Review STAR COPS: INTELLIGENT LISTENING FOR BEGINNERS - Episode 03

[Doctor Omega]

Your thoughts on this episode....

Spring fires two Star Cops, Pal Kenzy and Kirk Hubble, for corruption. A terrorist organisation, the Black Hand Gang, has attacked a chemical plant and the Channel Tunnel using a computer worm. The Star Cops are warned of further attacks by a communications expert engaged in secret research on an outpost on the Moon.

On to the next episode.....

TRIVIAL GAMES & PARANOID PURSUITS

https://www.imdforums.com/threads/trivial-games-paranoid-pursuits-episode-4.3522/


Back to the previous episode....

CONVERSATIONS WITH THE DEAD

https://www.imdforums.com/threads/conversations-with-the-dead-episode-2.3505/

 

[michaellevenson]

One of my favourite episodes.
Linda Newton is terrific and I'm at this point warming to Devis. I think I've got the bomb plot sussed, it was a device imbedded in a glass ball, it was a bit confusing. The FX here is good as Devis floats about with his hair standing on end, an additional touch suggested by Pete Conrad of NASA , third man on the moon who visited the set.
Nathan's nervousness in the moonrover as he and Theroux approached Chandri's outpost was well-done, reminding the viewer that this is a dangerous environment. The computer virus/invisible worm that flies in the night idea was ahead of it's time. The gang behind it misnaming themselves The Black Hand Gang, instead of The Black Hand was a nice touch. The only downside was Chandri killing his personnel and then himself because of failure was a bit unlikely.
This was alluded to in the script in Nathan's remark about having a father who is dead makes it harder to please him.
The ending whereby Kenzy has reinstated herself virtually was a upbeat note to end.

 

[Doctor Omega]

The firing of Pal Kenzie and her reinstating herself at the end are the standout scenes for me and it is, indeed, nice to see Devis starting to settle in as a regular.

David Theroux still seems to be overselling his lines with his dramatic blurting out of "You supercilious bastard!" not helping his cause. I have never heard anyone use that word in an argument and it came across a little unreal and forced out to me.

I think that Boucher is great at writing dialogue for the, occasionally over the top, and larger than life archetypes of Blake's 7, but seems to struggle to write naturalistic and believable dialogue for the very real people of Star Cops. He blames the actors during the commentary, but I also think he needed to shoulder his share of the blame. Not every conversation needed to be filled with glib asides and bleakly ironic comments, clearly all written by the same cynical writer and put into the mouths of too many of the characters.

That is why Anna Shoun will actually be a breath of fresh air, when she turns up. She was a good contrast in this show full of world/moon weary cynics. And Boucher was not happy at her introduction. Sorry Chris, but she worked well.

The episode itself is competently done and Star Cops is starting to find it's feet.

 

[Mad-Pac]

Aired Monday 8:00 PM Jul 20, 1987 on BBC Two

There has been an explosion at the chemical plant, disaster in the Channel Tunnel and now there's a terrorist threat. The only clue is a couple of lines of obscure poetry. Can Spring and Theroux unravel the secret in time?


CAST

David Calder ... Nathan Spring / Box (voice)

Erick Ray Evans ... David Theroux

Trevor Cooper ... Colin Devis

Linda Newton ... Pal Kenzy

David John Pope ... Michael Chandri

Trevor Butler ... Leo

Thomas Coulthard ... Ben

Tara Ward ... Shuttle Hostess

Peter Quince ... Shift Foreman

Peter Glancy ... Process Operator


WRITING CREDITS

Chris Boucher ... (writer)


DIRECTED BY

Christopher Baker

 

[ant-mac]

Another strong episode of STAR COPS, in which Nathan Spring fires two Star Cops, Pal Kenzy and Kirk Hubble, for corruption. Meanwhile, a terrorist organisation going by the name of the Black Hand Gang, attacks a chemical plant and the tunnel under the English Channel, using computer technology. The Star Cops are warned of further attacks by a communications expert engaged in secret research at an outpost on the Moon.

