SAAB comes to you (and to all of us in the end) courtesy of a couple of ex-X-Files writers, and has already been billed as 'Top Gun In Space'. But hang on - wasn't Top Gun one of the worst films ever committed to celluloid in the history of mankind? And wasn't the only good thing in it the pretty hello-clouds-hello-sky scenery? Isn't putting it in space where everything's going to be all dark and black and (wouldn't you bet?) all industrial and grimy, just a bit of a duff idea in the first place? Well, maybe not - the writers claim to be going for a cunning mix of dogfighting action (the series starts just as a mysterious alien race start a war with Earth - an Earth united and ruled by a future version of the United Nations, but divided down genetic barriers into factions of 'natural-born' humans, genetically-created 'in-vitros', and 'silicates', who aren't explained very much) and old Western-style tales of personal relationships and morals. Kind of thirtysomething meets Buck Rogers, in fact. Uh-oh.

For your information and protection, we have gathered together, without a safety net, the absolute cream of, er, some friends of Dave, who will bravely and without preparation watch four episodes from the first 13-show run of the series, which will be starting soon on Sky. They are: Dave himself (appearing tonight in special fancy dress as Blake from Blake's Seven), Linda (as Princess Leia), Neil (as Peter Cushing's Doctor Who), Maff (as Ming The Merciless), Clur (as Barbarella), Violet (as Servelan), Holger (as C-3PO), Cav (as Worf) and Nick (as the Spirit of Rich Pelley).

And me? I'm Stuart. I look after all of them. Because when they met (round at Dave's house to watch some videos), it was moider...

7.30PM

Episode One: "Pilot"

Quickly, I conceal myself behind the sofa and begin to take notes. The 90-minute pilot opens with Jim from Neighbours giving a stirring speech about how there are not, under any circumstances, any other races alive anywhere else in the universe, no way.

MAFF: How come we're about to watch a big soap opera about the members of a colossal space army, then? What's it for?

Cut to a training centre, where would-be colonists are practicing launches, by lying in some chairs and cheering. We meet Nathan and Kyla, about-to-be- starcrossed lovers who've only just finished going on about how exciting it's going to be to be launched into space together when their commander informs them that because of a new positive discrimination amendment, one of them isn't going at all, being replaced by a 'tank' (a rude slang term for the artificially- created in-vitros, who are much-loathed by most 'natural-borns'). They attempt to comfort each other.

CLUR: They're not going to try a snog, are they? They've still got their helmets on.

(They try a snog. Their helmets bump together.)

Everyone: Doh!

Cut to Cooper Hawkes, a 'tank', being subjected to an attempted lynching by some norms. One of them says "I had two uncles die in the AI wars because the tanks wouldn't fight". Just in case anyone hasn't worked out the underlying theme of inter-subspecies tension yet.

CLUR: Why do we never get to see the AI wars? All science fiction's like that - the stuff that we don't get to see always sounds more exciting than what we're actually watching.

NEIL: Yeah, Star Wars sounded really great, just before the bit the film's actually set in.

Holger: And RoboCop.

Cut to Nathan and Kyla talking about tanks. First bit of classic dialogue comes from Kyla: "They're human beings, sir - just like us except conceived from parents who never lived." There will be many more where this comes from.

Cut to a shadowy figure breaking into a fenced-off house.

DAVE: This is a real X-Files theme - incredibly poorly-defended secret installations.

CAV: Yeah - remember that one where there was a huge base in the middle of the desert, protected by a bit of fence that only appeared to be about 10 feet long?

The shadowy figure turns out to be Shane Vansen, another of our new Space Marine chums. She's returning to the old family home, where she experiences flashbacks of her family being killed in (yes) the AI Wars. It turns out she's joined the Space Marines to avenge their deaths. She wants to be in the 127^th Attack Wing, known as the (ahem) Angry Angels, and distinguished by their cool black bomber jackets and tough expressions.

Cut back to Nathan and Kyla, in a tearful farewell.

LINDA: That's a different woman!

