RogerBW's Blog

2016, 10 episodes. Space bounty hunters fight what looks at first like political oppression, but which turns out to have more behind it.

This is still a generic sci-fi setting, and you still have to turn off the part of your brain that cares about travel times and reaction mass. While the spaceships of this universe aren't quite mere plot devices to get the characters to where the adventure happens, they do basically go where they're told and not have to worry about fuel or life support or maintenance.

There's much more of a long-term plot across this series; the bounty hunting is now used mostly as an excuse (indeed, an in-story excuse) to get the characters where they want to be to conduct their investigations. Of course, sometimes the only contract available in a particular place will be related to the big plot, and the episodes pretty much stand alone anyway.

Yeah, all right, they killed off my favourite character (I won't say who because it came as something of a surprise). That doesn't make this a bad show, and it was done very well, but I was certainly disappointed; I thought that person had more to do. Still, perhaps that's the point.

With the ground rules established by season one, this season is mostly about exploring the characters: in particular, why they do what they do, and how they might think about changing that in the future. That's really more important, in the end, than the political games or what the "green plasma" might mean. You could start the show here, but the background (both for the setting and for the characters) built up by the first season is only lightly sketched in here, and relying on those recaps won't have the emotional impact of taking the long way round.

Michelle Lovretta remains as showrunner, and the series has been renewed for another season.