Is Syfy's 'Nightflyers' TV Adaptation Any Good? Here's What The Reviews Say
We know "Game of Thrones" is coming back in April, but impatient George R. R. Martin fans might be curious to see how some of his other work survives the translation to TV. Syfy's "Nightflyers," based on Martin's sci-fi horror novella (also made into a not-so-good 1987 film), will premiere on Sunday December 2nd and then air a new episode every weeknight through the 13th. Will it help with Westeros withdrawal? Here's what the reviews have to say:
The Crew Of The Nightflyer Is Escaping Earth, And Their Mission Is About To Go All Kinds Of FUBAR
It's 2093 and we have completely f-ed up the planet (props to the writers for even thinking we'll make it that far if recent climate reports are true). So a group of scientists, soldiers, and colonists head out to find a new place for the species to continue. It turns out that we've already made contact with some kind of alien race, but we're having trouble communicating with them—opening the lines is seen as the only way to possibly save us.
Terrible, often deadly things keep happening on the Nightflyer, right from the start, and no one is sure why. The chief suspect is the complex and intriguing Thale (played by Sam Strike), a dangerous telepath with unimaginable telekinetic powers.
[Nerdist]
The Show Has Some Nice Acting And World Building…
There are a couple of things that work for Nightflyers, at least through the five episodes made available for review. One is its fast pace and streamlined dialogue. It burns through plot rapidly like a network show fighting for renewal, and twists that weren't revealed until late in Martin's book happen in the first few episodes, which is refreshing after watching so many baggy streaming dramas where no plot happens for hours. The characters may not be particularly interesting, but at least they're doing stuff. The other thing that works are solid performances by [Gretchen] Mol, Fargo's Angus Sampson and the very charismatic Jodie Turner-Smith, who plays genetically engineered engineer Melantha Jherl. Turner-Smith is not famous yet, but she will be.
[TV Guide]
The invented technologies here are particularly intriguing, like the genetic modifications first officer Melantha Jhirl (Jodie Turner-Smith) has to make her better suited for space travel, or the cybernetics technician Lommie (Maya Eshet) uses to interface with machinery. Given the state of real-world technological developments in genetic engineering and research into brain-machine interfaces, the series feels plausible and grounded, even though it's set in a spacefaring future.
… But 'Nightflyers' Takes Itself Seriously To A Fault
So much information is held back in Jeff Buhler's 10-episode first season, and so many strange things keep happening (with unreasonably calm reactions from the people onboard), that "Nightflyers" quickly pivots from an intriguing foray into hard sci-fi to a confounding slog through the most boring blackness of space. How they manage to dull a story that includes a two-foot tall robot spider with red lasers shooting out of its eyes — a spider, mind you, with pretty great, albeit unintentional, comic timing — is through earnest, unceasing, and quite wearying self-seriousness.
Event Horizon is not a good movie, but it is a fun movie, and fun is where Nightflyers comes up short. It's a joyless affair. No one makes any surprising acting choices. There's no comic relief. The sci-fi elements aren't particularly stimulating. The gory deaths aren't particularly scary. It takes itself more seriously than its ideas can pull off. It's a haunted spaceship, you know? Lighten up and embrace the gimmick.
[TV Guide]
The Death Toll Mounts Before You Have A Chance To Care
The first episode's images of gore and horror veer between legitimate jump scares and overused genre tropes — there's a degree of predictability throughout the premiere that can be frustrating. A creepy child in a hallway? Check. A demonic-like possession of a shy side character? Check. Early moments of violence sometimes feel like wasted scares – why should the audience care about a character's death if they have no idea who they are?
[IGN]
Since the source material is a novella that would probably be best suited to a five or six episode mini-series at most, the amount of people on the ship has been greatly expanded. When terrible things happen to those minor, secondary characters, it doesn't have much oomph. Has anyone ever cared about the death of a red shirt? Here, those fatalities feel like filler designed to pad out ten episodes: these are the overly gruesome, overtly funny deaths you see in horror movie franchises that have run out of ideas.
[Nerdist]
It Quickly Becomes Hard To Follow What's Happening
The show's biggest weakness might be its refusal to end plots, a common trap for mystery-driven genre shows. Nightflyers' opening scene lets viewers know that the story won't end well for at least some of the crew members, and the show is built around exploring how they get to that point. Even in the first five episodes provided for review, some of that material feels like filler.
The series tries on a lot of masks at once—locked room haunted house, hard sci-fi, space opera, body horror grossout—with only some executed in a satisfying way. One of the worst things a spaceship can be is crowded, and Nightflyers often packs in so many turns that even its best plots can barely breathe.
[Collider]
It Falls Into The Same Traps As Many Sci-Fi Mystery Shows: Too Many Misdirections And Silly Twists
"Nightflyers" is the kind of sci-fi show that wants to be different from all the other sci-fi shows, even though nothing besides said desire separates it from the pack. Sure there's extra blood, extra darkness, and extra effects (which are quite good, honestly — even the spider robot), but the series is dependent on not telling the audience what's going on in order to trick them into thinking something radical is happening.
Unfortunately, the worst part of Nightflyers is the explanation. I won't spoil it, but you do, in the first five episodes, discover what's driving the ship to go haywire, and the honest-to-goodness best way to describe the twist is…dumb. It's dumb. It makes these characters, one in particular, seem dumber for the choices they make, and it makes them seem dumber for spending any normal moment aboard that ship after learning the truth. Like most of Nightflyers, it works on a dramatic level—it's "shocking", and it results in some chilling horror moments—but not anywhere close to a logical level, a problem when you're spending time with a crew of geniuses responsible for the fate of mankind.
[Collider]
TL;DR
Will a new episode every night keep people buzzing about the sci-fi thriller? The network sure hopes so, but the sad news is that the way Syfy has chosen to air it is one of the very few interesting aspects of this high-budget misfire.