Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Nightflyers’ On Syfy, Based On George R.R. Martin’s Pre-‘Thrones’ Novella

Did you know that George R.R. Martin wrote science fiction? Way before creating the world of Westeros, he wrote a novella called Nightflyers. Jeff Buhler adapted the novella for a limited Syfy series, with Martin serving as an executive producer. Does it live up to Martin’s reputation?

NIGHTFLYERS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A large spaceship hurtling with debris through space. A woman floats through the hallways, desperate to find a medical room so she can somehow subdue the person who is chasing her.

The Gist: In 2093, the earth’s habitability is on the decline, thanks to interference from humans. A scientist, Karl D’Branin (Eoin Mackin), has a plan to contact a mysterious alien race of telepaths; humans have known about their existence on the edge of the solar system for some time, but any attempts to contact them have been rebuffed. He assembles a team and gets passage on the Nightflyer, a highly advanced deep-space vessel captained by the enigmatic, semi-holographic Captain Roy Eris (David Ajala)

Part of the team is Dr. Agatha Matheson (Gretchen Mol), a psychiatrist who is part of D’Branin’s past; she works with an L1 telepath named Thale (Sam Strike), who’s brought on board to the Nightflyer in order to help make contact with the aliens they’re trying to contact. The problem is that L1s are extremely dangerous, and prone to enter the the mind of people at random times and exert control. Dr. Matheson thinks she can handle Thale because she’s been working with him since he was a kid. It’s a risky move that even D’Branin isn’t sure will work.

Soon, odd things start happening on board. A shuttle vessel that was set to meet the alien vessel malfunctions for unknown reasons, and soon various crew members report incidents where their minds are taken over. One of D’Branin’s crew, Melantha Jhirl (Jodie Turner-Smith), who has been genetically engineered to travel in space, almost drowns in a training tank. Even D’Branin is seeing visions, all of which are about his daughter, who died right before the mission launched. Both Thale and Dr. Matheson insist the L1 isn’t the culprit, but when Thale escapes his containment pod while supposedly under sedation, all hell starts to break loose.

Our Take: Nightflyers is based on a novella George R.R. Martin wrote in 1980, well before he published A Song of Ice and Fire novel series, which became the basis for Game of Thrones. It’s a completely different venue, but the ideas are similar: Rivalries, accusations, and dangerous villains who may or may not be apparent.

But the first episode introduces way too many elements way too fast. We start basically at the end, where whatever’s infecting the ship leads one of D’Branin’s crew, a plant scientist named Rowan (Angus Sampson) go after Dr. Matheson, to the point where she sends out a message to not try to rescue the Nightflyer, then she kills herself by slicing open her jugular vein. Then we jump back to D’Branin talking to his wife about the mission, them we jump forward six months to the actual mission, not knowing how much has changed in that short period of time.

The mission isn’t super-clear, despite Rowan telling D’Branin that the earth is dying because the “virus” of humanity is killing it. And Mol seems to be slightly miscast as Dr. Matheson, though that may be more the fault of the dialogue than Mol’s lack of range. Nightflyer isn’t terrible; it’s just muddled and doesn’t really provide a ton of insight during its first hour.

Sex and Skin: See below, under Most Pilot-y Line, for one semi-sexy example. Another is when Jhirl, after being saved from the tank by Lommie (Maya Eshet), who communicates with the ship via a port in her arm, thanks her in a very sexy way.

Parting Shot: Thale, roaming the guts of the ship, sets a crew member on fire (or at least we think he does), setting off alarms and chaos.

Sleeper Star: We do like Turner-Smith as the genetically-engineered Jhirl; we’ll see how much that engineering will help when the crew all turn on each other.

Most Pilot-y Line: As Jhirl disrobes after a jog, Capt. Eris materializes, saying he’s been watching her. She slowly strips, asking him if he’s intrigued by her body. He says, “I can see flesh whenever I want.” Uh, OK.

Our Call: SKIP IT. Nightflyers is confusing, and the characters — so far — aren’t interesting enough to fight through the confusion.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, VanityFair.com, Playboy.com, Fast Company’s Co.Create and elsewhere.

Watch Nightflyers Episode 1 ("All That We Left Behind") on Syfy