There are a few minor spoilers below about situations, but not about the characters or story line details (unless they have already been shown in trailers).
As in the original 1960s Lost in Space, the Robinson family is on a colonizing expedition to Alpha Centauri. This time, the Jupiter 2 is a landing craft from a larger vessel, which ends up in the wrong place and runs into trouble, requiring evacuation.
The production, based in Vancouver, uses beautiful locations and elaborate sets to produce an authentic feel. The characters are generally likable, although they have different and more complex family relationships than in the original Lost in Space.
At face value, it is an enjoyable season with nuanced characters, a complex villain, and good action sequences, partnered with thoughtful character development.
But time and again, I was taken out of the story by having to say "that's not right" or "it doesn't work that way" about things related to science.
Ice doesn't freeze that way
Early in the series, we see a lake freeze solid in an instant, causing problems for the characters. But water freezes at the surface first. Yes, the script established that it was really cold, but there is liquid water under the ice on the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, not to mention probably at Pluto, which has been very cold for a long, long time. Ice freezes by forming a thin crust of ice, which slowly gets thicker and thicker.
There are other scenes (hinted at in the trailers) in which the Jupiter 2 is also stuck in ice, and the way the ice works in those scenes doesn't seem right, either.
Forests and critters don't grow that way
Like in the original Lost in Space, the planet the Robinsons are on is in a funny orbit that will cause it to get VERY hot and pretty much kill all life. At one point, a character notes that the trees only have one growth ring.
The life clearly has ways to recover, but the series was shot in a typical BRitish Columbia forest, with tree trunks several inches in diameter. You are telling me that the trees get that big in one growing season?
Plus we see several indigenous animals, some of which are very large. How do they survive the heat?
Oh, and in one scene, we see a fallen tree and stump that was clearly cut by a chainsaw.
Radio doesn't work that way
One of the main points of the overall story line is that part of the colony ship is still in orbit and and the remaining crew there is transmitting, but can not hear the landing craft on the planet, because the colony ship's dish antenna is missing. But if you know ANYTHING about radio, this breaks down.
A broken dish antenna WOULD prevent one from receiving, but it would also prevent one from transmitting, which they were doing just fine. Plus one would not use a big dish antenna for general coverage of the entire planet, which is what the folks in space wanted. Dish antennas are directional and the colony ship did not appear to be in a high enough orbit to be able to cover the entire planet with a tight beam dish antenna.
True, they could have been using a different omni-directional antenna to transmit, but such an antenna would also work fine for receiving signals from the surface. Astronauts on the International Space Station use five watt portable (handheld) radios to talk to ham radio operators on Earth, transmitting through a window and using nothing but the built-in antenna of a few inches long. Because of the altitude, and nothing in the way, it doesn't take much.
In addition, if the transmit antenna is not working right (or missing) the transmitter in the ship would not work right. The radio operators would realize immediately that they had an antenna problem. For purposes of talking to and from the planet, jury-rigging a replacement would not be at all hard.
Without this "the ship can't hear us" plot point, the entire rest of the story breaks down. It is clear from the dialog that the landing ships don't have the fuel to go back into space, to save themselves from the heat, but that if the colony ship could hear them, it would send down fuel.
So the whole rationale of the ten episode story arc breaks down.
Biofuel production doesn't work that way
At one point, the folks on the planet talk about using the biowaste (manure) from animals on the planet to create fuel to power their ships. I can't say much more, in order to avoid spoilers, but the plan is to produce huge amounts of fuel in a very short period of time, and I am not convinced that they can produce enough fuel to do what they want, starting from scratch, in the time available.
[Sigh]
I still liked the new Lost in Space and if they make a season 2, I will watch.
It has a rich production design, character-based scripts with lots of interesting character development. It generally does a nice job of promoting the "willing suspension of disbelief" that is needed in science fiction.....
Except for these troublesome "it doesn't work that way" problems with the science part of the science fiction that significantly undercuts the story arc of the series.
No comments:
Post a Comment