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TV Tuesdays Free Talk
Have you watched any TV shows recently you want to discuss? Any shows you want to recommend or are hyped about? Feel free to discuss anything here.
Please just try to provide fair warning of spoilers if you can.
After watching Common Side Effects a couple weeks back, I looked up the creators' other work and found a rabid cult following for Scavengers Reign. I'm five episodes in, and I like it so far, it's quite intriguing. The creative team has clearly put effort into conceptualizing alien flora and fauna, with phenomena that aren't explained, just demonstrated and have to be taken at face value. My quibble is that they don't go radical enough IMO, as most designs have some parallel to an existing animal or plant here on Earth. It's a critique I have of most sci-fi I come across (which is not a huge amount, to be fair). I don't see very many instances of things that seem dangerously incomprehensible in shows or movies, but I imagine there must be some famous example or three in literature that is yet to be adapted. I suppose it's a tough tightrope to walk and not lose your audience.
With that said, I'm pretty much hooked and I'm surely going to finish the series within the next week or so.
My personal theory is that it's not a truly alien planet but one terraformed as a potential human habitat (among many).
Reason is that all the humans seem to trust that the atmosphere is breathable too easily. Maybe the main crews have sensors and stuff, but what they show of the pirate crew is quite interesting. Their first activity upon landing on a new planet is a breathing test. And it seems like a regular thing they do too. It only makes sense if we assume they don't have proper equipments, but are still reasonably sure none of the planets they enter would be too toxic.
Another is when the Demeter got damaged (forgot what happened to the ship, it's been a while since I've watched), the crew decided the best course of action is to eject themselves to the unknown planet first. It's weird if you think about it, if they're waiting for rescue, wouldn't it be a safer bet to stay on the ship and in orbit, rather than going to a potentially non-survivable planet with the additional difficulty of taking off later? The plot seems to show the crew are generally experienced and their actions more or less follow protocol (especially the captain). The SOP seems to be: during an emergency, first send a scout unit to a nearby planet, determine if it's safe, for landing, then call the mothership for landing. It seems that in this world, it's typically safer to land on a planet than staying in orbit during an emergency, and that only works if it's known beforehand that most planet they'd pass by are potentially habitable.
Third is the Demeter itself, it's said to be transporting for colony building, which in this world seems to be a well-established industry. If so it would make sense that terraforming is also a well developed practice, and so it's not uncommon to find habitable planets.
I find this show has a particularly interesting viewpoint about ecology and human's role in it (the circle of life scene is most revealing) that I haven't seen before, though I haven't read or watched much so that's not a high bar admittedly. Sad that we likely won't get a season 2.
I wish I could watch Scavengers Reign cold again. Its so cool. You might also like Undone and Pantheon. Both are really neat in their own way, but Undone is all rotoscoped, which really sets it apart. Another I really liked that isn't scifi at all was Midnight Gospel --- these are all really neat wrt building their respective worlds, which is my jam.
Well, look at this. You previously recommended me Undone about 3 years ago, and I did like it! When I posted after finally having watched it, you mentioned Scavengers Reign, and I'm absolutely sure I would have looked that up to see what it was you were referencing, but... maybe it just didn't catch my eye back then? So weird.
haha speaks to my memory :)
I'd love to find more series like these. I tend to have them around for ages in my TV folder before I finally decide to watch them.
Scavengers (2016) was the original short film, if you haven't watched it yet. They really refined it in every way.
Ooh, amazing! I love to see the "first draft" vs. the final vision. Makes me wonder if there's any kind of junior animator showcase like the anime industry does with the Young Animator Training Project.