capcanuk

I was, at first, intrigued by the concept, though this was based only upon reading blurbs and seeing trailers and previews.

Then the first episode happened. There's an underlying mystery that has to be solved, and obviously it will drag on throughout at least the entire first season (most likely also to be its last season). Who is this Jax girl (played by an obviously too-old actress for the part) and who killed her parents and why?

The cast are all, well, to be charitable, not very good actors. The dialogue they are given is stilted and wooden, and they give it performances of the same caliber. A few pause to chew some scenery on the way, notably Raechelle Banno who plays the emancipated clone Atria.

After a few episodes you come to realize that this is turning into "Beverley Hills 90210 in Space" (actually, with very little time actually spent in space). There's lots of silly immature drama between the characters, and for a "space academy" the students spend considerably more time lounging around or drinking in a bar (appropriately called "The Black Hole") than actually studying.

Do not expect real sci-fi, like Trek, Expanse, or Galactica. This is basically a soap opera set in a barely sci-fi setting.

And I would be remiss if I didn't also mention that the blocking of the actors is of such a horrible quality that it defies description. An example: casually walking down a sidewalk and stopping to chat... but all the extras in the scene are in pairs, walking equidistantly (around 10ft ) behind the lead actors, and they ALL stop at the exact same moment as our leads. They all start to move again once the leads resume walking. The show is full of this sort of amateurish blocking.

There have been some great sci-fi shows that never got to see a second season for whatever reason. Pandora is one of those rare shows that really should not even have seen a first season.

EDIT I have stuck by the series, watching every episode, to be able to say that my review was fair and was not based on simply one episode. I have to say one important thing to any reading this: No, this series does NOT get better with each episode. As a matter of fact it goes against all possible logic and simply gets worse and worse. Just when you think it couldn't get worse, it goes and surprises you by diving deeper into "terrible amateurish TV" territory. The acting gets more ridiculous. The script gets more wooden and stilted. The narrative gets more ludicrous. And not one of the actors improves in any way, shape, or form. Even the filming gets worse! What starts out looking like a low-budget show filmed on inexpensive cameras, eventually morphs into that horrible "soap opera effect" (motion interpolation). This really doesn't do the show any favours as it highlights the weaknesses in set and costume design.

All that said and done, two last episodes coming up, and I will have my final verdict (unlikely to suddenly change) on this abortion of a series.