I was excited to watch this because of Michael B. Jordan's involvement in it, which made me expect one of the stronger episodes of the series. It was okay for what it was, but I never felt particularly invested and by the end of I just found myself thinking, ''That was it?''. The concept of it is incredibly simple. There is nothing really new about it, and in terms of survival stories, there are some much stronger ones out there and this one just fell really flat for me.
Spoilers:
Usually with survival stories like these, you would expect some meaningful backstory and some reasons to actually care for the protagonist. Michael B. Jordan however is just a nameless fighter pilot. We are shown some of the events leading up to his crash, but none of it really holds any meaning. It just happens, and doesn't tell us anything about his character. Like let's say, he has a fatal flaw in his personality and ways of doing things, that got him into this situation. But no, his ship is shot and he crashlands on a planet. There are no meaningful character relationships, either. Usually in a survival story, the character will try to survive for someone else's sake, like a love interest or a kid. Something in their life keeps them wanting to survive, but Michael B. Jordan just wants to survive and the entire event just seems more like an inconvenience than anything else. The events of the story are also incredibly random. The entire conflict is that an unfeeling maintenance robot is malfunctioning, which for some reason makes it want to destroy anything that moves. So MBJ has to feign death, so the robot doesn't kill him. During his flashbacks of events leading up to his crash, he remembers that he has a flashlight in his pocket, and thinks of a way out. He uses the flashlight to trick the maintenance robot into attacking itself, and manages to overpower it. The story then ends with MBJ calling for rescue, and the computerized voice confirms that rescue is on the way. Again, would be nice if everything didn't just work out in the end, and that they left us with some kind of ambiguity as to whether he would be rescued or not. But no, he most likely gets rescued and in the end, we have no reason to care at all.
Overall one of the weakest episodes, and I don't understand what the point of MBJ was. Why get a well-known and talented actor to play a character that has absolutely no character?
Spoilers:
Usually with survival stories like these, you would expect some meaningful backstory and some reasons to actually care for the protagonist. Michael B. Jordan however is just a nameless fighter pilot. We are shown some of the events leading up to his crash, but none of it really holds any meaning. It just happens, and doesn't tell us anything about his character. Like let's say, he has a fatal flaw in his personality and ways of doing things, that got him into this situation. But no, his ship is shot and he crashlands on a planet. There are no meaningful character relationships, either. Usually in a survival story, the character will try to survive for someone else's sake, like a love interest or a kid. Something in their life keeps them wanting to survive, but Michael B. Jordan just wants to survive and the entire event just seems more like an inconvenience than anything else. The events of the story are also incredibly random. The entire conflict is that an unfeeling maintenance robot is malfunctioning, which for some reason makes it want to destroy anything that moves. So MBJ has to feign death, so the robot doesn't kill him. During his flashbacks of events leading up to his crash, he remembers that he has a flashlight in his pocket, and thinks of a way out. He uses the flashlight to trick the maintenance robot into attacking itself, and manages to overpower it. The story then ends with MBJ calling for rescue, and the computerized voice confirms that rescue is on the way. Again, would be nice if everything didn't just work out in the end, and that they left us with some kind of ambiguity as to whether he would be rescued or not. But no, he most likely gets rescued and in the end, we have no reason to care at all.
Overall one of the weakest episodes, and I don't understand what the point of MBJ was. Why get a well-known and talented actor to play a character that has absolutely no character?
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