Adriana Grugel-Park

Sloppy, characterizations and scenarios, with a totally boring and unsubstantiated bias against millennials. I have watched two episodes of Another Life, but I’m going to jump to the last episode of the season and fast forward through it, so that Netflix won’t post it on my, “Continue Watching” list. I love sci-if. After recognizing some of the stronger cast members and production team, before starting Another Life, I thought I would give this series a go. However, pretty soon, I came to regret my choice. In an age of brilliant sci-fi and television drama series, Another Life is unbelievable. Here is an example of how skirting around the heart of an event, can lead to a missed opportunity to explore an otherwise interesting moral quandary. Spoilers: The fact that Yerxa’s death is due to the outcome of a fight, right after he had just been reinstated, post-mutiny, is never sufficiently nor truthfully explored. The death is preceded by Yerxa pulling a knife on Niko, when her back is turned. She, sensing his ambush, turns around and kicks him, defending herself. Yerxa, losing his balance, falls into a rogue electrical field (created by damage to the ship from his own poor “decisions”) and dies. Niko, upon announcing to the crew that Yerxa is dead, leads them to believe she killed him- entirely on purpose. Later, Niko is dogged by William, her AI interface and a hologram version of Yerxa, William provides, to wonder aloud if she had any other choice than to kill the back-stabbing officer. It might have been an interesting issue to explore, had the incident not been predicated on the kind of self-defence response that happens so quickly, there is no time to delve into moral considerations before the assailant is roasted by a random electrical field. The subsequent explanation to the crew that the “murder” of the first officer, was necessary, because, “He was dangerous to the mission”, is simply, lame. If these characters were so self absorbed, mindless and violent, that only a strong showing of force would capture their attention and respect, how could you possibly expect them to take care of a space ship that stands between them and the vacuum of space- much less, keep it together long enough- to potentially save planet Earth? What would possess anyone of rank and experience, on Earth, to choose this crew in the first place? Nepotism? Blackmail? A practical joke? I’d also like to know came up with the Michelle character? Can anyone believe that a such an insubordinate, whining, “27-year-old-club”, Kim-Kardashian-wannabe, would ever be accepted on a deep-space, mission? How ever alienated the writers were with their concepts of millennials, it’s impossible to believe that a character with such little self-control could ever be trusted with the fate of humanity. I haven’t seen such unrealistic characters, since the Alien prequels of Ridley Scott. (I know- rough) It’s a shame. So far, the core characters played by Katie Sackhoff, (a veteran of Batttlestar Galactica and other decent sci-fi); Samuel Anderson and Justin Chatwin, (both of whom were on Doctor Who in the days of Stephen Moffat), are solid, and certainly deserve better material than this. And, it’s too bad. The production value and design is decent. The sets and costumes work, too. However, Another Life, is either the result of a strange concoction of Netflix algorithms, or perhaps there were too many technicians in Engineering when this series was linked to the FTL drive. I’ll be skipping Season 2, unless the writing comes of age.