Forgotten Heroes: Odyssey 5’s Chuck Taggart

By Owen Quinn author of the Time Warriors and Zombie Blues

I was recently made aware of just how many movies and television shows the younger generation have never heard of, never mind seen. So to that end, we look back at some characters you really need to see before you kick the bucket.

In another universe I wouldn’t have to be writing about Odyssey 5. It would have been on all our lips like Quantum Leap. My first view of it was on a late night slot on television and by the end of the hour and a half I was hooked. Very few shows have caught my attention in the first episode like this for example X Files and The Walking Dead but Odyssey 5 was a trailblazer for other shows today. It had swearing, full frontal nudity all wrapped up in a sci fi coat.

The characters were flawed; three dimensional good and bad in all their glory. To get the show’s premise you should click on the video above which is the show’s intro and gives you everything you need to know. What is beautiful about Odyssey 5 written and created by the late Manny Coto, was that it played with our expectations of time travel in the same way as it did the characters. They all know what is going to happen in their lives and the world so all they need to do is live it again and look for signs of the mystery of what caused the Earth to explode and stop it. However this is not the case as their very investigations begin to change the future within months. These themes were also explored in the series Travellers. The Odyssey was the name of the shuttle they were all on when the Earth died. The titular 5 refers to the occupants of the shuttle. Three of them are astronauts Chuck Taggart (Peter Weller), his son Neil (Christopher Gorham), scientist Kurt Mendel (Sebastian Roche), astronaut and senator’s daughter Angela (Tamara Craig Thomas) and reporter Sarah Forbes (Leslie Silva).

Chuck Taggert was played by Robocop actor Peter Weller. He is a tough no nonsense astronaut fiercely loyal to his friends and deeply devoted to his wife Paige (Gina Clayton). Now because Chuck and Neil are the only ones aware they are five years in the past, their whispered conversations and sudden changes in behaviour immediately make Paige suspicious to the point she thinks Chuck might be having an affair. While infected with the virus that begins turning him into a synthetic, Chuck seeks refuge with Kurt who desperately searches for a cure. However Paige discovers where Chuck is and goes to Kurt’s. There he tells her to go away using language that creates friction between him and Neil. She doesn’t believe his tale of aliens and time travel. It is their long marriage and deep love for each other that gets them through the mad tale. If he were having an affair, he could think of a thousand better stories that time travel. One of the rules of time travel is tell no one the future or it may change the entire timeline with disastrous consequences. What is so lovely about their argument is it is clear they are deeply in love and plays exactly how a fight like this would happen in real life. This show is intense and this is partly due to the relationships between the cast. Chuck is forever ready to kick the crap out of the annoying Kurt but as a leader recognises his worth to the team and saving the planet. Chuck’s word is law. But Kurt forever butts head against him openly defying Chuck’s wisdom and decisions but they have a respect for one another (Nicknaming him Kurtrude along the way when the name Chucky is used). Angela is a protoge to Chuck and when they are returned to the past, Angela is in the middle of a space walk at the time. She was badly injured in the future so the shock of finding herself back in the past causes her to nearly die. It’s only Chuck talking her through that saves her life. This action alone begins to raise suspicions because there was no way for Chuck to know what was happening. Further investigations into NASA including the theft of a strange moon rock brings attention to Chuck he’d rather not have. His loyalty is brought into question but his position protects him somewhat. However he discovers a whole world around him of lies and deceit that he never saw the first time he lived those years. There are synthetics, seemingly two sets, one of which originated from Mars who can grow human bodies and one has infected the internet. Old friends are conspirators, some are living secret lives well aware of the alien threat and a secret cabal battling the aliens called the Cadre, forms the heart of the space agency who have Chuck and his team firmly in their sights as a threat. They even blackmail Chuck’s son Marc into spying on his father to ensure he gets the grades he needs to enter the astronaut programme. This applies equally to the aliens, the Sentients who invade cyberspace and the synthetics. Chuck is infected with a virus that almost turns him into one of the alien cohhort and barely survives. The Sentients have been using human as hosts to carry out missions like murder including children and Chuck and the others are now on the list to be converted. However with two sets of aliens running about which one is the real enemy and responsible for Earth’s destruction?

What keeps the team going is they have the chance to change the bad things that happened in their own lives. For Chuck, it is a chance to rebuild bridges with his other son Marc. Marc failed the astronaut programme the first time round and Neil discovers now that Marc is only doing it for their father. He doesn’t want to go to space and it is putting severe strain on him. Chuck has a strained relationship with Marc and even with that foreknowledge Chuck cannot stop it falling apart again. In the opening scenes we see both Paige and Marc standing with others watching a massive explosion that sounds the Earth’s destruction. The audience is immediately sidestepped into thinking that these characters will go to the end of the series.

