Galaxy Rangers

I watched this when it aired and bought the DVDs recently. It's a short-lived animated series (why is this out on DVD? I have no idea), done in the US, sci-fi with a lot of Western in it, about interstellar law enforcement by these guys with implants that have super (or... not so super) powers.

What I remember is that it was amazingly better than what else was on. In particular, the stories and plots were great: sometimes they didn't win, and were lucky to escape alive. There was continuity from episode to episode, and all kinds of good stuff.

Not surprisingly, the series as it actually exists is a lot different.

• Jerry Orbach does the voice for Zach, the head Ranger. Yeah, Jerry Orbach. It's strange to hear this well-known Law and Order actor say things like "We must find the Queen's psychocrypt!" and be serious.
• There's a strange mix of the stupid and the entirely serious. In the first episodes, there's a an implication that the evil Queen has killed millions of people on one planet, Goose (who is the Clint Eastwood-esque one) kills their enemies left and right (and is willing to shoot their horses). No G.I. Joe-style jumps-out-of-the-helicopter-the-instant-it-explodes. Then in another episode, a town is haunted by an electrically-animated/possessed scarecrow. An entire episode ("Mindnet") revolves around Goose being framed for a crime (so the Rangers have 24 hours to solve it before, presumably, he gets thrown in the hoosegow) while Goose is hanging around in a super-high-tech Ranger training facility -- and he's there to take the call when the authorities contact the facility immediately after the theft.
• There's an occasional level of humor about the whole thing, usually in dialogue, that went way over my head as a kid. In one stupid episode, Doc's in prison and waiting to be killed by the locals, and spends his time composing a letter. "Dear Miss Manners. I am about to be executed on a backwards frontier world and have a terrible dilemma. What does one wear to one's own funeral?"
• Or, if you like your humor a little more obvious, at the end of one episode in the occasional "everyone ends up dancing or laughing" endings, we see a robot do the robot. No, really.
  

Still, I have a soft spot for it. When it aired, it inspired me to start trying to write sci-fi, which eventually led to all kinds of interesting things. When it's good, it's quite good, though I still think Robotech has held up better. Or even Star Blazers, for that matter. Desslock! Desslock! Desslock!