Odyssey 5

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Odyssey 5 is an United States science-fiction series that first ran in 2002 on Showtime.

The initial run of the series ran for 14 of the 20 episodes, leaving the six remaining episodes unaired for a period of roughly two years. (They were aired in 2004 on Showtime as "missing" episodes, which ostensibly included the open-ended series finale.) This unnatural pause and the summary cancellation were done due to Showtime's desire to move away from science fiction television, likely in an attempt to match the programming brought forth by rival HBO. This is despite the fact that the series was one of Showtime's highest rated original series.

The series made a full run of all 20 episodes in the United Kingdom on Sky One and on SciFiUK and in Canada.

Odyssey 5 is the brainchild of Manny Coto, who served as a script-writer and executive producer during the series run.

The series was filmed in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

1 Plot
2 Cast
3 DVD release
4 External links

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Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The story revolves around a set of people on a routine spaceflight on August 7, 2007: three astronauts, a scientist, and a television news reporter. However, during the course of the flight, the Earth suddenly dissolves into a fiery ball, and explodes. The crew of the space shuttle Odyssey resign themselves to death, but a non-organic being called the Seeker rescues them. He tells them that he has been attempting to make contact with "alien races" for most of his existence, but every time he tries, he is always too late. However, this is the first time he has met some of the victims of such a tragedy. He offers to send them back in time 5 years (and therefore to present day, at the time of the series), so that they can prevent the disaster. In a twist, their consciousnesses are sent back and not their physical bodies, as physical time travel is impossible. They only know the name of the thing that did this: Leviathan.

The villain turns out to be a race of nanorobots developed by humanity. It sets about trying to learn about humanity through surrogates, called "Synthetics". In the course of their "learning" they apparently destroy the Earth.

The series is very different from most science fiction, first because it is set in the present day – in a fashion similar to Stargate SG-1 and Sliders – but secondly because the team of five is not a group of friends who always get along; the humanity of the team is shown through arguments, jokes, and their attempts to maintain social lives and help the world with their limited knowledge of the future.

Many of the show's plotlines revolve around technologies like AI, nanotechnology and neuroimaging, and it may be argued the world's destruction represents one of the possible variants of the technological singularity itself.

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