Another Life

[Willie Oleson]

I mean, I had read the negative reviews on IMDB, and sometimes I like to check things out because of all the hatred.
But nothing - nothing - could have prepared me for this...thing.
I hope it's not a prank, I hope it's not intentional because I want to revel in its awfulness. It's laughing-out-loud funny.

Must watch more.

 

[Ome]

The trailer looks really good. What's in it that makes it laugh-out-loud funny?

 

[James from London]

It's yer woman from Battlestar Galactica and yer man from Doctor Who!

 

[Willie Oleson]

What's in it that makes it laugh-out-loud funny?

Everything that's not in the trailer It's basically Big Brother In Space, and some of them brought their Barbie keyboards.
O...and it's the most important mission in the history of mankind. I'll admit it's a selling point. Ha!

It's yer woman from Battlestar Galactica and yer man from Doctor Who!

A match made in sci-fi heaven? I just knew I was onto something good, as in "the best worst tv show on netflix". I hope it gets worse!

 

[Willie Oleson]

Yesterday I came up with the brilliant idea of sampling NuDynasty season 3 - after all, how bad could it be?
Unfortunately it was bad, but it also reminded me of this entertainingly awful Sci Fi show.

So bad it's surreal, like, what happens if you send the kids from NuDynasty into space because they have to save the universe.
There is some kind of overall plot but I keep forgetting what it is unless they mention it. The dialogue is mostly bitchy and hysterical, they don't know any other emotions, and an ALIEN style horror scene, which has a bizarre and dead-end edit, is forgotten about in the next scene.
Ah, because now they have to navigate through a rain of big space rocks. And that also just...stops!

Things aren't looking much better on earth, but the alien disaster scenario only affects two characters: a young, bearded scientist (the beard makes him look so scientist-y) and a cool chick/unofficial reporter/media influencer played by Selma Blair. Move over, Fempire!

Surprisingly enough I find her believable as the sassy cool media chick HARPER GLASS.

And with a name like that I want her to spin-off to a The Colbys remake.

Some of the astronauts wear military bikinis for no other reason than to show sweat and flesh wounds, but overall it's completely sex-less.
The state-of-the-art spaceship itself looks like a MacDonald's that operates on hydraulic power, and there's Lord knows how many new characters sleeping a cyber-coma sleep in a cupboard.

Because of a virus crisis they need a virus crisis expert and they simply take him out of that cupboard. Yes!
He injectes himself with the virus...because, something...and then he dies….because, something….and then they realize they can be cured by gamma radiation from a specific planet (just around the corner), and that very healing process looks like a musical being interrupted by a tornado.
There's also a hologram character who can fix everything in case everything else fails, and he's programmed to speak with a posh British accent.

They are currently filming season 2.

 

[Daniel Avery]

And where is this bad part you mentioned?
I confess I clicked on the thread due to another show called Another Life, wondering why you would be interested. It was a soap opera produced by the Christian Broadcast Network in the 1980s, and it was much more 'tame' in comparison to what was on the major networks. A daily soap produced not in New York or Los Angeles, but in Virginia Beach, VA that did not rely on murders, philandering, and scantily-clad young people to get ratings? Like I said, I can't imagine why you would be interested.

 

[Willie Oleson]

Unless I'm hallucinating, they've just turned the spaceship into a discotheque.
Because everybody's too high and too horny and they have dance it out of their system. A young gay man named Beauchamp is navigating the discotheque through a thick black cloud that could be the portal to a hostile alien universe.
Oh yeah there's already an alien mole on board, he's body-snatched the rich guy who's not really part of the crew.
The Russian Guy wants to have sex with Pretty Engineer Girl but he doesn't know how eventhough she's literally on top of him. How many instructions does he need?
Captain Niko's private intimate moment (thinking of sex with her husband) is interrupted by Cas because she thinks she deserves to be the co-captain, and not that Beauchamp guy.
The androgynous 18 y/o doctor thinks he's found a cure for ADHD (and everything else) and expects to win a Nobel Prize.
The big guy - like that big guy from LOST - is disappointed because he can't have another peanut butter candy bar.
Just another day on board of the....forgot the name of the ship.

Meanwhile on earth, the Team Of Experts have found a way into the alien crystal mountain with the christmas lights. Stuff happens but I'm not sure if it's good or bad or significant.
The plot thickens!

 

[Willie Oleson]

Yes! Yes! Yes! Russian Hunk and Arabian looking Hunk kiss because they're doing a threesome with Pretty Engineer Girl.
British A.I. hologram William is in love with captain Niko, and big guy and he/she doctor also kiss!
This is great but I hope they haven't forgotten about the alien hostile universe. Please, save the earth! (from what, exactly?)

 

[Willie Oleson]

I don't know how I did it but I've finished the tenth and last episode of season 1.
And I still can't believe this sci-fi series actually happened. Maybe it was an alien experiment, to see how much a human brain could take.
You can't say "I don't like it" or "this is not my cup of tea" because this is nobody's cup of tea. This is something new. A genre in itself.

I can't hate it and I can't say what's wrong with it because I wouldn't even know where to begin.
And it's even more bizarre to see how the actors really try to sink their teeth into it.
I gave netflix a thumbs-up simply because a thumbs-down wouldn't suffice.

Sci-fi is not my favourite genre because most of these stories (especially in a serial format) are downright nonsensical. Plots, props and consequences can be invented on the spot.
"We've got to active the hydroblixtographer! That's our only way to transtoxtilize the boric-molecules that will destroy our enemy! Hurry, we've only got 3 minutes!"
How's one supposed to buy into that nonsense? And yet, somehow, we believe what's going on as the story goes from A to B to C.
ANOTHER LIFE manages to take all the (nonsensical) logic out of the sci-fi genre and it's literally "anything goes".
Chaos, panic, malfunction of the ship or William The Hologram Computer, explosions, fire, alien diseases...and yet only in the last episode there's some kind of story progress.

They finally land on the alien planet - here it comes! Oops, no, wrong alien planet. No need to wear a space suit or anything, it looks like earth anyway.
They wander into a medieval looking cave with lamps and pots and pans, and they encounter an alien with bat wings.
Luckily, there's also a magic mirror who can translate the communication between them!
You simply cannot be prepared for what they'll throw at you, and then when it happens it's almost impossible to comprehend the sheer idiocy of it all.
In the meantime, Pretty Engineer Girl discovers that she's pregnant eventhough the threesome with Russian Guy and Spanish Guy happened only a few days ago.
And yes: who is the father?
William the A.I. Hologram computer has created a hologram version of Niko (based on algorithms, sure, why not?) because he's in love with her - the real Niko - and after their conversation William instructs the fake-Niko to delete herself. She refuses (???) and then becomes another woman, and it looks as if William has inadvertently created an A.I. offspring. How about that?

They should have called it ANOTHER GENRE. Armageddon meets Aliens meets Doctor Who meets Beverly Hills 90210 meets Temptation Island, with surpisingly cheap-looking sets, props and special effects.
Roll on season 2!