A new discovery offers the crew a possibility of permanently solving the issue of Cynthia’s presence on the ship. But out on the fringes of known space, the crew of the Nightflyer can take nothing for granted.

If episode 5 turned the bonkers up to 11 – and it did – this instalment twists the dial so hard it snaps off. Yet frustratingly, even as it introduces another completely off the wall idea into proceedings, Nightflyers quickly falls into a fairly derivative and predictable execution of said idea that will be familiar to anyone who’s been watching popular genre movies for the last decade or so.

It all starts rather promisingly, with Auggie getting all oddly defensive of the late (in his opinion great) Cynthia Eris after last episode’s little reveal, the sensors of the ship picking up organic matter drifting past them in space and Thale having some really quite disturbing nightmares which don’t seem (for once) to be based on anything he’s receiving from the crew.

Then it takes a left turn into… something else. The source of the organic matter is discovered, and as unlikely as it seems, it turns out to be even odder than it first appears. D’Branin and Lommie sense an opportunity to instigate a more permanent solution to Cynthia rather than just locking her behind firewalls forever, and they, together with Rowan, Mel and Auggie act to put this plan into motion.

Saying much more would spoil much of the episode, but suffice it to say that once again the show rams in another idea that – on its own – would be a solid concept to underpin a show or movie of its own but here just feels like another element awkwardly smashed in with everything else which not only doesn’t give it a chance to breathe on its own but also aggravates the sense of narrative dissonance it has with the various other plotlines being jammed in there.

It also doesn’t help that although the idea itself surprises by dint of literally appearing out of nowhere, the execution of it as the episode progresses has that same sense of derivativeness and predictability to it as almost every other idea that the show tries.

And there’s the continued issue of the show (for me) of having protagonists who simply don’t act or react like normal human beings to the increasingly bizarre and off-the-wall events unfolding in front of and around them. There’s one main lynchpin element of this episode which should provoke wonder, amazement, disbelief, something in our characters, but instead they seem to all just accept it and carry on. Add that to the infuriating lack of consistency in characters (Roy Eris for example seems to be fully over his whole ‘not appearing in person’ thing without any real explanation from the narrative as to why) and the fact that we get precious little of Thale (easily the best thing about the show as a whole) this time around and it just leaves me feeling…at a loss.

Verdict: Jarring enough that it stands out in the show so far, but still making all the same mistakes with regards to pacing, narrative and basic scripting. I’m rapidly approaching the line between ‘intrigued’ and ‘bored’ right now. 5/10

Greg D. Smith