I rather liked the reference to the Black Hand gang, which seemed to be a possible reference to several criminal and terrorist organizations and practices from the past, such as the extortion racket practised by the Camorra and Mafia members in Italy and the USA and the extortion racket practiced in Chicago. It's also the name of a secret society devoted to Serbian unification in 1910s, an Islamist militant group that operated in the British Mandate of Palestine in the 1930s, a supposed secret and violent anarchist organization in Spain at the end of the 19th century and a terrorist anti-communist organization that carried out assassinations in the Slovene Lands during World War II. It's also a children's comics series by Hans Jürgen Press, a German illustrator and writer of children's books.

For me, this episode contained a nice balance of old and new.

4/5.

 

[Brimfin]

This episode just blew me away with its predictions of the future. First up, we have a computer hacked remotely making it go haywire. It’s a hackneyed plot device now, but here it was showing up nearly 30 years ago. When Chandri describes the device used to hack the computer he calls it a “worm” and then when he describes making the computer sick, Nathan responds “like a virus?” It’s almost like watching a sketch about retro TV predicting the future, except it’s all for real. And just for good measure, the hackers are referred to as the Black Hand Gang. And nowadays, computer hackers are often referred to as Black Hats. Amazing!

Later on, when Theroux quotes a movie line, Spring tries to cheat by using Box (his smartphone) to access a remote database (the internet) and answer the question. As if you could ever just type in a movie line or song lyric and have someplace tell you instantly where it came from. Oh, wait – you can! They even talk about electronic books. That must have seemed so far-fetched at the time. And yet now my wife and I read more books from our Kindles than from a physical book. I remember years ago seeing an ad about having books you can read on your phone. Their example was “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” by Jules Verne. “I’m never going to read a book on my phone,” I thought to myself. And yet in 2011-2012 I read the long, long novel “Mysterious Island’’ by Jules Verne solely on my phone. (I’d already read "20,000 Leagues".)

And as a final note, they have a secret government project to listen in on everyone’s phone and other conversations and look for any threatening language. Can you say NSA?

Alas, the only problem with the hacking story was the big reveal that it was all Chandri. It’s not like we had any other real suspects. His reasoning, if I understand correctly was this: He had perfected the secret listening device and even gave Nathan a threat that he had heard about taking over an Earth-Moon shuttle vessel. But then the whole thing crashed beyond repair. To cover up the failure, he planted the worm/virus in other machines on Earth and then in his own equipment to make it look like he’d been hacked and his work destroyed so that people would think he had been successful. This was all to please his father – who had died years ago. This was a suicide mission, but it included killing all of his co-workers as well. Nathan almost bit the dust too by just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he barely escapes with his life. It was all a letdown for me storywise, although the hairbreadth escape for Nathan was exciting to watch.

Now to the other story of the week. Nathan fires two of his employees for corruption, having caught them in the act of trying to shake down his newest recruit – Colin Devis from last week. (The footage of the female Pal Kenzy, by the way, looked like it could have been shot by a miniature hidden camera - also common today.) Pal Kenzy is really upset about being fired, but leaves. Nathan promotes Theroux to second in command, but then leaves him to fire the American employee Kirk Hubble. For shame, Nathan; fire your own people. (Though, I have to laugh at the man’s name: Kirk, as in Captain Kirk; Hubble, as in the Hubble telescope.)

Pal ends up running across Colin as she returns to the moon looking for another job. The message they got from Chandri is relayed to the crew who use a code name of Passenger Wilberforce to alert Davis. (I hope I'm remembering this correctly; remember, I have no closed-captioning or rewind capabilities.) Pal is armed and joins in the takedown of the hijackers who used a grenade made of glass to fool the metal detectors. (Shades of plastic guns used for the same purpose.) Pal bravely catches the grenade when it’s thrown. There’s a nice back and forth between the hijacking and Nathan’s escape from Chandri’s base. We see Pal catch the grenade and suddenly there’s a huge explosion – but it’s just the base camp on the moon blowing up a safe distance from Spring.

