TV REVIEW : Fasten Your Seat Belts, It’s Gonna Be a Derivative Ride!

At last, a network science-fiction show so perfectly, fantastically stupid it makes “Battlestar Galactica” look like “2001.” That’s CBS’ new “Space Rangers” . . . the ultimate drip.

This series (premiering at 8 tonight on Channels 2 and 8) aims to give us “The A-Team” of outer space. Or maybe “CHiPs” with Vulcans and a lot more firepower. In case the titular rangers don’t banter quite enough like bad 20th-Century TV cops in their off moments, in times of crisis they’re given lines like: “Strap in, people! We’re gonna play an unscheduled cops-’n’-robbers!”

Unscheduled , meanwhile, is where this misfire is likely to be in 1994, let alone 2104.

About all “Space Rangers” is good for is a game of spot-the-”Star Wars”-influences. Dig those clunky, worn-out spaceships that tend to malfunction unless you bang on the dashboard a little. (What a mind-blowing sci-fi wrinkle: Even in the future, things don’t always run right!)

And, frankly, what’s a spaceship malfunction without a perfectly coiffed crew--preferably with stubble on the grubby captain, a hard-boiled femme who’s stepped right out of a cosmetics commercial, and an android who can be insulted as a bag of bolts--to trade dismissive bons mots even as disaster looms?

This silliness will elicit yawns as long as galaxies from grown-ups, but “Space Rangers” might be good for kids--a good chance to teach ‘em a lesson about the limits of derivation, anyway.

Capt. John Boon (Jeff Kaake) is the hunky Harrison Ford substitute. “What a motley crew!” he says proudly of his comrades and/or comic foils, who include mind-reading Spock knockoff Zylyn (Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa), fat-guy repairman Doc (Jack McGee) and low-voiced feminist blonde bombshell JoJo (Marjorie Monaghan).

It’s the comely firebrand JoJo who gets to spit out this speech concerning the controversial android on board: “Maybe I’ve been hit so many times by so many space dweebs I’m punch-stupid, but it’s my job, and don’t you think I’m giving it up to some wind-up toy without a fight!”

Speaking of wind-up toys, does this show have any reason for being besides merchandising?

Providing the show a bit of dignity it doesn’t deserve is Oscar-winner Linda Hunt, underplaying the commander who gives the motley ones their marching orders each episode.

In the opener, she sends them out to make a galactic drug bust, during which the rangers trade massive gunfire (no phasers here) with a hit man who escapes by breaking himself up into floating globules and then reconstituting. This henchman is working for a sinister alien crime boss without hair, ears or manners who, having eluded arrest in the premiere, looks to be the Blofeld of the series. He loses his cool just long enough to hiss at the heroes upon their departure from his harem-like lair--a spontaneous reaction the viewing audience may by then share.

“Space Rangers” has the misfortune to be premiering the same week as the superior “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” but it would seem as insipid any airdate. Call it “Space Deep Six.”