleet has to abandon their people to fight planetside for what seemed like months. The Wildcards and other ground forces were literally starving by the time the Saratoga made it back.