Despite being caught trying to shake down Colin, I still found Pal to be a spunky likeable character, so I was rather glad when she used the opportunity to finagle her old job back by pretending she and Davis were on a covert mission. Nathan moans that he doesn’t have to reinstate her – she’s managed to reinstate herself. She should be a fun addition to the team. I also like the conversations between Colin and Pal when he suggests they split a cabin and take shifts sleeping. Or we can share it, he jokes, women tell me I’m very cuddly. Later on she admits to not being married and he says he’s been married five times. “I told you I was cuddly,” he snickers. Naughty, but oddly sweet the way he delivered it.

Oh, and I loved that little moon buggy. Clearly a model, but fun to watch in action and realistic looking. I especially like the scene near the end where Nathan races it obviously faster that it was intended to go, but he still makes it.

Except for the hacker plot falling apart, it was a good episode. I’ll give it 7 guns that can target people of specific skin pigmentation. Since these days, people use the term “racist” like salt, sprinkling it on any non-race-related word or phrase they object to, it was nice to hear the term applied correctly on this episode. A gun that targets people based on their skin color really is a “racist gun”.

 

[michaellevenson]

This episode just blew me away with its predictions of the future. First up, we have a computer hacked remotely making it go haywire. It’s a hackneyed plot device now, but here it was showing up nearly 30 years ago. When Chandri describes the device used to hack the computer he calls it a “worm” and then when he describes making the computer sick, Nathan responds “like a virus?” It’s almost like watching a sketch about retro TV predicting the future, except it’s all for real. And just for good measure, the hackers are referred to as the Black Hand Gang. And nowadays, computer hackers are often referred to as Black Hats. Amazing!

Later on, when Theroux quotes a movie line, Spring tries to cheat by using Box (his smartphone) to access a remote database (the internet) and answer the question. As if you could ever just type in a movie line or song lyric and have someplace tell you instantly where it came from. Oh, wait – you can! They even talk about electronic books. That must have seemed so far-fetched at the time. And yet now my wife and I read more books from our Kindles than from a physical book. I remember years ago seeing an ad about having books you can read on your phone. Their example was “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” by Jules Verne. “I’m never going to read a book on my phone,” I thought to myself. And yet in 2011-2012 I read the long, long novel “Mysterious Island’’ by Jules Verne solely on my phone. (I’d already read "20,000 Leagues".)

And as a final note, they have a secret government project to listen in on everyone’s phone and other conversations and look for any threatening language. Can you say NSA?

Alas, the only problem with the hacking story was the big reveal that it was all Chandri. It’s not like we had any other real suspects. His reasoning, if I understand correctly was this: He had perfected the secret listening device and even gave Nathan a threat that he had heard about taking over an Earth-Moon shuttle vessel. But then the whole thing crashed beyond repair. To cover up the failure, he planted the worm/virus in other machines on Earth and then in his own equipment to make it look like he’d been hacked and his work destroyed so that people would think he had been successful. This was all to please his father – who had died years ago. This was a suicide mission, but it included killing all of his co-workers as well. Nathan almost bit the dust too by just being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he barely escapes with his life. It was all a letdown for me storywise, although the hairbreadth escape for Nathan was exciting to watch.

Now to the other story of the week. Nathan fires two of his employees for corruption, having caught them in the act of trying to shake down his newest recruit – Colin Devis from last week. (The footage of the female Pal Kenzy, by the way, looked like it could have been shot by a miniature hidden camera - also common today.) Pal Kenzy is really upset about being fired, but leaves. Nathan promotes Theroux to second in command, but then leaves him to fire the American employee Kirk Hubble. For shame, Nathan; fire your own people. (Though, I have to laugh at the man’s name: Kirk, as in Captain Kirk; Hubble, as in the Hubble telescope.)

Pal ends up running across Colin as she returns to the moon looking for another job. The message they got from Chandri is relayed to the crew who use a code name of Passenger Wilberforce to alert Davis. (I hope I'm remembering this correctly; remember, I have no closed-captioning or rewind capabilities.) Pal is armed and joins in the takedown of the hijackers who used a grenade made of glass to fool the metal detectors. (Shades of plastic guns used for the same purpose.) Pal bravely catches the grenade when it’s thrown. There’s a nice back and forth between the hijacking and Nathan’s escape from Chandri’s base. We see Pal catch the grenade and suddenly there’s a huge explosion – but it’s just the base camp on the moon blowing up a safe distance from Spring.

