Nobility

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.

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.

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.

This show has many actors from other great sci fi shows, most notably from the Stargate universe, but the writing for this show is incredibly bad. I want to like Nobility, but every time I watch it I feel let down from the sheer boredom of it. All the jokes are not funny, from concept to performance, each joke is lame and delivered by actors who seem out of their element with comedy. Nobility looks to be a show that was created to compete with The Orville, both of which are riding in on the wave created by Star Trek's new Discovery. I cannot recommend this show, and I feel kind of sorry for the stars who for some reason signed on to this project...

There are so many things that don't work in this series: 1) the acting is no good 2) it's not funny 3) the story line barely makes sense 4) the campyness doesn't really fit with anything else 5) the washed-out camera work doesn't add anything 6) the Walter Koenig character is flat, disappointing, and basically irrelevant 7) there's no 'sci' in the sci-fi. There's also little to no drama in the fiction.

The exterior ships/combat/space stuff is solid. That was really the only redeeming thing.