Original upload date: Thu, 11 Aug 2011 00:00:00 GMT
Archive date: Wed, 01 Dec 2021 17:34:13 GMT
It was 1994 and a dearth of scifi and action programming was hitting the syndicated airwaves. Washington D.C.'s prime target station for such programs was the once lauded WDCA 20 or Channel 20 to us D
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.C. and Maryland natives in the know. By the early 90's Paramount was buying up syndicated affiliates around the US with designs on creating their own network ala' FOX. By 1995 the UPN network debuted and remained a force for more syndicated scifi and the home of Star Trek in many incarnations until 2006. Just 38 years shy of Jake Cardigan's time in the pilot movie for the TekWar series which would strangely not be shown on UPN, but instead be broadcast on USA Network until it's cancellation and then rerun on SciFi Channel (yes I did record some). Based on the William Shatner novels it follows the exploits of Jake Cardigan a disgraced cop who is framed for murder and incarcerated in a cryo-penitentary until a resourceful millionare industrialist named Walter Bascom pulls strings for his release off the ice and back into service fighting crime corruption and addiction to the virtual reality drug TEK on the mean IKEA styled streets of the 21st century. The series was pretty cool for it's time, and it had some cool production design but it failed to live up to the ratings and was cancelled after only 18 episodes. Koch eventually released the series episodes without the films on a DVD set in Canada in 2004 with Image Entertainment releasing the full film and series episodes in a DVD box in 2008.
