Nobility

You start watching and the cast are actually fairly successful actors - well some of them at least. If you've seen other sci-fi series like Star Gate, Star Trek, The Expanse, The Strain etc...You'll be familiar with a lot of the cast.

The problem is that the budget seems to have gone into that cast almost entirely. The set is comparable to what they used in the 60s. The special effects about 15 years old I'd say, or well of that quality at least. I.e a good kid with a computer and time can probably pull something better off nowadays.

The acting is alright I suppose but the camera angles and the writing of the show is not. The jokes seem very forced and there's just too many clichés. When the show starts you think you're watching a parody, which is alright - but you're not. And then it's not alright all of a sudden.

But the worst thing is the apparent bad use of green screens and the HORRENDOUS BEAUTY FILTER. Seriously the entire thing is shot with a beauty filter which makes EVERYTHING look slightly smudged out. It just blows my mind how you can do this.

INMD lists it as a single event, yet Amazon Prime has it as Season 1, Episode 2 and Season 1, Episode 3. Many of the people listed in the cast are not in the viewable episodes, so I assume they were in episodes that were never aired. The funny thing is I started out with a 7 rating and as I was writing the review it kept dropping to its current 5. I may come back later and drop it further. The concept was there but the writing was weak. The cast looked great, though most of the acting was just phoned in. In many ways it was a near parody of the early Star Trek show. I can see why it never made it past the filming of the third episode.

Where to start with this show? When I saw it available on Amazon Prime I was impressed that Torri Higginson and Christopher Judge were part of the show. The excitement stops there.

I was disappointed when I realized that Christopher Judge was more of a cameo appearance. He sends orders through a view screen for a few seconds on each episode.

Torri does her usually great acting but I truly don't understand why she's in this low budget series.

Placed 700 years in the future the pilot is a young Asian cowboy and when I say cowboy I mean he wears a cowboy hat and acts like he's fresh off the farm. He even carries a side shooter pistol which I'm sure comes in useful in outer space.

Walter Koenig plays the ships engineer. His character is a senile drunk that reminds me of Colonel Tigh (Terry Carter) from Battlestar Galactica. Just more strange and awkward. Honestly I didn't even realize who he was until I saw the IMDb credits.

The ships psychiatrist (Doug Jones) is plain creepy and disturbing.

The director(s) can't make up their minds. It's a serious Sy-Fi Fantasy, no it's a Slapstick comedy, no it's something else, and the cycle goes on and on. Very uncomfortable to watch.

Yes the special effects are lacking a bit. There are little drones that are part of a documentary that's being made during the show. Kind of a show in a show. There are these odd moments where characters are being recorded and we're seeing the recording as if it's a playback. Kind of like a captains log but with annoying animations that are just in the way.

There are a few characters that I want to like and I can see some acting quality from time to time but then suddenly they go off and do something stupid, unrealistic, unbelievable, or just plain not understandable. Maybe it's not all their fault but sometimes you just got to say no way am I going to do that.

The upside, I liked most of the story line, and some of the action scenes are decent quality. Even some of the special effects are nice.

The downside, some special effects are lame, transition between sense are poor and I believe during the 2nd episode a few scenes are out of order.

Final comments. I wouldn't want to be on a cruise ship with these characters let along on a star ship. Should you watch it? Only if you can doing something else at the same time.

This appears to be a pseudo-parody, but with original elements. Some of the acting appears to be sincere, while others seem to be chewing scenery. Not quite sure what to make of it ... and not quite sure where this has emerged from. Also, unlikely to have episodes beyond the 3 available via Amazon, or so I presume.

As a fan project, this would be top of the line. You can tell a lot of work went into the visuals, costuming, sets, and so on. The setting is interesting and the framing of a documentary adds a lot of flexibility to how they tell the story without shoehorning in exposition dumps.

As a project that stands on its own, there's definite room for improvement. The writing and characters are a cloying mix of cliché and parody, especially in the first episode. It gets better in the following two episodes once the first one gets a lot of the character introductions out of the way.

The shot composition and camera angles don't feel like they would on a more polished production, especially during action scenes -- it feels like most of the scenes involve cutting between two or three cameras plopped down somewhere. There's hardly any movement by the cameras, which could be a function of the cramped sets and other constraints.

The celebrities they bring in from other well-known Sci Fi/Fantasy shows are a bit underused so far, Walter Koenig criminally so. I get that the series is going for a bit of a Star Trek + The Office angle, which sets him up to be Scotty mixed with Creed Bratton, but really he just mumbles unintelligibly most of the time.

All that said, I still want to see what happens in episode 4 and on. I think this is a show with real potential.