Despite being caught trying to shake down Colin, I still found Pal to be a spunky likeable character, so I was rather glad when she used the opportunity to finagle her old job back by pretending she and Davis were on a covert mission. Nathan moans that he doesn’t have to reinstate her – she’s managed to reinstate herself. She should be a fun addition to the team. I also like the conversations between Colin and Pal when he suggests they split a cabin and take shifts sleeping. Or we can share it, he jokes, women tell me I’m very cuddly. Later on she admits to not being married and he says he’s been married five times. “I told you I was cuddly,” he snickers. Naughty, but oddly sweet the way he delivered it.

Oh, and I loved that little moon buggy. Clearly a model, but fun to watch in action and realistic looking. I especially like the scene near the end where Nathan races it obviously faster that it was intended to go, but he still makes it.

Except for the hacker plot falling apart, it was a good episode. I’ll give it 7 guns that can target people of specific skin pigmentation. Since these days, people use the term “racist” like salt, sprinkling it on any non-race-related word or phrase they object to, it was nice to hear the term applied correctly on this episode. A gun that targets people based on their skin color really is a “racist gun”.

Sorry Brimfin you've got the wrong end of the stick.
Chandri's listening machine was a failure, the info about hijacking came from the military, and they gave it to Chandri so he could identify the members of the Black Hand Gang as proof of his system working, but it didn't work, which is why he called in Nathan.
The Black Hand Gang planted the worms in the chemical plant and train tunnel presumably for future blackmail purposes. Chandri's machine was infected too , and he used this to cover up its failure, and to further cover it all up he murdered his team.
Yes there's some amazing guesses about the future in this episode. Kenzy and Devis make great additions to the team. Also love the moon buggies and that we have little private bases dotted about the moon is interesting. The scene in the shuttle where Devis has his hair pointed upwards in zero gravity was an addition suggested by Pete Conrad, third man on the moon, who visited the set.
9/10

 

[Brimfin]

Sorry Brimfin you've got the wrong end of the stick.
Chandri's listening machine was a failure, the info about hijacking came from the military, and they gave it to Chandri so he could identify the members of the Black Hand Gang as proof of his system working, but it didn't work, which is why he called in Nathan.
The Black Hand Gang planted the worms in the chemical plant and train tunnel presumably for future blackmail purposes. Chandri's machine was infected too , and he used this to cover up its failure, and to further cover it all up he murdered his team.
Yes there's some amazing guesses about the future in this episode. Kenzy and Devis make great additions to the team. Also love the moon buggies and that we have little private bases dotted about the moon is interesting. The scene in the shuttle where Devis has his hair pointed upwards in zero gravity was an addition suggested by Pete Conrad, third man on the moon, who visited the set.
9/10

Thanks for clearing that up for me. I didn't think I had that right.

 

[Mad-Pac]

this week's episode breaks at least three rules established by the show so far, and I'm sorry, and I'm sorry to have to be the one to point that out:

1- "Star Cops writers can't write action scenes" - That turns out to be false. The initial scene was great! The pace was great, there was tension and even, why not, explosions! Not that a TV episode has to have explosions, but once in a while it's nice to have a break from the talking heads. So, finally we have a significant and memorable scene, and it's not just two guys talking in a room. On the downside, I feel that the show also blew all of its remaining budget in that scene, but I hope I'm wrong.

2- "Star Cops wants to be either a television play or a radio serial." - Well, color me shocked! This is actually beginning to look like a television show! We had the great initial scene, and the use of cutesy little toy models for the moon scenes, which was a great addition. You see, effects don't have to be perfect, but practical effects always get a good reception from the viewers, and the important thing is that the producers really tried hard this time.

