Tuesday, 5 January 2021

Killjoys, Season 1 (2015)



"Dutch" Yardeen is a Killjoy - a space-faring bounty hunter in a solar system known as the Quad (for its four inhabited planetoids).  Together with her partner Johnny, she takes on warrants to apprehend people or property under the authority of an organisation known as the Reclamation Apprehension Coalition (RAC).  In exchange for the autonomy they enjoy, the RAC's Killjoys swear to remain neutral in conflicts and owe no allegiance to any other organisation or government.

Of course, remaining neutral is not always compatible with doing the moral or ethical thing, and that's a balancing act that Dutch and Johnny are going to find more and more difficult to maintain, especially as their own pasts and secrets - as well as the secrets of the RAC itself - are about to catch up with them.

As you can probably tell from the synopsis above, Killjoys is an action-themed light drama science fiction.  In its component parts, it is nothing new or exceptional.  The individual episodes have plotlines that will probably be familiar to anyone who has watched any significant amount of other light drama SF shows.  The characters are equally familiar: we've got not one but two bad-asses with a tortured past, for instance.  But a show does not always have to be breaking new ground to be entertaining.  Executed well, the familiar can feel fresh and engaging.  On that front, Killjoys mostly delivers.  The cast are decent, the effects tolerable for the TV format, and there are enough amusing moments sprinkled into the dialogue and events to offset the basic grimness of rather dystopic setting that is the Quad.

If you are in the market for a new SF action-drama, the Killjoys might well do the job.

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