User Reviews

The Cape was a good show but never given the chance to find an audience or should I say the audience couldn't find the show. In my area it played at 1:30am on Saturday nights. The networks probably would have done it in even faster. Later I saw one of the actors selling real estate on HGTV House Hunters. With a large cast and a lot of location shooting it was probably and expensive show to do. The success of SPACE COWBOYS (AWFUL) tells me that a show about the US space program could have been successful if it had been given a good time slot. I wish the one season was available of DVD. Since it involved NASA the show had a real feeling about it. The theme music was also very good. One of the final shows that involved a Russian capsule with dead Cosmonauts aboard was excellent.

The show was a pretty good attempt at a hard subject. There's no way you can reconstruct everything a Astronaut does, or does not do. Not bad for a show from 1996 though. Special effects didn't kick in strong until a couple of years later for television. Over all, The Cape was a great show, but was never really given a chance on network television, at a decent time. As for the other comment, something is not right and I need to clarify. The show started airing in 1996 and the Columbia disaster was on Feb 1st. 2003. So, how can it have any bearing on this show. Do your research before you leave comments. Helps you not look stupid. By the way, NASA did have "some" bearing on the show, the Technical Adviser was Buzz Aldrin. If you don't know who that was, he was the second man on the Moon. Anyway, I can't wait until it comes out on DVD.

The Cape was a great show for those of us who lived in the same community in which it was filmed or for those who wanted to but could not. I am guessing that the drama was set to be soap opera like to show us that even astronauts were people too. It obviously was not supported by NASA as the agency can only provide footage to all interested parties not actually produce a commercial (for profit) program. For me it was exciting to see venues I recognized including Cocoa Village, Cocoa, Florida, in the grocery store shopping scene of one of the episodes. Quick spoiler: No such kind of store there in the mid 1990's or now in 2019.

I think that THE CAPE is a brilliant TV series. It stars Corbin Bernsen and Adam Baldwin and follows the lives of 7 ASCANS (Astronaut Candidates) and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, USA. The actors are brilliant and the storyline is excellent.

The show is also one of the most realistic there is. Many people at NASA and Buzz Aldrin (the astronaut) were technical consultants and helped make this one of the best shows ever.

Unfortunately THE CAPE is not being made any more because it was put on at 3am so nobody could watch it. Even so there is a group of people (including myself) that liked THE CAPE when it was on TV and are trying to get another series made. I recommend The Cape to everybody. 100%.

The Cape series was on air in Europe, my country Belgium in the year 1997-1998. It was aired on the dutch speaking side of the country and i think i seen all of the 23 episodes, i hope. I found it to be a very good show that gives a very interesting inside look (maybe not that perfect!?) on what goes on in and around the cape and in the lives of the people that makes the things work over there. I never seen this show again and want to by it on DVD, but no luck, it seems to be forgotten? It is a shame that such quality show seems to be disappeared between the dust of the archives. Lots of more uninteresting shows are released and reach the public.

We live in hope, maybe somebody gets the idea to release it after-all.

Wishes from Belgium. August Vanden Balck

Unfortunately for viewers, their votes don't count. Shows get canceled due to studio politics. The producers don't invest enough time & money selling new shows to generate enough sponsor support. And, residuals aren't paid on new shows (not in the contract). Thus, great shows get canceled. If production executives, network presidents & studio owners cared about the viewers more than their own paychecks, shows might last long enough to generate a supportive audience. Instead, new shows are launched with limited fanfare, the shows creators are already working on their next big thing, and viewers are left wondering what just happened. Network execs. don't care when a show gets canceled. They just want the bottom line on profits. Thus, we (the viewers) are cheated out of great entertainment. Too bad the networks aren't owned by the viewers...things would change for the better. But, that will NEVER happen. Too bad. I miss The Cape and all other great shows like it, that are systematically replaced by less-appealing shows that cost less to produce. Follow the money, and you can prove this to yourself.

"I mean, come on.. an astronaut attempting suicide because of unrequited love of other astronaut who she slept with in 90210 fashion. Give us a break, this would never happen in the space program and this is an insult to the real NASA employees and Air Force Men and women who do there jobs with the Space program with professionalism and great respect."

In light of recent events in the astronaut corps this 7 year old comment is something the author may wish to take back...

Yes, the show could be unrealistic (well totally unrealistic at times) but it was a fun show to watch regardless. I would love to have it available on DVD at some point.

I was very surprised to see some of the negative comments expressed here. I have seen most of "The Cape" series, and I found it very entertaining.