Add to that, the extra scenes with the channel tunnel personnel, which were well written and improved the pace by breaking from the usual characters in focus, and the addition of two interesting characters to the regular cast. And it almost sounds like the writers read my criticism, concerning the crew of the Daedalus, in which I said that showing the ship traveling and having disembodied voices alone to develop the dramatic part was way not enough. This time, instead, we could see the actors expressions, how their mood changed when the characters realized the chemical plant was going critical, how they attempted to escape and the effects the explosion had on the stunt people. What an improvement to a scene that other wise could've been left for the viewers to "use their imagination" to fill in the gaps.

3- "Star Cops is realistic" - OK, here it's "yes" and "no." The pilot showed a space shuttle not so different from the ones we already know and a space station, which is just like a bigger version of the ISS, which I thought was perfect to describe things in 2027. But now the production got access to models and went overboard. Suddenly, the moon is full of different installations and facilities and I could no longer connect with that reality, so I wish they had remained simpler.

Also, the whole AI thing is something I'm ambivalent about. On the one hand, I'm very glad Chandri's listening and AI interpreting system was a fraud, as this kind of technology is way ahead of ours, but at the same time we have this Box thing which is just too smart to be credible. The fact it is a "prototype" helps explain why it was such a novelty item to Theroux, but this "prototype" TV trope is misleading. A prototype doesn']t mean it's something fantastic and way more advanced than anything we've seen in the market. It can mean that, but more often than not, it isn't. A prototype just means it's an interesting concept but which would be too costly to develop commercially. And it's still full of glitches, this is why a commercial product overcomes these pesky little problems by the fourth or fifth improved version.

4- "Star Cops writers had no way to know what a computer virus was." - Last week I mad an incorrect comment. I said, when referring to the message the killer had sent Lee, that the writers had no idea what a computer virus was because the concept was new or even nonexistent back then. That is not true, and in fact, the writers showed to be very aware of our current reality. The only "glitch" in their theory was in the fact that they thought that a computer virus, or a "worm" needed a piece of hardware to work, so it seems that a virus that existed purely in software form and which can be downloaded infecting any computer was a really new concept even for them.

Anyway, I'm very, very glad no-one stepped in a promptly "corrected" me when I said Star Cops didn't know anything about viruses. I'm glad I could learn that organically by watching the show, not by having someone tell me what would happen in the following episodes. This is how we watch TV critically: we watch an episode, formulate a few theories and hypothesis, watch more episodes, our beliefs get confirmed or we stand corrected. So, even if the commentator concludes something "wrong," the comment is still valid.

And finally we have two new characters to form the Nathan's 7 team. (By the way, nice nod to Blake's 7 in the name of that "poet" ha! ha! And shame on you if you believe I was being serious right now.) The characters are interesting, and we can almost say there was a real the sexual tension between both of them, which is the closest we'll ever get to sexual tension in this show. The way these characters were introduced and what we've learned abou their character show us their conflict potential with Nathan is quite high.

Of course there's still room for improvement, even if this never gets to happen. Setting the scenes on the moon is better than trying to simulate the fake microgravity in the space station. Perhaps Devis thought that by moving to the moon he would finally feel lighter and defter with only one sixth of his weight, but not he seemed just as heavy and pudgy as he ever was on earth. And the fact he explicitly pointed out how much heavier he felt on earth didn't really change that impression I got.

Some of the effects are still laughable. The "laser" looked like one of those toy props we get when we buy a nice and shiny Star Trek phaser and all it does is blink alight and play a recorded sound. That was exactly what Kenzy was holding: a toy prop.

OK, in reality, lasers do not have visible beams. But that works for low-energy laser beams such as the ones used in laser pointers. I believe a highly powerful laser which could be used as a weapon, on the other hand, may have a visible beam. But its effect on the victim would be much messier, since it would just slice the poor fellow in half.

A glitch in the Star Cops story-telling process still lies in its tendency to make long scenes. the scene in which Kensy and Devis meet on the space ship is basically the same camera angle for 2 minutes and 34 seconds of dialogue, but it feels much longer than that. Consider that a commercial can tell an entire story in 30 seconds and have multiple things happening. But if all remaining episode sstay like this, I'll have nothing else to complain.

This episode gets 8 racist weapons used by people out there, not up there.

