New sci-fi series starring Katee Sackhoff which will premiere on Netflix on July 25. I'll definitely be watching this and hopefully it won't disappoint.


https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8369840/?ref_=nv_sr_1?ref_=nv_sr_1

Yep, I'll be watching.

Oooohhh Starbuck..

Katee Sackhoff you say? I'm in

I just added to my watchlist earlier today, then I cam across this review: https://pjmedia.com/trending/netflix-another-life-review-kill-it-with-fire/


I guess I'll watch some of it anyway but I'm not expecting much now.

I’ve watched the first two episodes so far and I have to admit that I agree with the avalanche of negative reviews this series has received so far. For me the most absurd aspect of the show is the crew of the ship. Supposedly this ship is on a super critical mission to make first contact with aliens so what kind of people are hired for the crew? Almost entirely all whiny college aged kids! I wish I could be joking but I’m not. In addition, much of the dialogue is pretty cheesy and full of over the top emotion. I’ll give this show 2 more episodes and of it doesn’t improve I’ll drop it.

On another site a poster wrote an Apollo 11 dialogue in the vein of this show:

Neil: An unexpected crater. I’ll go around.
Buzz: I think it would be faster to go over.
Neil: That’s too risky.
Buzz: You’re weak and ineffective and I remove you from command! (Knocks Neil out with hypodermic needle).
Buzz: Houston, I’m in charge now! Recognize my authority!
*bangs rock the lander as multiple warnings and cautions blare*
Neil: (waking up). You almost killed us! I’m back in charge!
(lands ship)
Neil: Okay, lets get back to work and repair the damage.
Buzz: You are totally driven by ego! I wouldn’t have been nearly so lenient.
(grabs knife and tries to kill Neil.)
(Neil kicks him out of the hatch and Buzz bloats up and dies.)

This is both hilarious and depressing because it's totally on the mark.

Watched two last night. The first was pretty slow, until near the end where it took an odd turn. The second was better and seemed to pick up. How it ended was easily foreseen though. Do they not have scifi movies in their universe? LOL
So far it’s enjoyable, but if that changes I’ll drop it.
Rewatching BSG reboot, again, so I get a good fix anyway.

There are exactly two interesting characters on the entire show right now and they are the only reason I'm giving this show some more time before I decide to drop it. Niko and the ship AI "William".

I was disappointed with what happened with the one character, seemed a waste of a good actor. Maybe he’s still worked in, but it can’t be the same unless something major happens.

I started to watch it, but it was hopeless. I gave up, utter cr@p. The mobius strip shape of the alien ship was a bit of a hint of the cr@ppiness to come.

Did you watch the complete first episode or you didn't even make it that far?

Through 5 or 6 and it’s not bad. More episodic than I expected, it’s not just the ongoing story. Not much actually original content. Each episode is clearly an intentional homage, or certain scifi tv/movie trope. I’m enjoying it, as is my wife. We’re blowing through it pretty quickly. The episodes aren’t as slow and snooze inducing as the first one.

I won't be able to watch episode 3 until Friday but at least now I have appropriately adjusted (ie lowered) my expectations.

Never made it past the two shielas in the lounge when the mobius strip spaceship appeared, Panzer.

The show isn’t perfect, but it does pick up. We’ve got 3 to go and are enjoying it. The story seems to be unfolding, with any luck for a reveal by the end of the season.

Are you kidding me? (In reference to episode 3).

So apparently according to the show you can expose yourself to massive amounts of radioactive gamma rays from a white dwarf star and the worst thing that will happen to you is you become sterile?

I’m done.

Not sure if I managed to even get that far I know I seen the first two episodes and can't be bothered trying for the third, it is bad.

Aren't they supposed to be able to go FTL? If so, why do they need that slingshot assist to correct for the incredibly stupid navigational error?

That's an excellent question. You can add it to the huge list of loop holes that pervade the show.


The biggest and most inexcusable flaw has to be the composition of the crew. This is supposedly a mission of critical and unprecedented importance for all of Earth so who gets hired for the crew? Emotionally insecure and immature college-aged kids.

Yup.

Watching the show might answer some questions. Just a thought. LOL

Thanks PM.

Staying on the subject of FTL, how can they conduct real-time conversations between ship and Earth? There’s not even a nod to the fact that people on Earth would have aged quite a lot by the time they talk to the crew. Clearly the writers have no knowledge of Einstein and relativity or worse, they think the public is stupid.

The crew being incompetent and struck by Milenial Decease is a giveaway as to the total lack of quality writing for this show, as is the rip-off of Close Encounters of the Third Kind. And that scientist hubby crouching as he randomly and without a clue searches for a response from the thing in the ground is embrassingly bad writing/acting.

Some people don't want hard sci-fi (ie realistic).

