Tag Archives: sci-fi

Retro Review: Killjoys, Season Two: Episodes 6-10

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Moving on to the second half of Killjoys’ second season. Again, spoilers ahoy.

The logo for Killjoys“I Love Lucy”:

You know, I’m not really a fan of all the pop culture references in episode titles (or the similarly current soundtrack). It would work for a near future sci-fi set on or near Earth, but Killjoys is so far removed from our society in terms of both time and space it might as well be an alternate reality. It just doesn’t fit.

Anyway.

“I Love Lucy” sees Dutch and the team contact an eccentric collector in the hopes of acquiring more of Khlyen’s green plasma (which sounds like a strain of weed, now that I think about it). Of course, shenanigans ensue.

This is another weirdly mixed episode. The first half is what I remember from season one of Killjoys: a painfully predictable string of cliches I’ve seen countless times before. But it does redeem itself a bit later on. I did enjoy seeing Dutch go full Yalla on the guy — a chilling reminder of the darkness of her past — and the whole twist where maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all was an interesting choice.

Overall rating: 6.9/10

“Heart-Shaped Box”:

Dutch and D'avin in KilljoysSo apparently D’avin’s penis can cure level six conditioning.

Did not see that coming.

Following their night together, Sabine is revealed as a level six, but one who has been stripped of her power and conditioning. This becomes an opportunity to study a live level six, though in practice we mostly learn about their state of mind more than anything practical.

The idea here seems to be to tell a tragic story about how Sabine has regained her humanity, only to have it slip away again. And it kind of works, but not entirely. There’s too many holes and hiccups.

For one thing, we as viewers haven’t really been given enough time to care about Sabine. For another, D’avin was way too okay with letting his girlfriend get tortured in the first part of the episode, which rather kills the romance.

But most importantly they just didn’t do enough to try to keep Sabine cured. Really they didn’t do anything. I cannot believe that this is a phrase I am about to type in all seriousness, but they really should have spent more time investigating the fact that D’avin’s penis seems to cure level sixes, even if temporarily.

The cast of KilljoysSeriously, that should have been a bigger deal. I mean, I’m not saying he should bone her every time she starts feeling stabby, but clearly there’s something there. Something about the whole exchange of bodily fluids, presumably — it messes with the plasma. Maybe they could have used some of D’avin’s DNA to try to create an anti-six vaccine.

Oh my gods what I am even writing right now.

Also, Dutch assuming the name in the box is the other her is a huuuuge leap. How does she know?

Overall rating: 7/10 What am I doing with my life.

“Full Metal Monk”:

This episode manages to have all kinds of bad stuff happen and escalate events quite a lot while still feeling like a complete and total waste of time. Impressive.

Dutch and D’avin investigate a trail of breadcrumbs left by Khlyen and find a long-abandoned facility on Arkyn, which once again raises more questions than answers.

Meanwhile, Johnny, abandoned by his teammates, seeks the aid of Pawter to discover the purpose of the wall around Old Town. Which they are only partially successful in.

The cast of KilljoysI’m bothered by how much of a waste of time this episode is — offering so many opportunities for real answers without actually giving any — but I’m even more bothered by Dutch and D’avin’s treatment of Johnny.

They’ve basically abandoned him to his fate for trying to do the right thing. That’s a terrible way to treat your brother/partner, and massively hypocritical when you consider how much time Johnny’s spent bending over backwards to help them with their problems. As established by the last episode, Dutch is half a sociopath at the best of times, but D’avin’s better than that. Or he should be.

Overall rating: 6/10

“Johnny Be Good”:

This season started well, but it’s really losing momentum as it heads toward the end. Sort of the opposite of season one that way.

“Johnny Be Good” starts en media res, as is common these days (maybe too common — I’m getting a bit sick of it), but it reveals an unusual amount, which both spoils a lot of the episode’s tension and makes the whole thing feel very disjointed, especially considering how much is going on.

