Friends of mine pointed me to this series to fill the void of a summer without good Sci-Fi. Oh, how it disappoints.<br /><br />First of all, if you are looking for Sci-Fi, look elsewhere. This series has almost nothing from the Sci-Fi genre to recommend it. You could replace the Chigs with "foreign military", and replace the spaceships with fighter jets, and you'd have a bog-standard War show. All of the potential offered by the future settings / aliens / advanced technology, was all wasted. And even though I love war movies/series such as Band of Brothers, even put in that light, this series has little or nothing to recommend it.<br /><br />Second, the acting. The actors deliver their lines in a wooden monotone, as if people of the future have lost the ability to emote. The only standout was James Morrison (Lt. Col. McQueen). Every other actor should have never made it past casting calls. Of special dishonorable mention: Morgan Weisser (Lt. West) and Lanei Chapman (Lt. Damphousse). I cringed whenever they uttered a line. I continually hoped that their characters would be killed first. I was thankful when the series was over, that I would probably never have to witness them again.<br /><br />Third, the character development. Over and above the poor acting, the characters were single-dimensional, and extremely shallow. Every character was so "goody goody" that it was boring and predictable. The 2nd to last episode was especially poor due to its predictability. To avoid spoilers I won't state the exact circumstance, but suffice to say, the main characters did exactly what you would expect from the 05:00 minute mark onward, and surprise surprise, it gets them in a lot of trouble.<br /><br />Fourth, this series is incredibly clichéd. Every plot point has been done prior to this series ever airing, but done better (most of those, in War movies/shows - not Sci-Fi). I mean, come on, lone pilot (series hero) vs. ace (unknown enemy)? Who out there didn't see the end of that one coming? Or how about Lt. West's love interest? Clichéd and boring, like the rest of the show.<br /><br />I ended up watching the entire series due to a complete lack of anything else worth watching, plus I continued to hold out hope of the series improving. Finally, I did find something that I really, truly enjoyed: the end. When the final credits rolled, I felt a relief that I had no more of this boring show to plow through. I popped in a Babylon 5 DVD and the contrast was striking. Even the admittedly weak B5 season 1 plot line absolutely blows away SAaB.<br /><br />The only reason I rate this above a 1 is that it was just good enough not to make me stop watching after the first episode. It did feel like a chore though, wading through so much crap just to get to the end.