‘Smallville’ Star’s Forgotten 21-Episode Sci-Fi Reboot Deserves Your Next Binge

Nairavoice | Oct 26, 2026 10h ago 122 0 10 min read

‘Smallville’ Star’s Forgotten 21-Episode Sci-Fi Reboot Deserves Your Next Binge

In the early 2000s, there were plenty of one-and-done shows that came and went without much fanfare at all. But there’s only one full-season television program that attempted to slow-burn the pulpy science fiction of yesteryear before trickling to an end with hardly any impact. The series in question? SyFy’s often maligned take on Flash Gordon. Okay, if you’ve heard anything about this show you’re probably rolling your eyes. However, the Eric Johnson-led reboot isn’t as bad as it seems. Eventually, the series found its voice and became one of the most misunderstood sci-fi shows of the decade.

‘Flash Gordon’ Struggled at First To Modernize the Sci-Fi Space Opera

Predating even heroes like Batman and Superman, Flash Gordon first appeared in newspaper comic strips in 1934 as an alternative to the sci-fi adventures of the similar Buck Rogers. It wasn’t long before film serials adapted the character to the screen, followed eventually by several live-action and animated television adaptations and eventually the famed 1980 space opera film titled, well, Flash Gordon. This isn’t a new character, and over the years various adaptations have reworked the mythos time and again. So when the Sci-Fi Channel (known now as SyFy) pledged to revive the classic space opera only a few years after successfully reimagining Battlestar Galactica, science fiction fans and lovers of pulp everywhere were ready.

Four teams, four completely different reasons to put yourself in danger
for strangers. This is the roster you actually belong on, what they would want from you, and what it
would cost you to stay.

You belong where the stakes are largest and the personalities are
loudest. This is a team of people who are all used to being the most important person in the
room, which is exactly why it works and exactly why it keeps nearly falling apart.

The Avengers are not friends who became a team. They are a team that slowly and
reluctantly became friends, and you would recognise every stage of that process.
You can hold your own among big egos without needing to win every exchange, which is the
real entry requirement here.
The arguing is part of the method. This group does its best thinking mid-disagreement,
usually at volume, usually in a very expensive building.
When the sky opens, they are who shows up. You would want to be standing in that line.

You have never had the luxury of being thanked for this. The
X-Men protect a world that has never once been comfortable with them existing, and something
in you understands exactly why they keep doing it anyway.

This is the only team on the list whose central conflict is not a villain. It is being
wanted gone by the same people they keep saving.
You know what it is to be the outsider in a room and to decide, anyway, that you will
not make yourself smaller so everyone else is comfortable.
The X-Men are the most genuine found family in comics. People arrive with nowhere else
to go and are never once asked to explain themselves.
You would not be joining for the glory. There has never been any.

You do not want colleagues, you want your people. The Titans are
the team where the friendship came first and the world-saving turned up afterwards as an
inconvenient side effect.

Every Titan is somebody’s sidekick who decided to stop being one. That decision, not the
villain of the week, is what the team is actually about.
You would be joining people who are all working themselves out at the same time as you,
which is far less lonely than being the only one.
The Titans lose regularly. Then they eat together and come back better, which is a more
honest model of growing up than any other team here manages.
The tower would be loud, chaotic, and the first place that ever felt like yours.

You are not asking who to trust. You worked out the answer a
while ago and it was nobody in a cape. This is where you go once you have decided the people
in charge need watching, and that nobody else is going to do it.

The Boys have no powers, no mandate and no funding. What they have is leverage,
patience, and a very high tolerance for consequences.
You are the person in the room who notices the thing everybody else has quietly agreed
not to mention.
This is not a heroic team and it has never pretended otherwise. It is a group of damaged
people doing necessary work in ways nobody would call clean.
You would not sleep well. You would keep going anyway.

Often retitled Flash Gordon: A Modern Space Opera upon re-release, the 2007 series was developed by Peter Hume as a contemporary take on the classic comic character, with former Smallville star Eric Johnson cast as the titular Steven “Flash” Gordon. Having lost his father at a young age to a fire, Flash has felt as if there was more to the universe for quite some time. It isn’t long, then, before he finds himself caught up in the affairs of another world — an alien planet called Mongo —ruled by the cosmic dictator Ming the Merciless (John Ralston). Joined by ex-assassin Baylin (Karen Cliche), the genius Dr. Hans Zarkov (Jody Racicot), and his ex-girlfriend and the character’s longtime romantic interest, Dale Arden (Gina Holden), Flash sets off on a series of cosmic adventures that will change his life forever. If only audiences had felt that way.

Flash Gordon attempted to bring the famed adventure hero into the 21st century but suffered from a poor pilot episode (which is not made better by the extended version) and an even poorer batch of follow-up episodes that failed to capture audiences the way the character easily could have. While camp has always been a part of Flash Gordon since the comic strip days, the series wasn’t terribly well written, presented with some unfortunate editing and acting choices while spending entirely too much time dealing with Flash’s personal life on Earth. The clearly limited budget likely didn’t help either. In an effort to make Flash Gordon “relatable,” the 2007 series gave the character real-world problems and diluted the mythic sci-fi icon into something longtime fans initially failed to recognize. In some ways, it was SyFy’s answer to shows like Smallville and Merlin, which attempted to show how their respective characters became heroes. Only, it didn’t quite work for Flash.