Starhyke

I came here in a state of shock at how appalling bad this series is. I had never heard of it before, but saw this starred an actor I enjoyed in Babylon 5. You can see people put a lot of time and effort into it, a lot of skill, but the whole is just awful. Incomprehensible story and characters, drab and claustrophobic sets and cinematography, terrible score and sound design, and humour so mild or so lame it's barely recognizable as even an attempt at comedy. Not even so bad it's good territory. I feel bad for the people who worked on this and where let down by producers, writers and directors.

I'm not going to blame the actors; I mean everyone's got to eat right? It's plausible that they're capable of recreating something that could pass for human emotion, they've simple chosen not to.

This leaves only the writers and directors of this catastrophe, and I DO hold them accountable! Try to imagine every awkward moment from various sci-fi shows you've ever seen and mash them together in montage of mental cruelty. Sadly this doesn't even fall into the "so bad it's good" category; just sit there and fight the urge to skip to the next scene. I mean it must get better at some point? Nope.

I'm sorry for all the people involved with this production. Please, please, run your script by a target audience. Do they look bored out of their gourd? Yeah, that means you're just not quite there yet.

For reference point, Red Dwarf rules! So I'm not a genre hatter, I'm just disappointed. You can do better, we deserve better.

I figured it would be unfair to review this show after only one episode despite very strong urges to pan it straight away, so I held out and watched the lot. Unfortunately the first episode is an excellent indicator of what is to come.

The program is not totally rubbish as many claim and there are redeeming features to be found. Some of the characters are quite amusing, such as the doctor, Sally and Dotty the cyborg. Rachel Grant is Hot, the Reptid makeup is quite good and doesn't look cheap, the special effects are excellent (as they should be by 2009), and there were a couple of places that genuinely made me laugh but they were surrounded by so much nonsense that I cannot for the life of me remember what they were.

Almost everything else about the show is bad. Most of the jokes are painful, and there are too many characters to properly develop. Many scenes go absolutely nowhere and are abruptly ended and forgotten about. Bearing in mind the episodes are only 23 minutes, that is particularly disappointing.

Forget comparing this show to Red Dwarf. Forget comparing this show to Hyperdrive. Starhyke doesn't compare to anything that has actually been shown on telly, which is probably why it has never been shown on telly. It may however be possible to edit the series into a passable hour-long special or pilot.

All that said, I applaud the creators for at least giving it a go and they have done well to complete a whole series on what is clearly a tiny budget, especially going up against the BBC's finest. It does show some promise, but it needs some decent writers or the actors need to have a little think about their characters because I get the impression they are not necessarily being portrayed as the writers intended. Maybe that is the director's fault.

I would probably watch a second season... well, the first episode at least.

At first, I thought it was a cartoon. The special effects were just animations.

The script and acting was atrocious, but worst of all was the background music.

This music single handedly ensured I stopped watching after the first fifteen minutes. Why oh why have such annoying music playing all the time? There is no rhyme or reason to it, and doesn't change with what's happening on screen.

Terrible.

There are some very different opinions on this series. Having recently watched it, it deserves a lot of the criticism, but not all.

The pacing is a problem, for a start. It needed to pack more action/dialogue/gags in, but it often seemed that the cast were pausing for a laugh track that was never added.

The humour is not up in Red Dwarf territory, but the series does improve as it goes on. The scriptwriters certainly knew the genre they were sending up. But by the end, I could see why it didn't get a second series.

Enjoyable in parts, slow, sometimes clumsy, often showing the limits of the budget, could have been better in many other ways too... but quite likable, in its own confused way.