However Marc’s running away changes the timeline but it is the events of the 13th stunning episode Skin that is the show’s biggest game changer. A synthetic organism created to kill Angela’s father is on the loose jumping from person to person. It infects Paige, turning her into an assassin who dies in Chuck’s arms. This is a ball breaker as it lets us and the characters know loud and clear that everything they knew is no longer guaranteed. Paige never died in the original timeline. Chuck was never a widower but now he is because of his mission. Devastated by his wife’s death, Chuck’s relationship with his boys is wrecked especially Neil who blames him for getting their mother involved. He tells the team he is leaving and takes off on a road trip. He’s going to enjoy his last years. Along the way he meets a hitchhiker. It turns out that Chuck is reliving the trip when he first met Paige. He cares about nothing. With Paige dead, Chuck doesn’t care of the world dies or not. For him, his world is already destroyed. As he poignantly relives his memories, you cannot help but be moved by his plight. The power of knowing the future should make you a god but instead it stabs you through the heart. Ignorance is bliss as they say and here it is never been more true. Chuck’s gruff manner stands him in good stead in dealing with authority figures especially when the FBI come snooping asking why Paige tried to murder a leading politician. Now a single parent he must find a way to keep his two boys safe but he cannot be emotional or sensitive with Neil calling him cold and that he is running away instead of facing his pain. Theey have a huge fight where Neil tries to bring him back to the mission but it isn’t easy when your a cigar smoking tough guy.

Chuck is brought back to the fold when he is kidnapped by a group of synthetics and a Sentient creates a fake world where Paige is alive. She has been using humans to understand human mind and been searching Check’s memories for what he knows about the alien plan. Here he discovers people are being experimented upon, their minds drained into this virtual world before being murdered and dumped like rubbish. This tips Chuck back to the fight, When she releases both of them the Sentient Paige offers Chuck one last moment with his wife but Chuck dismisses it saying she doesn’t have that power. She has his wife’s face but not her soul.This is his first step to bringing the fight to them and honouring Paige. While he is hurting bad over his loss, he realises that others are being murdered needlessly by these things and he is in a unique position to stop them. Chuck even strikes up a new female friendship with a waitress at the cafe they frequent, Penny but keeps it platonic despite her wanting to date him. If there is one positive to come from Paige’s death, it’s that Chuck’s feud with his sister Jennifer ends when she comes to help him sort through Paige’s affairs. Their relationship is frosty to say the least but it is the most vulnerable and open Chuck has been with anyone else bar his wife.

What is nice that aside from Chuck and Neil and a past fling between Kurt and Angela, these people are not friends. They have been thrown together to face an almost impossible task. Their relationships are not easy but over the course of their solitary season, they grow closer especially when tragedy calls and they fail to change their own past issues. Indeed the beauty of Odyssey 5 is how emotional it is hand in hand with action and aliens. The Odyssey 5 see the world through new eyes as the intensity of their mission increases. They see the suffering the Sentients and Synthetics have caused which went unnoticed before. Now their compassion and humanity steer them towards saving the Earth.

Out of everyone Chuck goes through the biggest journey in the solitary season. Sadly we will never get to know the resolution to the story especially with the passing of Manny Coto. However Chuck would live on in a way in the Star Trek universe.

Manny went on to bcome a writer on Star Trek Enterrise and literally saved the show’s final two seasons from being banal until it was cancelled. Using the cancellation news he crafted two of the best seasons of Trek ever using what had come before. When Star Trek Enterprise was cancelled Peter Weller was brought in for a two part block buster Demons and Terra Prime. As John Frederick Paxton leader of an anti alien group that wants Earth for humans, Terra Prime of the title. He creates a baby girl from the DNA from chief engineer Trip Tucker and science officer Vulcan T’Pol. He uses her as an example of how the human race will die out from mating with aliens robbing humanity of its unique genome leading to their extinction. He wants all aliens gone from Earth and the entire solar system or he will fire upon Earth from his Orpheus mining complex. He kidnaps T’Pol and she discovers the baby is dying. Paxton is suffering from Taggart’s syndrome, a nod to Chuck and the irony was he could have found a cure amid the alien medical bases.

But we’d like to think that Chuck Taggart lead his team to victory and save us all. If you ever see a cigar smoking astronaut in sunglasses swearing like a trooper pop up unexpectedly, rest assured that he is there to save us all.