Scott Auerbach

Far and away the smartest and best science fiction series ever to hit television. Very realistic (shockingly grounded in real-world physics, in fact), with no pew-pew laser guns, artificial gravity, warp drives, transporters, etc. Set in the near future, it brilliantly focuses on mankind’s strengths and foibles, touching on topics such as colonial exploitation, environmental degradation, politics, capitalism, tribalism, wars for domination or independence, love, what it means to be human, and how we react when faced with something completely unimaginable. Despite the deeply intelligent and humane tone of the show, it is also ENTERTAINING AS HELL. The show’s writers know how to keep an audience on the edge of their seats, and how to insert a new mystery every time they answer one. Compelling, non-cardboard characters with complex lives. The only caveat is that the first few episodes of Season 1 have a steep entrance ramp, as there’s little of the usual exposition. You just have to pay attention and plow through the first four episodes, trusting that the multiple storylines will pay off, which they do.

This is a show that isn’t bad enough to actually become amusing by its awfulness… it’s just plain bad storytelling. Actors do the best they can with plot holes large enough to drive a planet through, stilted dialogue, a relentlessly Bleak-with-a-capital-B tone, and more horror movie tropes than you could list on an entire legal notepad. Calling this science fiction is a stretch… it’s a lazy horror thriller script that just happens to be on a spaceship. Strange things happen, bad things happen, portent is sprayed randomly with a firehose, almost nothing is explained, the few explanations that do come are laughable, and then it just… ends. Entirely unsatisfying and as unoriginal as if an AI algorithm had been trained to take 5% from each of twenty sci-fi and horror movies and regurgitate them into a “new” script.