Post by shawnI'm sorry but I have to start out with the snark. We have a probe
above Jupiter that seems to be stable but out of NASA's control. NASA
finally regains control of the probe and start a rocket burn to move
it into the desired position. That movement is supposedly enough to
cause the rocket to FALL into the gravitational well of Jupiter (even
though it was stable before and the rocket thrust was to move it
further away from Jupiter.) How does that happen? Magic science.
There's not much else to say..
I'll say it, then. Because the first outing was especially bad.
First, a repeat offender. As someone (you?) mentioned last week, it
takes more than 30 minutes for light from Jupiter to reach Earth, but we
once again have magic video and orbital instructions that can cover that
distance instantaneously.
And then there's a bunch of air gap-related stuff. For starters, if Elon
Musk Jr. was in that air-gapped facility and it blocked cellphone
signals, then his RFID implant would have been blocked, as well. It
would not have been able to report his location at that time. "R" is for
radio, and all that. Furthermore, and for the same reason, he would not
have been able to send texts from his phone while he was in the
air-gapped facility. So either he wasn't there when the text was sent
(right before the hack) or someone else sent the text. And finally on
that point, I guess Elon hasn't heard of multi-factor authentication
when it comes to accessing his various batcaves, as in RFID chip *and*
retina scan *and* 3D facial mapping verification. Instead, someone gets
his chip and it's full access to everything! Yay! Again, why bother to
have science advisors?
And finally, a couple of liberal arts flaws. First, Harris says at one
point, "He's guilty, Grace. The evidence is not circumstantial." Um, no.
You have a vague text message and a location where multiple people would
have been working. That's pretty much the epitome of "circumstantial."
And second...well, pretty much Jillian's entire speech at the end, which
clearly represented the show's writers projecting BIG TIME. But I'll
focus on the "It is hope and only hope that will save us." Um, no.
Again. Hope can motivate. Hope can inspire. Hope can get you through
dark times. But hope without scientists and engineers to do the heavy
lifting is just false hope. In the current context, hope will not stop
an asteroid.
In the second hour, bad drama dominated over bad science. Claire, the
black gal who I thought had potential -- despite the fact that she
seemed to have been introduced at least in part to provide a soapy
relationship triangle -- instead confirmed that she's just another
unpleasant and horrible person. Stupid priorities, big torture fan even
in the absence of definitive guilt, jealous and bitter shrew. In
addition, Jillian reminded us once again that she's a high-maintenance,
self-absorbed artist type, which goes along with the delusions --
regarding her own importance in the grander scheme of things -- that she
expressed in the first hour.
But all is not lost! Amanda, the reporter, is alive and well and seems
competent. Sure, she does the usual sneaky reporter stuff, but she's not
annoying and horrible and completely unlikable in the process. And
c'mon. They need to give us at least *one* woman to root for on this thing!
Elsewhere, Liam's professor, Croft, is outed as a mole and his
explanation to Liam is that it was all about the EM drive. But when he
"disappeared" earlier on and committed to his treasonous path, he knew
only about the asteroid and was completely ignorant about the status of
Elon Musk Jr.'s EM drive. So either he's lying or the writers are
idiots. Tough call. Anyway, that scene ends with Croft shot and Liam
hiding, but not too well. But the two guards who are steps away from
seeing and capturing Liam again give up because...the plane is leaving?
I guess they didn't think to call someone on the *private* plane to tell
them to, you know, ask the pilot to stop for a minute or two. No,
because that would have made sense and ensured that Liam was caught by
the bad guys and the writers needed him to get safely back to Team Elon.
But they were too incompetent to do it in a way that wasn't stupid.
And lastly, one tech scene. The one where we saw "satellite imagery" of
a kidnapping from an angle that would have required the "satellite" to
be something like 20 feet off the ground. But it got better when a tech
said that the satellite tracked the kidnappers' van for 30 miles before
it went "out of range." Um, how does *that* work? It's a *SATELLITE*.
Supposedly. In orbit. Supposedly. So it should either go "out of range"
much faster than that or it should still be able to follow it well
beyond 30 miles. But then again, while we were watching the nearly
ground-level "satellite" footage of the bad guys' van initially leaving
the kidnapping site, the van went off-camera -- um, I mean
off-"satellite" in about three seconds. I guess satellites are like
drones now. Or something. I have no idea. I just know that the "science
advisors" for this show should feel really guilty about cashing those
checks.
Oh, well. Despite all of this completely avoidable badness, the show is
still better than reality TV or summer reruns of the 123rd season of
NCIS. I try to keep that in mind, but sometimes it's very difficult...
--
Jim G. | A fan of the good and the bad, but not the mediocre
“It smells like bad beer and worse choices. I'll make it work.” – Rosita
Bustillos, WYNONNA EARP