I can easily believe that it is not entirely realistic (the confusion between KSC and JSC is so obvious I find it possible to ignore it) - but to me this series does at least give some sense of a dramatisation of the shuttle-era astronaut experience. Most of us mere mortals (and especially in the space-deprived UK) never get much closer than this. Even if you visit JSC (and I have, at least 3 times) it is fronted by the PR set-up "Space Center Houston", which, although an enjoyable experience, gives you a highly stylised view of the space programme, and leaves you with only the sketchiest idea of what manned spaceflight is all about. "The Cape" in my view does better, even if not greatly authentic. NASA seem to struggle with popularity and capturing the imagination of the ordinary person (non-space-cadet), despite needing their support. In my view, they were therefore unwise not to back this series. What does "access to space" mean for the average person? In a dramatic (and therefore fictional) sense, "The Cape" provides this.

And if you think Corbin Bernsen doesn't belong in space (perhaps his 'mature fighter jock' character play is not in keeping with the Shuttle era), then he is at least an engaging personality, and to my mind very watchable.

The age of the Shuttle cannot go on for ever, - and what better drama do we have to remember it by?

To whom it may concern - may we please have "the Cape" series on DVD - Region 2?

Some professions lend themselves better to television than others, and that of the pilot (let's face it, astronauts are little more than uber-pilots) is one of them - unless it involves adventure, that is. If it involves straight drama, the problem is that you're challenged to be just as involving when you're grounded as when you're in flight; the only thing anyone remembers about "Spencer's Pilots" is its stirring theme music*, and "Call To Glory" was similarly forgettable.

"The Cape" was no more successful in that respect; to be fair it wasn't really a BAD show - from Corbin Bernsen onwards nobody's acting stunk up the place, and the writing was okay (plus the sight of Bobbie Phillips post-"Murder One" and pre-those "Chameleon" TV movies was never a minus) - but it never really overcame the basic problem of what to do with the characters, and it played far too much like a soap for comfort, except when it launched into space... of course, it would have been too implausible to have a crisis occur every week (in real life, thankfully, accidents in the US space programme are rare), and they didn't. But it was at the expense of making the show more attention-keeping.

Mainly notable as one of the last shows produced by MTM before Twentieth Century Fox swallowed the cat whole - a sad comedown from the days of "Rhoda" and "Hill Street Blues."

That negative Titusville comment was so ridiculous it should never been printed. -- There was more truth in those behind-the-scene episodes than he/she could imagine. It was purposely kept low-key, with most shoots off-base to MINIMIZE any impact on Launch Processing.

The only show we've seen come down the cinematic pike that did not overly romanticize the all-so-human aspects of our "Ascans" and Flight folks.

It was one HELLUVA good show and the effort to bring it back keeps on growing..

I went to KSC, Kennedy Space Center, during the time of this show and there was no mention of it anywhere and nobody seemed to know anything about it, at least they said. I do believe it had the best of intentions, a realistic show about NASA astronauts but it all seemed so unbelievable that nobody really took this show seriously. Anybody who knows anything about the US Space Program knows that it's headquatered at Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX, not at KSC, which is a launch facility and Air Force Base. The Astronauts seemed more like 90210 teens than true astronauts and the stories and plots reflected this. The training in the Space Program is so controlled that if you even showed signs of suicidal tendencies it would be the end of your career not only for space travel but flight as well. I mean, come on.. an astronaut attempting suicide because of unrequited love of other astronaut who she slept with in 90210 fashion. Give us a break, this would never happen in the space program and this is an insult to the real NASA employees and Air Force Men and women who do there jobs with the Space program with professionalism and great respect. So, I'm gald to see that this show is history now and that know one really took it seriously, except maybe Corbin and that Baldwin guy. Hey Corbin, save your sex antics and mellodrama for the new LA Law the new generation, and those Denist movies you do and keep it out of the US Space program.

Corbin Bernsen made a comment himself digised as "The Cape" from KSC. This show is gone, it was a bad show that made a 90210 joke out of the US Space Program. Especially after the Columbia Tragedy, this show was more of an insult. Hey Corbin, stick to playing schister lawyers and dentists, you look like you belong in space about as much as Loren Green did in the old Battlestar Galatica. There's a reason why NASA doesn't recognize this show at all (even though they do recognize "I dream of geine" on their tour) that's because this show was bad. Really bad. William Shatner playing an astronaut would have been better. Na Na Na Na, Na Na Na Na, Hey Hey "The Cape" goodbye...