Sure enough, Kyla appears to have changed from a bun-haired blonde into someone with a long, flowing, dark brown perm. Nathan doesn't seem to have noticed.

CLUR: Men.

Later, Nathan attempts to stow away on board the rocket carrying Kyla and the colonists away, but gets caught. There's an emotional moment as Kyla sees him dragged off by guards.

DAVE: She's blonde again!

And she is.

The next bit is, frankly, the best thing we see in the entire evening. The recruits (Nathan joins the Marines in an attempt to be posted near Kyla, Hawkes is caught by some rozzers while escaping from the lynchmob and sentenced to the Marines by the judge) arrive at boot camp, and are met by their drill sergeant (the fantastic R Lee Ermey from Full Metal Jacket), who does fantastic drill sergeant things for ages, and gets to say fantastic lines like "Do I look like a roadmap to you?", "You two shut the hell up - you're dead!", "The only easy day is yesterday", and "You - grab his ass. That's an order!", the latter as he forces the entire squad to feel each other's bums as an illustration of how they're all one big team.

CAV: He's tripping like a bastard, isn't he?

Cut to the Tellus colony, where Kyla and the other colonists have been sent, being blown up by some aliens. Cut back to the Space Marines' mess, where some Angry Angels mince into the bar looking hard in their bomber jackets.

NEIL: Oh no - it's The Jets!

The awestruck Shane accidentally starts a giant ruck with the Angry Angels, and everyone goes rumble crazy until the news suddenly comes on and announces the massacre on Tellus. The fight stops in a blink, in best comedy mid-punch style. A beardy bloke is really torturing a weather metaphor about gathering stormclouds and things coming down in thunderbolts. 40 minutes have passed, and no-one's shouted "Fast-forward!" yet. A record, of some sort. Everyone's waiting for some more of the superbly awful American-drama dialogue, and it's not long in coming. Suddenly sent on a mission to Mars, the rookies discover an old Earth capsule with a Mozart CD on it. "If only this had been our first contact with the aliens, they'd never have killed all those colonists" says Nathan, sensitively. He then gets in a fight with Hawkes, after which 'Pags' (another recruit, but one whose history hasn't been documented yet and hence probably isn't long for the series) makes friendly overtures towards Hawke, who's very much the unpopular loner so far. Naturally, an alien ship immediately crashlands on the planet, and 'Pags' is killed in the ensuing gunfight.

NEIL: It's all happening, isn't it?

Our heroes capture an alien, but can't communicate with it. Hawkes advances towards it with open palms. "No - it could be carrying some kinda disease", frets Shane. "I never had a mother, but you sure sound like her", retorts Hawkes. In an attempt to be friendly, one of the troops tries to give the alien some water, at which point it dies messily, oozing green snot all over the place. Everyone quickly makes up a story about it committing suicide and heads back to Earth, where they graduate and are given their special space planes. Naturally, everyone starts painting things on them, including Hawkes, who names his "Pag's Payback".

CLUR: He's got the apostrophe in the wrong place - it should be "Pags' Payback". Stupid tank.

LINDA: Bloody space moron.

The recruits meet Colonel McQueen (a battle-scarred veteran and an in-vitro who's soon to be the troop's commander), who solemnly briefs them about the battles ahead, with the best piece of dialogue we have ever heard: "The only certainty in war is that in an hour - or maybe two - you'll either still be alive or you'll be dead". We rewind this bit four times. A big battle follows, in which Hawkes cleverly enables the destruction of a huge alien force by being all unconventional and clever, and our heroes all save each other's lives and bond heartwarmingly. Everyone gets medals, the beardy bloke appears again and wrings the weather analogy for all he's worth, misquotes Winston Churchill and it's all over. Phew. The world is safe. Can we go home now?

9.25PM

Episode Two: "Eyes"

MAFF: What do you mean, 'Episode Two'?

CAV: I thought that was it - the Space Marines save the day, everybody's all pally, big hugs all round, end of story.

NEIL: You're just having us on, aren't you, Dave?

DAVE: Look, it gets better later on, honest.

