Left to right - Mercury, Astraea and Hercules
"Many centuries ago, three carefully-selected young Earthlings were transported from their native lands to my faraway world. Here they were granted astounding powers, and eternal youth, then returned to Earth, their mission to watch over the human race, helping the good in it to survive and flourish."
—Opening narration
Space Sentinels (originally named The Young Sentinels until it was renamed partway through the season) is a 1970s cartoon series made by Filmation for NBC.
The story tells the tale of three heroes — Hercules, Mercury and Astraea — who were taken out of their timestreams to a faraway world, given superpowers and sent back to Earth to protect mankind. All three were based on figures from Greek & Roman mythology (Astraea being named for the Greek virgin goddess who became the constellation Virgo). In-universe, however, the mythical figures are explicitly based on them rather than the other way around.
The series was well known for being ahead of its time due to the inclusion of two Token Minority characters, forming its own Token Trio.
Space Sentinels provides examples of:
- Aliens Speaking English: Sentinel-1 and Mo.
- All Asians Know Martial Arts: Mercury knows karate (explicitly called such, even though evidence points to him being Chinese), and often uses it to jump-kick robots in the head.
- All Myths Are True: But they aren't all accurate. Most "gods" are actually space aliens (like Anubis), extra-dimensional entities (like Loki), or super-powered humans (like the Sentinels).
- All Your Powers Combined: Morpheus in "The Sinister Sentinel" had all three Sentinels' powers - Hercules' strength, Mercury's speed and Astraea's animorphing. He tended to use more monstrous forms than Astraea, however.
- Animorphism: Of the Voluntary Shapeshifting variety. Astraea is "able to take any living form" (though she is mainly shown turning into modern Earth animals).
- The Beastmaster: The title character of the episode "Fauna" is this, thanks to her telepathic powers allowing her to communicate with animals. She doesn't control them, but they respect and listen to her (at least, until the end of the episode, when they stop trusting her).
- Distaff Counterpart: As much as giant holographic heads can have a gender at all, Sentinel-7 of the planet Drakon is this to Sentinel-1. She oversees a gender-flipped team of Sentinels, Thon, Valya, and Vaydra.
- Friend to All Living Things: Also Astraea. She can understand all animal languages and can befriend any animal, even ones normally terrified of humans.
- Heel–Face Turn: Anubis is willing to forego his vendetta with humans when the Sentinels offer to send him back in time to prevent his people's destruction.
- Inconsistent Spelling: Astraea or Astrea? The goddess she's named for spells it both ways, and some sources about the show spell it "Astrea", but it's spelled Astraea on the DVD cover.
- Ink-Suit Actor: Even C. Kim voices Mercury, and looks like him, too. In a "talent test" pilot for a never-made live-action adaptation, he's the only one of the three voice actors to play his live-action counterpart.
- Interchangeable Asian Cultures: Mercury is a Chinese man who uses a Japanese martial art and is played by a Korean voice actor. Moreover, in the pilot animatic, he's wearing Mongolian-style armor.
- Latex Space Suit: Mercury and Astraea's costumes.
- Meaningful Name: In "The Time Traveler", the titular character is named Kronos. Chronos was the personification of time in Greek Classical Mythology.
- Mind over Matter: The power of the title villain in the episode "Loki".
- Non-Indicative Name:
- None of the "Young Sentinels" are young. Though youthful in appearance, they're anywhere from a few hundred to a few million years old (if Hercules is actually a Neolithic-era caveman like he appeared to be in the pilot).
- Even after the name change, though, it's still not quite accurate: none of them are from space, though they do live in an alien spacecraft and sometimes deal with threats from space.
Word of God says they were trying to lure in some of the Star Wars audience with the new name.
- Raised by Wolves: Literally, for Fauna.
- Robot Buddy: Sentinel-1's Maintenance Operator, "Mo" for short. He's often used as comic relief, but he's also incredibly good at his job and respected by the other characters for it.
- Shapeshifter Baggage: There's apparently no size limits to what Astraea can turn into, from mouse to elephant.
- Smurfette Principle: Astraea is the only female character in the main cast. Almost averted when they team up with the Sentinel team from the planet Drakon, which consists of one man and two women, but the women spend the entire episode in stasis, so Astraea is still the only woman in the active team. The other two female Sentinels, Valya and Vaydra, have no lines and we never learn what their powers are.
- Speed, Smarts and Strength: The Power Trio is composed of Hercules, a Nordic blond male with tremendous strength; Mercury, an Asian male with phenomenal speed; and Astraea, an African female with metamorphic powers. Since Astraea, in most of her forms, is still the most vulnerable of the three, she's also an excellent tactician.
- Stock Footage: Filmation was very well known for doing this in most of its animated series, and this is no exception. Even conversational shots are reused (which is why the characters' expressions rarely change from a vague smile, even in the most dire of situations). On top of that, they then reused Hercules' design and animation in a completely different show, The Freedom Force (no not that one), part of Tarzan and the Super 7.
- Super-Speed: Mercury, who can "match the speed of light".
- Super-Strength: Hercules, with the "strength of a hundred men".
- Talking the Monster to Death: This being a 1970s kids show, very few problems were solved with violence, and any such violence was against inanimate objects and machines rather than people. The villains were always talked down or, at worst, outwitted.
- Time-Travel Tense Trouble: In "The Time Traveler":Kronos: How do you know my name?
Astraea: We've met before — or should I say since. - Token Minority / Token Trio / Twofer Token Minority: Mercury is Asian (implied to be Chinese in "The Wizard of Od" and "The Sorceress"), Astraea is black (her original outfit appears to be Egyptian), and even Hercules is Ambiguously Brown (though he might just have a good tan).
- In the animatic pitch for the show, Astraea is from Africa (being shown in a stereotypical village with mud huts and clay pots), Mercury appears to be from Mongolia (wearing armor and riding a horse), and Hercules is a Handsome Heroic Caveman (standing in front of an actual cave, while dressed in furs and holding a club).
- 20 Minutes into the Future:
- The series takes place in 1985. By this time, a moonbase is under development.
- In "The Time Traveler", the title character Kronos comes from 1999. In that year, an alien race arrived on the moonbase and agreed to share its advanced technology with the peace loving countries of the world. However, Kronos' nation was excluded as it was considered too warlike.
- Walking Shirtless Scene: Hercules. In the live-action talent test, Mercury.
- Wing Ding Eyes: Mo expresses non-verbal communication with these, especially question marks when confused. (In fact, he doesn't have a mouth, so he expresses all communication with his eyes, synched to his speech)
- Your Magic's No Good Here: In "The Wizard of Od", the team visits an alternate dimension called Fansia, where their powers work oddly, when they work at all: Mercury finds himself going super-slowly when he can move at all, Hercules has no super-strength, Astraea can only turn into distorted versions of herself before figuring out she can turn into mythical animals instead of real ones, and none of them can fly.
