great sci-fi world building and intriguing story
Wow, a lot of people seem to hate this, and I'm going to say something about that, but first let me just talk about how much I like the series.
In Moonhaven, humans have completely trashed the earth. To try and save the planet they installed an advanced AI on the moon which moon colonists work with to both create technology to heal the earth and to create a new societal approach to keep man from continuing his destructive ways.
This utopian moon colony is seriously hippy-dippy. People learn elaborate group dances to commemorate good and bad events and the job of police is not to solve crimes (the AI can do that) but to help people heal from the trauma of violence.
The creators of this show really thought through this world. You can argue about whether this tribal hippy thing is what an A. I. would create, but if you think about the forces that make man so destructive it actually seems like a pretty reasonable approach. And the show has detailed social structures, rituals, and language changes. (It also at times has an odd medieval-ish quality to it.)
The series begins just before the moon colonists are sheduled to come to earth and begin the healing process. But things aren't that simple. A woman is murdered. Her earther sister (beautifully played by Emma McDonald with a dry, Zendaya-like cynicism) is a pilot who happens to have come to the moon just then. Soon there's more violence. The genial police begin to realize there's more going on than their AI has solved (or told them). Meanwhile there are political conflicts that could bring down the earth-healing plan.
The first episode begins at a leisurely pace made up for with its originality, but soon there are a lot of twists and turns and things really start moving.
So, great sci-fi, world building, a compelling mystery, political intrigue. What's not to like?
For a lot of people on IMDB, the answer is ... everything! This series has a ton of 1-star ratings, and it's very puzzling to me.
Now, one thing that can kill a good show's ratings are anti-"woke" folk downvoting, but from the reviews it doesn't seem that's what's happening here, even though its diverse cast and powerful women are what often triggers these people.
But a lot of the criticisms don't make much sense. For example, some say the show is "cliched and predictable" yet those same people complain about the bland cliched utopia which means they don't understand that a utopia in sci-fi almost invariably is rotting underneath. Some people find the female lead unlikable, but she's a classic anti-hero who represents the earther brutality the mooners are supposed to heal, so why *wouldn't* she be abrasive? Some people say the series is slow moving and yet some say it's not as good as the movie Dune which moved like paint drying.
I feel part of the issue is expectations for sci-fi. For some, sci-fi is all about the CGI and the epic mythmaking. These are the people who want Star Wars and Terminator and don't understand the appeal of an Ursula Le Guin. Building an intricate world is, for them, not sci-fi, because it's not viscerally exciting. For me, though, it's intellectually exciting.
I'm not saying people have to like the show, but the critics are being ridiculous. In my life I've given maybe 2 series a 1-star rating, yet half the people here give it a 1 and say that the acting and writing are incompetent, which is not a reasonable or sensible critique. If someone finds it a little too slow, or finds the premise unconvincing, or just doesn't like the characters, that's their prerogative and there's no right and wrong in personal taste. But this level of antagonism is just ... weird.
This is why I'm honestly wondering if perhaps the anti-woke brigade is simply getting more strategic and trying to downvote shows without showing their hand so obviously. Because there's really nothing in this series that should reasonably be making people so mad unless they utterly hate diversity and strong women and hippy-dippy utopias.
But I can't ascribe beliefs to critics that they aren't themselves claiming, so perhaps it's something else. It just makes no sense to me.
In short, it's a great story, great sci-fi world building, fun characters, and a nice mix of drama, humor, action, and intrigue. I highly recommend it.
In Moonhaven, humans have completely trashed the earth. To try and save the planet they installed an advanced AI on the moon which moon colonists work with to both create technology to heal the earth and to create a new societal approach to keep man from continuing his destructive ways.
This utopian moon colony is seriously hippy-dippy. People learn elaborate group dances to commemorate good and bad events and the job of police is not to solve crimes (the AI can do that) but to help people heal from the trauma of violence.
The creators of this show really thought through this world. You can argue about whether this tribal hippy thing is what an A. I. would create, but if you think about the forces that make man so destructive it actually seems like a pretty reasonable approach. And the show has detailed social structures, rituals, and language changes. (It also at times has an odd medieval-ish quality to it.)
The series begins just before the moon colonists are sheduled to come to earth and begin the healing process. But things aren't that simple. A woman is murdered. Her earther sister (beautifully played by Emma McDonald with a dry, Zendaya-like cynicism) is a pilot who happens to have come to the moon just then. Soon there's more violence. The genial police begin to realize there's more going on than their AI has solved (or told them). Meanwhile there are political conflicts that could bring down the earth-healing plan.
The first episode begins at a leisurely pace made up for with its originality, but soon there are a lot of twists and turns and things really start moving.
So, great sci-fi, world building, a compelling mystery, political intrigue. What's not to like?
For a lot of people on IMDB, the answer is ... everything! This series has a ton of 1-star ratings, and it's very puzzling to me.
Now, one thing that can kill a good show's ratings are anti-"woke" folk downvoting, but from the reviews it doesn't seem that's what's happening here, even though its diverse cast and powerful women are what often triggers these people.
But a lot of the criticisms don't make much sense. For example, some say the show is "cliched and predictable" yet those same people complain about the bland cliched utopia which means they don't understand that a utopia in sci-fi almost invariably is rotting underneath. Some people find the female lead unlikable, but she's a classic anti-hero who represents the earther brutality the mooners are supposed to heal, so why *wouldn't* she be abrasive? Some people say the series is slow moving and yet some say it's not as good as the movie Dune which moved like paint drying.
I feel part of the issue is expectations for sci-fi. For some, sci-fi is all about the CGI and the epic mythmaking. These are the people who want Star Wars and Terminator and don't understand the appeal of an Ursula Le Guin. Building an intricate world is, for them, not sci-fi, because it's not viscerally exciting. For me, though, it's intellectually exciting.
I'm not saying people have to like the show, but the critics are being ridiculous. In my life I've given maybe 2 series a 1-star rating, yet half the people here give it a 1 and say that the acting and writing are incompetent, which is not a reasonable or sensible critique. If someone finds it a little too slow, or finds the premise unconvincing, or just doesn't like the characters, that's their prerogative and there's no right and wrong in personal taste. But this level of antagonism is just ... weird.
This is why I'm honestly wondering if perhaps the anti-woke brigade is simply getting more strategic and trying to downvote shows without showing their hand so obviously. Because there's really nothing in this series that should reasonably be making people so mad unless they utterly hate diversity and strong women and hippy-dippy utopias.
But I can't ascribe beliefs to critics that they aren't themselves claiming, so perhaps it's something else. It just makes no sense to me.
In short, it's a great story, great sci-fi world building, fun characters, and a nice mix of drama, humor, action, and intrigue. I highly recommend it.
- cherold
- 2 sep 2022