Immediately after launching the first episode of Childhood’s End, Syfy aired the beginning of another new series, yet another in a growing line of actual science fiction television returning to the channel. And to my surprise, while I enjoyed both, I think I’ll likely end up prefering The Expanse because of its more traditional sci-fi flavor. While pilots always tend to be a little rough around the edges, and this was no exception, Dulcinea set the stage for what could be a really engaging scace-set mystery series. Because let’s face it, after one episode, most of us probably have very little idea about what is actually going on or where this series is headed, but I’m interested all the same. The pilot introduced a lot of characters, world building and plot elements that need to be expanded on, but since there is room to do so within a ten episode season I can see this being a show whose world quickly comes alive.
As for the pilot itself, it showed us three different storylines which I’m sure will intersect by the end of the season, though hopefully sooner. After kicking things off with a lone woman on a spaceship where some seriously messed up things seemed to be going on, we dive into the meat of the story. There is asteroid belt miners on Ceres, where Detective Miller is tasked with finding “the richest bachelorette in the system,” spoilers it’s the girl on the spaceship in the introductory sequence. Then there’s the freighter who comes across a distress signal, where we meet second officer Holden. The crew of his ship is murdered not long after they come across, once again, the mystery ship from the intro. And finally, we get a tiny look at Earth, though there really isn’t much to go on there yet.
Yes, my summary here is based more on generalizations than anything else, but I didn’t exactly leave the first episode feeling like I really had a handle on what exactly had happened or why it mattered… but I’m excited to find out. At this point no characters have really stood out from the pack. I had to look up every single name that I needed to mention in the review. But there’s a lot of potential here, and I can see myself quickly beginning to root for a lot of these guys, and being at least a little sad if any of them are killed off early on.
I’m excited to see where this show goes next, and will absolutely be tuning in week after week assuming nothing goes horribly wrong. So what about you? Did you enjoy Dulcinea? Will you continue watching? Is this the kind of television that SyFy should have been making all along?
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