Another Life was blessed with another life by the Netflix renewal Gods and wasted it.
There’s no telling why shows like this get second chances and other engaging shows like Away and The OA get axed before they barely even have a chance to get started. It’s not that Another Life doesn’t try to be good. It does. Extremely hard. But even with the talent of Katee Sackhoff and the budget of a Netflix series, it still doesn’t click.
And that’s a lot of the problem with this series. It tries on so many fronts. Another Life feels like you’re going to the batting cage and you keep swinging and swinging at the ball. And when you finally hit it after 30 tries—just once—before you can’t hit the last 20 balls. Sometimes Another Life is fun. But 90% of the time, it’s forced.
It sucks saying these things about this show. I want to like it.
The premise is great and continues to be interesting as the aliens are explored more in Season 2. Another Life is at its best when it’s an alien show, and less so when it’s an AI show or a conspiracy show.
In fact, the best pair of episodes Another Life has this season are episodes 7 and 8, “Never Gonna Give You Up” and “Just a Rat in a Cage.” Both of these episodes pares the plot down a bit, letting Sackhoff and Tongayi Chirisa shine as these two are separated from the rest of the cast. It’s a good decision to pair these two up—they’re both the strongest of the Season 2 cast members. These episodess play better to Sackhoff’s strengths as well, having a more physical element to the episodes (and not mostly reacting to issues of AI, whether it be the humans’ or the Achaians’).
The latter of these two episodes also introduces a new alien species, the Decuma. The sequences where Niko and Richard attempt to escape these captors feels like the most authentic sci-fi from the series, reminiscent of a 90s episode of Star Trek. Along with Sackhoff’s acting prowess, this brief uptick in Another Life’s quality is about as good as it gets. It shows that there’s potential with this series, but it’s up for debate how long it will take to get to reach that potential and stay there. And would it be worth it? Sometimes it can take a show a few seasons to hit its groove, but there’s a lot to improve on.
Another Life lost its way in a few directions but completely lost direction with its Justin Chatwin/Earth-based plots. With Selma Blair’s Harper Glass off-screen exit from the series, Another Life continuously treads water while trying to find a way to use Chatwin, opting to continue to use his daughter instead of giving him anything to do himself.
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An Earth angle is necessary to balance the episodes and to set a stage for when Niko and crew finally do return home, but the route taken is disengaging and uninteresting, kind of like a project crammed and thrown together the night before a due date.
Season 2 of Another Life also doubles down on the show’s intent to comment and pursue AI arcs. Season 1 was heavy-handed on this matter, and Season 2 sticks with the story about William and his AI child. This season also tries to capitalize on the Achaian side of her, named Iara, but instead of effectively using foreshadowing or set-up, Iara feels more convenient than anything else.
Another Life doesn’t have anything unique or new to say about non-organic life, Iara and William in this case. And with a show that has so much going on, its effort would be better served focusing on the Achaia’s backstory, the Decuma, the colony established, or even the human characters, themselves. This trope is something that storytellers keep coming back to.
The idea of synthetic life, its capabilities, and its relationship with humanity is something that humans will always be invested in, but at this point, it needs to be done well, and this just isn’t one of the arrows that hits the bullseye or the target at all. Another Life just has too much personal drama, and these staple ideas just get mixed in with it until it’s unrecognizable as something beyond drama anymore.
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Another Life should be good. Instead of focusing on the things that it has going for it (like awesome Battlestar Galactica reunions!), it tries to do everything at once, from aliens to personal drama to AI to conspiracy to …. you get my point. It’s all there.
There are certainly people who will enjoy this show. There are diverse characters to connect to, explosions, relationships, and Katee Sackhoff, but the lesson to be learned here is that just because you can do everything, doesn’t mean that you can do it well. Odds are, you could be neglecting the thing you can actually excel at.
The good news is that Another Life’s second season ended on a positive, hopeful note, which is harder and harder to come by these days. So, maybe the time is now to call it a day and leave this series as a low-key weekend binge.
Another Life is available to stream on Netflix.
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