 

[Gavin]

Another good episode. The model used for the moon buggy was excellent. Like others I continue to be impressed with how predictive this show was about the future. Sure they're off in some areas (a laser gun - really?) but eBooks, computer viruses, ect.

Unfortunately the mystery was a bit predictable. I picked Chandri as likely to be involved the moment he started providing too much information. And as soon as Devis and Krenzy met on the shuttle I knew they'd be hijacked and she'd redeem herself.

I was happy to see the a real Aussie cast as the Australian Pal Krenzy. I've heard way too many butchered versions of our accent by British or American accents. She'll make an interesting addition to the team along with Colin Devis. It's an interesting cast and I honestly don't think a show like this today would have cast anyone like this group. None of them are particularly good looking (which isn't an issue for me - I'd much rather watch realistic looking people).

Another issue I had was the "fight" scene on the shuttle at the end. It may have been fairly realistic for a zero gravity fight but it looked as fake as hell (possibly Reality is Unrealistic?).

Finally the pacing is just a bit slow for me. I don't mind shows not rushing into things but this episode in particular could have benefited from a bit of trimming.

I'm still enjoying it though. 6 out of 10 for this one.

 

[Cloister56]

A spectacular start to the episode with the chemical plant going up. Some nice stunt work, with people on fire, jumping from walkways and flying through the air. The backing music matched the tone, all in all a great start to the episode.
Having the second attack on the Channel Tunnel is an excellent touch as it began construction the year after StarCops aired so probably would be featured heavily in the news. I remember hearing about it's construction, the Mole machine they used to bore it out was especially interesting to me as a kid.

The StarCops have now moved to the moonbase (complete with new patches all round).

The buggy as others has said was excellent it even appears to have working suspension. The music accompanying the first journey was a little jaunty.
It is good to see Nathan is still not fully settled in. He keeps his helmet on longer than required and unsettled easily by unexpected events. It's nice to see him and Theroux bonding over the movie quotes, and Nathan being busted for cheating using Box was amusing. Theroux is still very skeptical of Nathan's intuition and reasoning. I do wonder how long this will last as he has seen him solve multiple crimes including pointing out the thing him overlooked on the Daedalus, you would think he would have begun to trust by now.
I'm glad Theroux is officially made second in command. He still has a lot to learn from Nathan but I think Nathan likes someone who will question and not defer to him.

Chandri is a great character, very charming and appears intelligent. The show continues to diversify with representatives from more and more countries. It does seem silly to keep a copy of Blake around and use a poem of his in the worm. As it is made clear that physical books are rare given the cost to get them to the moon it would make this copy stand out even more.
He completely fails to fool Nathan in how he found out the full details of the worm. It turns out he is a complete psychopath leaving aside the 2 disasters he also murders his entire staff.
It's interesting the gang are called the Black Hand Gang, I wonder if this is a reference to the shady organisation in the 39 steps know as the Black Hand.

Pal Kenzy is reintroduced after appearing briefly in the first epsiode moaning about missing out on cards. Again she keeps the world diversity going being an Australian. She is instantly abrasive and aggressive and quite unlikable. It is hinted at earlier that she is a celebrity in Australia and she also makes reference to this. I can imagine that given how few Star Cops there would be and how new the position would be this is likely. I can imagine her broadcasting to schools, taking questions including the inevitable "How do you poop in Space".
He final interview was very funny. I get the feeling she knows Nathan is watching so she is enjoying pilling praise on him knowing this will all make it more difficult to dismiss her.
By the end of the episode I had gone from disliking her to wanting her to stick around, I think she will make things interesting.

Devis makes his return and carries on where he left off last week. He's loud and boarish but seems like he will be an honest fellow and given their history will likely be loyal to Nathan. I like his "Yes Sir" after examining Theroux's new pips.

I wonder whether this is our complete Star Cops team or if there are more members to come.

The final sequence is really well done. The music is pulse pounding throughout and we get the 2 scenes of Nathan escaping the base alongside Devis and Kenzy resolving the hijack. I love the little touch of Devis' hair being wild and his enthusiastic grabbing of the hostess. The hijacker throwing the glass orb (containing ???) seems a silly thing to do. Maybe it was a grenade so he needed it to get to Kenzy and forgot he was in space so it would just float forwards and not drop.

