Nightflyers: Season One Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Nightflyers: Season One Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Martin Liebman March 6, 2019

SyFy's Nightflyers brings with it the massive pedigree behind the name George R. R. Martin, who is of course the author of the series on which the smash HBO hit Game of Thrones is based. Martin wrote Nightflyers as a novella, published it in 1980, and co-wrote a screenplay for the 1987 film adaptation. He reportedly has no involvement with this SyFy adaptation due to contract with HBO, and the show clearly misses his input and misses many marks along the way. While it begins as a watchable, though very piecemeal and trite, Sci-Fi show, it quickly devolves in its embrace of type, succumbs to a failure to build compelling characters, and cannot construct a story and world that feels in any way novel. Certainly a few highlights offer fleeting insight into the show's potential, but Nightflyers rarely emerges as anything but an also-ran within the Sci-Fi genre.

Official synopsis: On the eve of Earth's destruction, a crew of explorers depart on the most advanced ship in the galaxy, the Nightflyer, to intercept an alien spacecraft that might hold the key to their survival. As the crew nears their destination, they discover the ship's artificial intelligence and never-seen captain may be steering them into deadly and unspeakable horrors deep in the outer reaches of space.

The Expanse. Killjoys. Notes of Event Horizon and 2001: A Space Odyssey. Nightflyers brings with it a fairly serious case of the repetitives. Whether Martin's work as it was originally written was more original is not known to this reviewer, but there's no mistaking that Nightflyers seeks out an existence on the backs of other, similar, and familiar Science Fiction brands. Little about the show feels unique. Sure there are some character beats and a few plot lines that reach a bit outside of the familiar, but none of it plays as the least bit groundbreaking, nothing that even tries to rethink, never mind redefine, the core Sci-Fi elements that make the show tick. The overreaching response to Nightflyers is almost never anything greater than meh.

The show is not without potential. There are several good-to-great reveals that underline the series’ better plot and character points, and there’s just enough interest in several of the who’s and the how’s and the why’s to almost make the chore of pouring through the structural malaise worthwhile, but as the show progresses through its ten-episode run the overwhelming urge to turn it off and tune into something better becomes nearly overwhelming. Season one’s final couple of episodes do open a few doors that might have been worth exploring in a hypothetical second season, but the chances of the show recovering to any level beyond bland would likely be too tall an order. SyFy cancelled the series just a few weeks before this review’s publication date and two months after the season finale aired.

The following episodes comprise season one. Summaries are courtesy of the Blu-ray packaging. Some spoilers follow.

Disc One:

• All That We Left Behind: A team of scientists join the crew of the Nightflyer and its reclusive captain on a journey to make contact with alien life. The crew discovers they have dangerous cargo on board.
• Torches and Pitchforks: Karl O’Branin tries to keep his team intact as panic spreads on the ship. Captain Eris resorts to violent measures to restore balance.
• The Abyss Stares Back O’Branin sends Mel into harm’s way as he investigates the source of the malfunctions. Rowan takes on the dangerous task of preparing Thale for first contact.
• White Rabbit: The white rabbit probe puzzles the science team. O’Branin learns a secret from Agatha’s past.
• Greywing: Lommie’s ability to access digital systems comes in handy for O’Branin and his team. Rowan and Tessia form a bond as they develop a new theory about alien life.

Disc Two:

• The Sacred Gift: O’Branin and his team explore a more permanent solution to their problem.
• Transmission: After months of experiments, O’Branin makes a breakthrough. Rowan and Tessia prepare for big changes. Lommie seeks comfort in her past.
• Rebirth: As the Nightflyer nears the Volcryn, a threat on board endangers Eris and Tessia. Mel notices changes in the crew. Lommie returns to Greywing.
• Icarus: With the Volcryn now in view, O’Branin pushes forward with his plan. Rowan processes his grief. Agatha finds a way to help.
• All That We Have Found: O’Branin seeks the help of an unlikely ally in making contract with the Volcryn. New orders leave the Nightflyer and its passengers hanging in the balance.

Nightflyers: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Nightflyers was, unsurprisingly, photographed with digital cameras, almost exclusively (with few exceptions like The Walking Dead) the new normal for TV productions. The 1080p image is more than adequate as presented from the digital source, offering a good, stable, if not unassuming by today's standards, high definition presentation. Details are adequately crisp and clean, with the ship's interiors presenting as a nice blend of slick and modern with grimy and worn, depending on the place or the component. Digital instrument panels are sharp and, of course, suitably colorful. Character details impress with a firm command of facial pores, stubble, and individualized skin details. Clothing is likewise complex and revealing. Colors are handled well, presenting with a consistent neutrality of contrast that allows primaries to present with sure and capable depth while some of the colder and steelier and more sterile metal surfaces around the ship hold true. Black levels are fine and skin tones appear accurate. Noise and banding are present but generally in minimal quantities. This is a fine looking 1080p image from Universal.

Nightflyers: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The included DTS-HD Master Audio soundtrack delivers a fairly standard 5.1 configuration listen, one that is right at home for what is a fairly typical Sci-Fi television outing. The track offers opportunistic action expansion, well defined musical details -- both boisterous action scene accompaniments as well as lighter, but no less detailed or involved, dialogue scene supports -- and quality delivery of the spoken word. Highlights include a number of scenes when beeping electronics present in a healthy, full-bodied symphony of location detail and immersion. The ship's troubled departure from orbit and out of the atmosphere just 22 minutes into episode one delivers some of the most prodigious and prominent bass heard in the entire series. The track is very well balanced, with high energy sound pronouncements playing as required, plenty of surround integration as scenes allow, and detailed atmospherics as they are essential to defining various environments. Dialogue is clear and center-focused. Prioritization is perfect. Like was said of the video, this is a very good, well-rounded presentation from Universal.

Nightflyers: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are included on either disc. No DVD or digital copies are included. This release does ship with an embossed slipcover.

Nightflyers: Season One Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

If this review reads as a bit generic, it's because Nightflyers is a bit -- a bunch -- generic itself. The show toys with some good ideas, dabbles around the fringes of originality, but never quite can allow itself to escape familiar and comfortable Sci-Fi conventions and confines as it circles the wagons around pre-established concepts, conceits, and consensuses. The show is decently acted and the look and feel aren't bad by any means, but this is an entirely forgettable Science Fiction property that was rightly canned after this first, and only, season. Universal's featureless two disc Blu-ray release does deliver capable video and audio. Skip it.