octavedoctor-1

I've yet to see anything with Kevin Bacon in it that wasn't worth watching, so we're off to a good start, especially with the addition of Jennifer Nettles to the cast.

The premise is not original; Reaper, Brimstone, The Dresden Files, Constntine, Wynnona Earp and Evil have all trodden this path. There are probably a few I've forgotten about. So now new ground is being broken here, but it's a fun ride all the same. It's not billed as a comedy but, in a similar way to Evil, it has comic elements which help to lighten the mood a little. Without these moments of lightness the gore and dark tone would probably be a bit too much, so the writers have done a good job of balancing the tone.

"James Bond. You appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved season"

Sound familiar? The clue is in the name at the start of the sentence. It's a line spoken by Hugo Drax in Moonraker and probably the greatest line ever uttered by a supervillain in a Bond movie.

Why am I mentioning it in the context of a review of a completely unrelated programme?

Because within the first fifteen minutes of the start of this epic failure of a TV series the writers - if I dare dignify them with such a title - shamelessly plagiarised this line when a character says to Jax "Ah Jax, once again you appear with the tedious inevitability of an unloved relative".

OK; it's not exactly the same line, but let me explain why this is bad, and really really bad as well.

It's clear that the writers shared my admiration for this brilliant piece of dialogue. I mean, you don't steal something you don't admire, right? It's also clear that they didn't want to find themselves the target of a copyright violation suit from Cubby Broccoli's lawyers so they thought they would just change one word in the line. Yeah, that'll do, no-one will ever think we pinched it from Moonraker...

But here's why it's lazy, and horrible, and borderline offensive. What they changed that line into doesn't even make sense. As uttered laconically by Michel Lonsdale as Drax the line made sense, because seasons are literally unavoidable. They come round every year, like it or not, and - short of hitching a ride to the ISS with Elon or Jeff - are as unavoidable (which what inevitability implies) as it's possible for anything to be. Death, taxes, or a one-star Google review, say.

Relatives, on the other hand aren't that hard to avoid. I don't have any "unloved" relatives - although I've had a few to whom I was indifferent - but if I did, avoiding them would be the proverbial piece of cake. There are a few I haven't seen or spoken to in thirty years and I''ve avoided doing so without any conscious effort on my part.

This is what I mean when I say the writing is lazy. It's also derivative and unimaginative.

So what you are looking at in Pandora is Just Another Teen Drama, but in space. If that floats yer boat, go for it. If on the other hand, you were hoping to fill the void left by the termination of "The Expanse", give this a miss. It will both bore and annoy you.