To make a long story short, the crap hits the fan in Old Town, Dutch and D’avin drop everything to go rogue and defy the company despite berating Johnny for doing the same thing last episode, and we get yet more super vague sinister hints about the level sixes.

The Quad, the setting for KilljoysI was enjoying this mystery for quite a while, but now they’re just heaping question after question on without offering any answers. It’s stopped being intriguing; now it’s just confusing. I’m being strung along, and I hate being strung along.

There better be a damn good explanation for all this, and soon.

There’s also the matter of Pawter’s death to consider. I know it was coming because I’d had it spoiled, and even if I hadn’t it was quite glaringly foreshadowed, but I’m still unhappy. Pawter was the show’s best character — likable, complex, and well-acted — and Killjoys doesn’t have enough strong points to be able to burn those it has.

Overall rating: 5/10

“How to Kill Friends and Influence People” (season finale):

Well, I finally got my answers. This episode feels like it’s about half info-dumps. Would have been far better to portion out the reveals over the whole season, but at least they didn’t just keeping piling on more mystery.

The finale of Killjoys’ second season sees Khlyen show up, the Killjoys deciding to immediately trust him despite past history, him doing a whole lot of exposition, and finally him sacrificing himself to save the Quad. It’s rushed, and there are parts of it that don’t make sense, but at this point that’s about what I expect from this show.

The mysterious Khlyen in KilljoysI really don’t buy Dutch being so traumatized by Khlyen’s death. I can see her doing some mourning, because he was essentially her father, however terrible a parent he may have been, but I can’t see her being so distraught at his sacrifice when up until about twenty minutes previously he was what she hated more than anything else in existence.

To be fair, though, “How to Kill Friends and Influence People” does have its moments. It’s got some extravagantly over the top action sequences, even by Killjoys standards, and that’s a lot of fun. The banter that often feels so forced is actually pretty funny here, and I laughed out loud more than once.

Really, though, the saving grace of this episode is Johnny. Every single scene of his is amazing. Some of them are exciting, some are intense, some are funny, and some are heartfelt, but he absolutely nails every single one. If the rest of the episode could have lived up to the standard he set, it would have been amazing.

As it is, it’s just okay.

Overall rating: 7/10 Nearly all of those points are for Johnny.

So I leave Killjoys’ second season the same way I did the first: unsure if I want to bother watching more. It has its moments, and there’s glimmers of potential here, but the writing is consistently sloppy, the acting often mediocre, and the overall quality level is consistent only in its inconsistency.

Killjoys is okay, but that’s all it is, and it’s increasingly clear that’s all it will ever be.

SWTOR: The Traitor Trickle

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Man, what’s going on with SWTOR? They seemed to be on such a roll there with Fallen Empire and Eternal Throne. Two great expansions in rapid succession that seemed highly successful by just about every possible measure. But now I return to the game after nearly a year away, and it seems to be floundering, with barely a trickle of new story added since I left.

Lana Beniko in Star Wars: The Old Republic's War for Iokath storyDo note this post will contain spoilers for Knights of the Eternal Throne and the recent patches.

It’s not that I don’t like the new story. It’s imperfect, but it’s got a lot going for it.

I do give Bioware major points to finding a way to bring drama to the story after effectively painting themselves into a corner with the ending to Eternal Throne. At this point, the player is the most powerful person in the galaxy, commanding an army that no force in existence has yet been able to beat.

It’s hard to make a dramatic story in that context. The War for Iokath suffered from this. Why am I wasting time fighting a ground war against the Republic when I can just threaten to wipe Coruscant off the map with the Eternal Fleet?

There’s pretty much only one thing left that can threaten the Eternal Alliance: a betrayal from within its own ranks. And very wisely, that’s exactly what Bioware has thrown at us.

Unfortunately, I had the traitor’s identity spoiled for me, so the reveal didn’t have much drama, but I still think making Theron the traitor is an interesting path to take.

