Killjoys

No time for new movies this week... So I decided for a quick review of a series which afaik reached season 4, me stopping at 3 for now. Probably the best description that I can give starts from my answer on "why did I start watching Killjoys?" ...

I wanted a light SciFi, but with a decent story depth - let's say somewhere nearby SG Atlantis. The epic story (because that's where we're finally getting) starts with a trio of bounty hunters, in a galaxy far far away, employed by a sort of entity dealing mainly with catching wanted fugitives (dead or alive) - the RAC = Reclamation Apprehension Coalition. Two brothers and a girl, Dutch, the team leader. In the first episodes we have a couple of separate missions - "stand-alone" stories. But it doesn't take much and we're getting to a full-fledged conspiracy threatening "the Quad" = the planet with three inhabitable moons (well, more like two of them), or to be precise the population inhabiting these. Without many spoilers, we have an alien race, a green one :), which seems to have as final purpose the universe domination. The details are much more complex, and this makes quite a story ;)

In the first episodes "Killjoys" seems a bit low-budget and the acting has some room for improvement. What you can't deny is the story depth. I'd risk saying it's the most dense in any SciFi series that I've seen before. So dense that you get a repetitive feeling that the episode reached a conclusion and ends at 30-35 minutes of its length (although felt longer) - but surprise, you still have 5-10 more adding something usually new. I think the first three seasons could have been easily doubled adding some lengths to each episode - and honestly is admirable that the producers didn't do it. Some other particularity about the story are the strong connections between the narration segments. In other series from some point onward the writers invent plenty of stuff that doesn't have much in common with what happened before, just to have a new base to keep it going. I could not believe when I discovered at the end of the third season new connections with the first episodes (e.g., why a strange cult of monks have as basic ritual safe-inflicting scars - you have no chance imagining in episode 2-3 how valid/logic is the explanation you'll get only in the 3rd season).

Let's be objective though, and see the bad side too. First, I've heard the forth season is not as good, can't tell yet... Second, we have a soap-opera piece too with tangled family relationships and related surprises (but how many series don't). There are also some attempts a la Game of Thrones of killing some characters who you wouldn't expect departing the cast, but even if they do, their disappearance is maybe not as shocking as wanted, especially when some find their way back :). Finally, I have to admit that a reason that made me continue with "Killjoys" after episode 1-2 was that I felt a certain resemblance to "Farscape", or more exactly between Aeryn Sun there and Dutch here + I liked the leading actress. Unfortunately, Hannah John-Kamen isn't really Claudia Black, and as some other part of the cast too, there are moments when she's not credible enough for her part. In any case, you still have the story ;) ...

Rating: 4 out of 5 (up to the 3rd season)