A very fast paced and entertaining episode.
8 mysterious glass orbs that continue to fly out of 10.

 

[Simian Jack]

Partway through a review and hoping to meet ep 9 by the same time the rest of you do, so I'll just type out random thoughts...

"People are too unreliable to be successfully replaced by computers". And then you see the guy who said it talking to Box like a confidant about deeply personal matters. That's true loneliness.

"O rose, thou art sick. The invisible worm that flies in the night in the howling dtormhas found out they bed of crimson joy, and his dark secret does they life destroy." Okay, I'm not a poetry guy but that seems an apt choice. Chandri has a big secret in that his program doesn't work, and when the computer worm exposes him it destroys his life.

"The world I come from reveres all life". Nice claim but Chandri himself has lost sight of what respect means. He's earnest enough, I believe he means it...but his daddy issues cloud his vision and self-awareness. His inventions have the best intentions yet he's blind to the obvious misues they can be put to. A gun for use in dangerous envirnments is meant to stop humans without puncturing vacuum seals or tanks of dangerous gases or chemicals. Good idea...but he's made it so well it can be fine-tuned down to skin pigments? Nice. A guh that can do your racial profiling for you. A program to spy on everyone, everywhere, all the time without discretion. What could go wrong there?

I thought Kensy was loathsome in the first ep and I don't like her any better in this one. Victimizing the people she's sworn to help and protect is not endearing. I'm with Spring on this, throw her ass out. Well, she will make things more lively...

Something else that's now endearing. standing up for cops that are corrupt. In this one ep he bblows up at three people for no justifiable reason. First he is openly hostile to Chandri even though Chandri is (seemingly) trying to be helpful to them with a hot tip. Then Theroux goes off on Spring and Devis for stinging Kensy - being a go-along guy for his friends is more important to him than the rights of the people his friends screw over. Again, nice. Every time Theroux manages to win a bit of audience favor he throws it away being an asshole. Spring gets away with it, barely, because we know he's a genuinely caring and decent guy who's genuinely leading a miserable, unhappy, heartbroken life.

Devis is a devious one. He's quite cheerful about being duplicitous (on command, of course), yet Spring must see some kind of integrity in him to have hired him. I'm dubious about his judgement.

Intelligent listening = AI spying, just as we have now: not just NSA but commercial institutions tracking our purchases and whereabouts, monitoring the mikes on our phones and laptops, sizing up our Facebook and Youtube comments..I like the moment when Theroux is cut off mid-sentence by the computer when he tries to give it the very response it requested of him. It's designed to listen and has no idea how. I fought one of those fuckers just last night trying to pay my next phone bill.

I love the moonrover! I want a model of that.

Good fx sequences from zero-g to action scenes to the miniatures. Minor complaint, explosive decompression does not mean a fueled, fiery explosion.

They get the idea of viruses a bit wrong (software versus hardware) but the subject itself was relatively new to general audiences. Michael Crichton tackled computer viruses in Westworld 14 years earlier and the idea seemed farfetched. Chandri says the idea was developed by Schalk and Haupt. Assuming I got the spellings right, I think this is a fictitious attribution as I couldn't find any mention of them online. A John von Neumann theorized viruses and others worked from there.

Ever been asked a trivia question online and was tempted to cheat using Google, Wikipedia, or IMDb? This ep even predicted that!

Chandri doesn't like Kindle. I feel the same way, but on second watch I caught his line regarding poetry: "It dies when you put it on a viewing screen". It's not the only thing that dies when Blake flashes across the screen.

Incidental music was spotty again. Spring taking the moonrover back to Chandri sounds like a PBS cartoon for four-year-olds.

I wonder if there was a comment in that the news station's logo looks like a belt buckle. That's hyperbole consistent with the media today. I bet their slogan is "Strap yourselves in for the news!"

(edit) Oh, right, a rating...8 more things that will kill you. Because everything will kill you.