The new Copero flashpoint in Star Wars: The Old RepublicMore than anything else, I admire the sheer gutsiness of it. Theron’s been around for a long time. People have put a lot of effort into grinding influence for him. Many people have even romanced him. I feel really bad for those people — I’d be losing it if Lana had been the traitor — but at the same time I can’t help but admire Bioware for being willing to take such a huge risk. No sacrificing good story for the sake of gameplay here.

It fits well with my own RP, too. As a player, I’ve never had any strong feelings one way or another on Theron, but my agent has always hated him. This is due to a combination of the traumatic experiences she’s had at the hands of other Republic spies and his close relationship with Lana — Cipher Nine is the jealous type.

So having Theron now turn traitor is a great escalation of the tension that’s always existed between them.

Also, speaking of Lana, I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of romance content in recent patches. I mean, it’s not a lot, but it’s more than I expected, and it’s well done. I think I might need to reexamine my views on relationships, because I think Lana’s bloodthirsty tirade about the wrath and ruin she’ll bring down on anyone who hurts me is just about the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.

It’s an interesting story, but the trouble is there’s just so little of it. Each of the three major content patches since I played last contains roughly an hour of new story. Even TSW, at least prior to the pre-reboot drought, was putting out more content than this.

The Crisis on Umbara flashpoint in Star Wars: The Old RepublicIt’s not just a lack of bang for my proverbial buck, but the extreme brevity of the story harms its quality, too. I think Theron may have a point, and there’s probably a great conversation to be had around the Eternal Alliance playing Team Zakuul: Galaxy Police, but there’s just no time for any of that, so instead of a gripping ideological split it’s more, “I’m the bad guy now, kthxbai.”

Also, we need to talk about Copero. Man, that was a disappointment. As a Chiss main, I was really looking forward to finally getting to know Cipher Nine’s people. Not being a big Star Wars fan, I know very little about the Chiss, and I’ve always regretted being so ignorant of my own character’s origins.

But the Copero flashpoint and accompanying story tells us pretty much nothing about the Chiss, their history, their culture, or why they’re the only society in history the Sith have chosen as allies. They’re just a different color of trash mob to mow down.

On that note, it also needs to be said Copero is an absolutely miserable experience from a gameplay perspective. Umbara was pretty good, and I thought maybe Bioware was finally figuring out how to do fun dungeons, but Copero is a long, long slog through endless trash mobs and bosses that have about twice as much health as they should. It was painful — actually painful; my fingers were getting sore by the end.

To make matters worse, I had to do it twice. For some reason story mode and solo mode are separate this time, and I made the mistake of doing story mode first, which doesn’t count for the story mission. I therefore had to pick up the actual story mode (which is called solo mode) and do it all over again.

Lieutenant Raina Temple in Star Wars: The Old RepublicI feel a bit dumb, but based on general chat, I am far from the only person to make that mistake.

Oh, and there’s no recognition at all that I’m playing a Chiss. Racial content is usually very minimal in SWTOR, so I wasn’t expecting much, but at least a few dialogue tweaks would have been nice. It’s weird having all the Chiss treating my Chiss as an outsider.

At least Raina’s back. She was one the last missing companions I really wanted back — just waiting on Nadia now. Although it was too short as always, I did really enjoy seeing her and Cipher Nine catch up. That was a very real feeling moment. I’ve always liked their relationship.

So it’s not all bad news, but nonetheless, it’s a big letdown after how stellar Eternal Throne was. My hope is that the current lull is due to most of Bioware’s efforts being put toward another big expansion, and I think there’s pretty good odds that is the case, but I don’t like having to take it on faith. It would be nice to hear them confirm, “Yes, we’re working on Knights of Theron’s Douchey New Haircut; just be patient.”

Because at face value, it looks like SWTOR reinvented itself for the better only to squander all its momentum and faceplant once again.