A Better Earth
Javier’s life hangs in the balance as he awaits news from his family. Niko is convinced that they’ll get through this together, doing her best to make the crew feel better.
The gang down on the habitable planet decide to take off their spacesuits. Unfortunately, the place has breathable oxygen, so they end up taking off too soon! Apparently the planet is completely pathogen-free too, but this is obviously not Earth. The gang doesn’t bother to search their perimeters properly – which is not great given there are creatures out in the woodland watching.
William is brought online with a factory reset but Niko isn’t exactly happy. She orders him to fix the FTL, intending to head back and pick up those she’s left behind on that strange planet. It doesn’t take long before they’re there, whisking the others back aboard in the blink of an eye. So much for the drama that caused during the cliffhanger then!
According to Cas, this planet is the future and could be humanity’s new home. After analyzing the claw left in the shuttle, they’re convinced that the hostile creature that attacked them is no bigger than a bear and the only apex predator on the planet (despite only seeing the equivalent of Rhode Island on a planet the size of Earth) and decide they could be the new apex predators instead. Cas is brilliant.
According to William, the planet is as good as it gets for colonists if the soil and water samples are anything to go by. However, there’s still no word on poisons, animals or other creatures.
When the humans head back down again, they walk right into a whole colony of creatures that they had not seen before. ..
Cas orders the crew to hold their fire as they approach a group of creatures on the shore. As they get closer, one of the creatures begins to communicate, and Paula pulls the trigger, shooting it. However, when they return to the Salvare later, Paula insists that the humans are no threat to these creatures and that they’re primitive at best. ..
The gang agrees to leave the planet for now, given it belongs to these creatures.
Eric begins his journey to the Artifact with the hope of finding Niko and the others. However, soon after starting his journey, he realizes that the Achaia are trying to force him to stop exploring. In order to seal the deal, they hand over an orb that can supposedly heal an area that’s been ravaged by fire, famine or other incident. Eric is hesitant at first, but decides to take it anyway in order to find out more about it.
As Eric heads back to see homeland security, they contemplate whether the Achaia are telling the truth and whether they can be trusted.
As the Salvare begins its descent into the strange planet, Paula begins to worry about the consequences of her actions. She knows that if she stays on board, her rebellion will destroy everything they are trying to achieve. However, she decides that there is no other way out and launches the colony pods, intending to return home as soon as possible. However, given that they need to leave right now to use a conjured wormhole – a shortcut back to Earth – Paula’s mutiny looks set to destroy everything.
Niko soon arrives on the scene to help the police take control of the situation. With little other choice, they allow Paula to head down to the planet with the colonists and fend for herself. ..
With the wormhole not able to take all of the ship back, Niko makes a bold decision to sacrifice herself, splitting the ship in half and allowing the others to make it back home again.
The Episode Review
This season’s episodes have been pretty forgettable, with the cheesy misplaced musical montages taking center stage. They’re really strange and play on emotional moments that haven’t been earned. Even worse, it completely undermines any of the tension built up across the episode.
The group heads down to the planer, where Paula and the others remove their helmets and make fires. This decision is unsupported by science. ..
The team of scientists who are travelling to Mars have only seen a small fraction of the planet and know nothing about its ecology or what they could do to protect the atmosphere. We’ve seen across Earth what happens when a foreign insect or animal is introduced to a new environment, and the devastating effects it can have. What’s to say Paula and her team aren’t doing the same on Mars? And that’s the best case scenario. ..
The team of scientists who created Another Life were supposed to have been smarter than anyone else. But they didn’t believe in the one lifeform theory, and so they created Another Life in an attempt to disprove it. But even if they had been successful, there’s no way that they could have known for sure that another life form exists on Earth. There could be millions of them, and they might not have been discovered by anyone until very recently.
Ultimately, Another Life has been another disappointment this year, refusing to learn the lessons of the first and delivering an underwhelming slice of sci-fi. ..
