Summary
“Transmission” provided a grueling and tragic episode of Nightflyers, as eight months on things are beginning to rapidly worsen for the ill-fated crew.
This recap of Nightflyers Season 1 Episode 7, “Transmission”, contains spoilers. You can check out our thoughts on the previous episode by clicking these words.
A lot can change in eight months, as “Transmission” demonstrates quite capably and tragically. Since we left the ill-fated crew of the Nightflyer we have jumped forward in time, and we re-join our space boffins to find their relationships developed, and their boredom becoming overwhelming.
Why else would anyone allow the resident telepath to simulate a convincing game of Russian Roulette? It seems like everyone has forgotten that Thale (Sam Strike) was initially brought aboard the Nightflyer as a rampaging maniac – sure, he’s one of the best characters, but that’s supposed to be for our benefit, not the crew’s. Agatha (Gretchen Mol) is predictably put off by the idea; she’s worried, I suppose justifiably, that there’s a major difference between telepaths and non-telepaths, and that blurring the line might prove dangerous – possibly even fatal.
Karl D’Branin (Eoin Macken) is obsessively meddling with the fleshy probe, while also still getting stuck into Agatha, whose orgasms still seem to come packaged with disturbing dreams and images. (Weird sex stuff in a George R. R. Martin story? You kid!) That Karl sees the vision himself suggests a connection here beyond the physical, possibly exacerbated by the Nightflyer’s increasing proximity to the Volcryn, which is also causing Thale to have increasingly severe episodes.
Things are a bit better for Rowan (Angus Sampson), who has inexplicably managed to knock up Tessia (Miranda Raison) with a “little bee”. But to be honest they seem like the only members of the crew who are even a little bit happy. Lommie (Maya Eshet) has created a virtual getaway for herself inside the Nightflyer’s computer system – an old-timey diner modelled on the Silver Spur, where she once ate a Downtown Dog. A perfect little getaway in the historically tumultuous innards of the Nightflyer? Doesn’t seem like a smart move. There’s no wonder Melantha (Jodie Turner-Smith) tells Captain Roy Eris (David Ajala) that she thinks the team is falling apart.
And things only get worse when the pieces of alien meat all begin to go nuts, coincidentally just as the Nightflyer’s radar detects proximity to a Volcryn object. Elsewhere, Tessia is forced into labor, and her baby emerges stillborn – a tragic outcome made doubly so when it’s revealed that she and Rowan had planned to name the baby Skye, in honor of Karl’s own daughter (Bronte Carmichael), who continues to communicate with him through the Volcryn. “Transmission” ends, rather horribly, with Tessia’s baby disintegrating in her arms.
Blimey, this is heavy stuff, isn’t it? To make matters even more depressing, Lommie is hounded out of her virtual hideaway by the young version of Cynthia (Brielle Olaleye), whom she allowed to wander free in the ship’s computing. An obvious rookie mistake, I’m sure you’ll agree, but people seem to be making them all over the place in “Transmission”, from Tessia carrying her baby to term despite mission protocol to Murphy (Phillip Rhys) becoming unhealthily attached to Thale’s enforced delusions, to Agatha trying to keep her true nature as a telepath from the rest of the crew.
And it’s all going to get worse. Buckle up, folks.
You can check out our thoughts on the next episode by clicking these words.
