George R.R. Martin's Nightflyers asks if humanity deserves to be saved

Spoilers for the general plot of Nightflyers in front of.

In the first episode of the new Syfy series Nightflyers, Karl D'Branin (Eoin Macken), responsible for a scientific expedition to intercept an alien spacecraft and establish the first contact, discusses the mission with xenobiologist Rowan (Angus Sampson). Karl sees the ship's incredible energy as humanity's salvation, but Rowan expects the aliens did not respond to Earth's repeated messages because they did not want to talk.

"All intelligent beings would see the human race for what we are," he says. "We are a virus that has killed its host and is looking for a new host to infect … they will probably exterminate us."

Science fiction usually depicts aliens either as evil forces seeking to conquer the Earth or as benevolent beings helping humans on the path to enlightenment. Nightflyers stands out because he asks what form of extraterrestrial contact deserves humanity. Freely inspired by the 40-year-old novel by George R. R. Martin. Nightflyers takes place in 2093, as humanity seeks to colonize the stars to escape their homes devastated by the plague. D'Branin persuaded the mysterious Captain Roy Eris (David Ajala) to board the Nightflyer with a hand-picked team of scientists and specialists to seek help from the aliens – known as volcryn -.

Things immediately start to go wrong when the Nightflyer knows a series of mysterious mechanical problems that Eris mysteriously promises to master. Worse yet, it is the presence of the powerful psychic Thale (Sam Strike), who, according to Karl, is the key to communication with the volcryn. Wonderfully played as an abrasive Cockney teen proofing the bounds of his entourage, Thale is both a monster and a scapegoat for the ship. It encourages characters and viewers to wonder if what they see is real or if it's just his mind games. Some vaguely reported incidents led to all mediums being removed from their parents and imprisoned as soon as their powers manifested themselves, and the crew's treatment of Thale threatens their ability to make contact, but it also feeds expectations. pessimistic Rowan.

Showrunner Jeff Buhler has built a fascinating world around the seeds of Martin's story, starting by placing the action in the foreseeable future, rather than in the distant and incomprehensible future. The technologies invented here are particularly intriguing, as the first officer in charge of genetic modification Melantha Jhirl (Jodie Turner-Smith) must be better adapted to travel in space, or the cybernetic technician Lommie (Maya Eshet) uses for connect to the machines. Given the state of actual technological development of genetic engineering and research on brain-machine interfaces, the series seems plausible and well anchored, even if it is in a global future.

While most of the action takes place aboard the Nightflyer, an additional exposure sometimes goes through flashbacks, activated by a sphere that looks like a fusion of Star TrekHolodeck and the memory read technology used in the Black mirror Episode "The whole of your story". This is a new idea, but how often do crew members choose to transcribe terrible memories, especially when the sadistic information controlling the ship begins to use their data against them. Memory is a major theme in Nightflyers, with Karl agonizing about his wife's decision to follow a therapy straight out of Eternal sun of the spotless spirit to help him overcome the death of their daughter, while Roy is haunted by the thoughts of his brilliant mother who designed Nightflyer.

Photo: Jonathan Hession / Syfy

Nightflyers Break the tension of the horror of space with a good old soap opera. Stressed, far from home, and presented with limited romantic options, crew members quickly form a tangle of relationships. Lommie meets Melantha, who wishes to remain informal, because she also has a weakness for the captain, who watches her with terror through the cameras of the ship. Thale is fascinated by her psychologist, Dr. Agatha Matheson (Gretchen Mol), whose romantic past with Karl has deteriorated because of his work with mediums. Rowan flirts with the ship's biologist as they badyze blood samples. It's pretty silly and hard to take seriously, but it helps to invest in the characters, to keep the audience interested in the outcome of the crisis of the day.

It's easy to make comparisons between Nightflyers and Hulu recently debuted Origin since both concern the crews of spaceships in trouble. Nightflyers This is the best model, based less on gore fear and fear jumps than on slow-burning psychological suspense. But it is far from perfect, and the novelty of its place of life and its universe is burdened by too much confidence in familiar tropes, such as killer robots, malicious AI and haunted houses.

Photo: Jonathan Hession / Syfy

Perhaps the biggest weakness of the series is its refusal to put an end to intrigue, a common trap for mystery-driven genre programming. Nightflyers"The opening of the scene tells viewers that the story does not end well for at least some of the team members, and the series is designed to explore how they get to this point. Even in the first five episodes provided for review, some of this material appears to fill. It is understandable that the editors do not want to give answers, which are so often less satisfactory than the questions. Roy immediately becomes a much less sympathetic character as soon as he reveals to the crew his great secret. The scenes they spend trying to process this information are some of the worst in the series, and just when they feel they can move on, Buhler uses another tired horror trope to make it clear that nothing is really resolved.

Many other small mysteries are introduced and left unresolved, which largely explains why aliens are called volcryn. In Martin's short story, the word comes from a myth that humans learn from other extraterrestrials, but there is no explanation here. This is particularly irritating because the wide variety of accents between actors makes it difficult to define the name.

Like humanity, Nightflyers is struggling with serious problems. But both also have the potential to learn from their mistakes and to do something extraordinary. The crew of the Nightflyer must plead for the survival of a powerful alien race. Nightflyers is facing a similar existential crisis. To survive, it must gain the attention and love of viewers in a crowded sci-fi field, and they may be even harder to understand.

The 10 episodes of Nightflyers will be broadcast on Syfy from December 2nd to 13th at 10 pm ET.