VIOLET: I don't think I could sit through another whole one.

NICK (wandering in and helping himself to pizza): I really hate Space: Above And Beyond. (Leaves to obviously-taped applause and uproarious laughter).

"Eyes" is a heavily political (in both senses of the word) episode, which starts with the live-on-TV assassination of the Secretary-General of the new UN. "A man has just fired a gun at Chartwell!", yelps a reporter, "Oh my God there's blood everywhere - he's dead!"

DAVE: Blimey, it only happened three seconds ago, and 20 feet behind her - how can she tell?

Back at base, Nathan gets reflective. "How can one murderer change the world with the speed of a bullet?", he ponders. Most of the team have now given up all attempts to listen to the dialogue with a straight face. A fight blows up for the new leadership of the UN (and hence the world), between an obvious Jean-Marie Le Pen character (a French bloke who leads the National Identity Party) and Ambassador Hayden, a blind American woman with a nice voice who is clearly the good guy. A complex plot ('complex' being a relative term) follows and culminates in someone else altogether turning out to be the baddie, but the only really entertaining moment comes when Col McQueen, forced to take a loyalty test after the assassin is found to be an in-vitro, is asked to confirm for the lie-detector that his initials stand for Tyrus Cassius. "I always thought T.C. stood for Top Cat", he deadpans.

10.15PM

Episode Three: "Who Monitors The Birds?"

DAVE: That's Bill Oddie, isn't it?

Unfortunately, by this point I can't take much more (I've been peeking around the side of the sofa, you see) and am forced by my weakened mind to spend the entire episode lying face down on the floor sobbing into a big cushion, hence being unable to take notes. Everyone else is arguing loudly amongst themselves and trying to make excuses to leave. Luckily, Violet enjoys this episode more than the others, and after watching intently, summarises it in my notebook as follows:

"TANK IS THE BEST SHOT IN THE FORCE SO THEY DISPATCH HIM FOR A SINGLE-HANDED MISSION (TO KILL ALL THE ALIENS ON A SWAMPY FOREST PLANET). HE DOES THIS AND MAKES A FRIEND WITH AN ALIEN (BOB). THEY SWAP PHOTOS AND THEN TANK KILLS THE FRIENDLY ALIEN BY ACCIDENT. THERE IS A STRANGE LADY WITH LOTS OF COLDSORES AND ROTTEN TEETH THAT KEEPS APPEARING AND SNOGGING HIM AND POINTING OUT THE COMING DANGERS. SHE IS HELPING HIM. IT SEEMS SHE IS A KIND OF 'TANK GUARDIAN ANGEL'. THE END."

She has girl's handwriting.

11.25PM

Episode Four: "Mutiny"

Most of the team are now slumped around the room, sad, dribbling wrecks of their former selves. Linda is wearing the glazed expression of someone who's just picked all the right numbers in the National Lottery, but couldn't get to the ticket shop in time. Maff is banging his head on the bare wooden floor and whimpering. Holger has gouged out both of his own eyes with his pizza fork. Neil is frantically and distractedly humming every Fall tune he can think of to himself. Cav has jumped out of the window and is making a run for it.

DAVE: It really does get better later on, honest. Argh.

Our heroes find themselves aboard a tramp steamer transporting cryogenically frozen people through 'Blood Alley' (a dangerous spaceway) when they come under attack from the aliens. After the ship is damaged, the only way to escape is to get more energy to the engines by cutting power to Sector 46, which houses in-vitros being transported to some plutonium minds. Hawkes and some in-vitro crewmen stage a mutiny, but end up having to cut the power anyway, having found out that Hawkes batch-sister (the only member of 'family' he's ever managed to find) is among the frozen tanks. A bit of a weepie, this one. Some more great lines here (Col McQueen: "I don't know if there's a hell, but if there is, I've been there"; "There are no sides - just right and wrong"), but the last word goes to Shane (discussing the spiritual/physical nature of love with Nathan):

"Way I see it, you only end up with a broken heart, and I just don't have the time."