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| Credit: Pixabay.com |
Last post I talked about Nightflyers, the new science
fiction-horror TV miniseries based on George R.R. Martin’s novella
of the same name. As much as I said I
was looking forward to its premiere episode, I didn’t watch it.
That is, I didn’t watch it on its premiere night which was last
Sunday. It was on in my area at 10 and I normally try going to bed
before that time on Sunday nights. So I taped it on my old
TV-VCR-in-one and finally watched the debut episode last night. (No,
I don’t have a DVR.)
The debut episode
came across well as the science fiction-horror that the novella was
made to be. It would be a 100 percent slasher-in-space if violent
gore was at the centre of this series in which so far it isn’t.
What is at the centre is a power that kills people and is hiding on
the spaceship. Like all great science fiction-horror, the setting is
fitting. The series takes place on a colony ship called the
Nightflyer which is dark and gigantic yet claustrophobic in it’s
interior much like the Nostromo in Alien. The episode provided
plenty of suspense and good pacing of the movement of events. It
opened good in introducing the conflict: the ship’s biologist has
gone psycho and is swinging an axe, chasing the ship’s
psychiatrist. Then the story goes back to the beginning of events to
unfold its way to show what started the killing spree which, of
course, we won’t know the complete cause until the end of the
series. So the opening scene serves as a kind of preview of coming
attractions. The biologist isn’t the only one that goes
psychotic on board the ship, by the way, and so the terror doesn’t
end at the beginning. You can take comfort in that.
As with many of today’s science fiction and horror TV series’s
episodes, Nightflyers Episode 1 ends leaving the viewer in
suspense, in this case with a cliffhanger. I definitely have no
problem with cliffhangers, in fact, I like them. The problem that I
do have with TV series that’s episodes leave off at suspenseful
points is when they are too dependent on doing so. When they’re too
dependent on the suspenseful ending, they often drop off with out any
kind of conclusion which this episode does. Of course, the episode can’t have too solid of a
conclusion since the series is built on a continuous story line. The
problem is that it doesn’t have a satisfying conclusion on the
subplot level. Because of this nothing is resolved and so there is no
sense of completion. An ending like this is a big let-down to the
audience because it’s making viewers want to watch the next episode
and so is serving not much more as a marketing gimmick. Hopefully it
won’t be that way with every episode in this series.
Most everything else
about Nightflyers, so far, is done well. The characterization
is okay and believable enough, the visual and sound effects are good
considering that it’s a television show, and the story presents
itself clearly.
Nightflyers is airs
Sunday through Thursday, 10 PM/9PM Central on the SyFy Channel. If
you miss an episode or the show’s scheduled time slot doesn’t
work for you then record it on DVR or, if you’re a vintage rat pack
like me, VCR. Or you can watch for free past episodes streamed at
SyFy.com!
Have you been
watching Nightflyers? If so, what do you think of it so far?
Until next time . .
.
I watched the first two episodes for free on YouTube and was hooked. It does have its gore moments further on since it is a hybrid haunted house tale. Thanks for visiting my blog and caring enough to comment. :-)
ReplyDeleteNo problem, Roland. Thank you for doing the same with my blog. I'll be watching the second episode only tonight (since I'm often too busy throughout the week to watch them all at once) and I can hardly wait!
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