TV Review: Another Life Season One (2019)

Another Life Season One (2019) created by Aaron Martin

A crystalline tower-like structure shows up on a future Earth. Its origin is extraterrestrial but scientists and the government can't figure out what it is and why it was sent. They determine the star system from which it originated and send a ship called The Salvare to make contact with the alien race. The narrative centers on a couple, Niko Breckinridge (Katee Sackoff) and Eric Wallace (Justin Chatwin). Eric is a scientist and stays on Earth, helping with the investigation. He also takes care of their cute child (Lina Renna) and has multiple conflicts with the government agency managing the investigation and with a media influencer (Selma Blair) who wants to find out what's going on to boost her online ratings. 

Niko has command of The Salvare, so she and Eric have a tearful goodbye in the first episode. The crew starts the trip in cryogenic sleep. A small group is revived when a crisis happens on board. Niko works with her handful of crew and William (Samuel Anderson), the artificial intelligence that runs the ship. They deal with various problems as they come up, occasionally reviving other crew members who have expertise they need or who will replace someone who died resolving the crisis. They finally make it to the planet and make a horrifying discovery about the aliens.

The show is roughly divided into one-third on Earth and two-thirds on The Salvare. That's too bad, because the Earth story was more interesting, even though it had a bunch of cliches pushing the narrative along. The space ship, with its disaster-of-the-episode problems, also travels over very familiar territory that sci fi fans have seen in other series. The narrative problem is multiplied when most of the crew members start having romantic relationships with each other, turning The Salvare into an interstellar soap opera. The show almost seems more interested in including every type of romantic entanglement (straight couple, gay couple, threesome, adulterous relationship, and romantic involvement with William the A.I.). If they had put that much effort into the space-opera plot, the show would be great. As it is, a lot of dumb stuff happens in the romantic plots and the space-opera plot, leaving a very uninteresting experience for the viewer.

Not recommended.