We want popcorn and drama and action, I don't give a #%&*$# about the physics behind it.

With your reasoning; Star Trek and Star Wars are the worst ever, as they don't care about Einstein or anything. They even have TIME TRAVEL!

You make some valid points but I would argue that even for "popcorn action/drama" science fiction, "Another Life" is still not very good.

I didn't say it was very good. I was just arguing about the "hard science" point.

Because about every since movie and series about sci-fi we love breaks it.
If I want realism, I'll sign up for a college class in astrophysics.

Edit: That being said, I love the various "Mars" series, Apollo 13, Interstellar and other fun movies.

2001 though is a boring snoozefest.

Your points are very valid. A lot of classic Sci-Fi... .- isn't.

Star Trek TOS didn't really explain if the 5 year mission was years on Enterprise or on Earth. I was a lot younger and less critical when I first fell in love with that show. If I remember correctly, I might be wrong, but didn't communications between ship and Starfleet occur through the nearest Starbase? I seem to remember that an implied underlying communications structure had been set in place in order to ensure the timely passing of messages. Not really an option within capabilities that we can foresee today but at least an effort was made to help the viewer suspend disbelief. Again, just going from memory here but I think Gene Roddenberry was quite insistent on - without lecturing or becoming too entangled in specifics that things should be believable. TNG certainly dealt in the legendary Star Trek "techno-babble" to "explain" some plot points. At it's best, ST had some great storytelling. Besides, everyone knows that to time travel you need to go around the Sun very fast! Was it clockwise or anti-clockwise?

Babylon 5 made use of jump-gates and the existence of beacons or buoys in hyperspace but still they did not really explain how the characters could zoom around the universe between Episilon Eridani and the Solar System without relativistic effects occurring. But did that show have epic writing interesting characters and strong stories or what!

Then we have the harder Sci-Fi like the Expanse. Brilliant show.

And 2001. Imho one of the timless classic Sci-Fi movies and probably closest to my vision of what is true Sci-Fi.

In the above examples, it is my belief that that characters are established and their reasons for being who they are, are established as well. We get to know them so we can understand when they act out of character. If they act out of character or irrational they are either under the influence of something unknown, like a space virus for Dr. McCoy to produce a vaccine, or they are under great stress or motivated by their ambitions and desires and are gradually changing before our eyes, like G'Kar and Londo in Babylon 5..

Great storytelling, world- and character building are to my mind essential to help suspend the disbelief.

Perhaps the reason I notice the technical and physics errors in Another Life is that it fails to entertain me. I don't like any of the characters, and the story is highly derivative and full of standard cliches.

Everything is just my personal opinion of course and I'm happy for those who enjoy the show.

It doesn't have to be the best to be worth watching. If it didn't grab your interest enough by the first couple of episodes to keep watching, then so be it. To keep complaining about a show you guys didn't watch enough to know what's going on is just a little silly.
We finished the season and enjoyed it.

Excellent post McGonigle and I think it's reasonable to say that most sci-fi fans realize and understand that ALL science fiction movies and shows have to deviate to some extent from established scientific fact in order to make story-telling compromises.

The question is then what is the EXTENT of that deviation and how much of a deviation should be tolerable? Of course that will vary on a person by person basis.

What time travel has there been in Star Wars?

I think the most important part of a science fiction world/universe is to establish some ground rules and the stick to them. However the longer a show runs the more "exceptions to the rules" we encounter. In Star Trek they can scan an entire solarsystem in minutes, but not when it doesn't fit the plot, so enter a solar flare or some strange radiation that limits scanners, transporters and all the other important gadgets that would make the problems trivial.

In the recent Star Wars films it looks more like the script writers intentionally broke every rule and pre-established custom... and not to universal acclaim

Ok so my wife convinced me to watch episode 4 and 5 and while there is still way too much campiness and stupid crew behavior for my tastes, there have been some slight improvements in other areas.

So which one had the more implausible and dysfunctional crew for a supposedly “critical mission”?

Another Life or Prometheus?

Another life is really crap.

Watched the whole season to please ths missus but couldn't wait for it to end (spoiler, it does not get any better).

She's watching next season by herself, deal.

There's a very good chance Netflix will not be renewing the series for a second season if the deluge of negative reviews in any way translated to low streaming numbers.

I really wanted to like this show. I like Katee Sackhoff and thought we might have something good here.

Major spoilers follow:

So I watched the 10 episodes for a second time to see if maybe my perception of the show might change.

Nope.


Overall this is such an amateurish show compared to stuff like The Expanse and Altered Carbon. The show stopper for me is definitely the cry baby Millennial crew of the ship and the shoe-horned, in your face “alternative” sex lifestyles.

This show has been renewed for a second season.

Go figure...

Oh wow I'm genuinely surprised by that. I guess the streaming numbers were good enough for Netflix.