Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Intergalactic’ On Peacock, Where A Cop-Turned-Prisoner Has To Pilot A Prison Ship After A Revolt

Here’s a shocking statement: There aren’t a whole lot of sci-fi shows that have mainly female casts. Right, we know, it’s not a surprise. Which is why the idea of Intergalactic, about a group of women prisoners trying to fly their way to freedom, is very intriguing. But does it actually work as a show?

INTERGALACTIC: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: A police flying patrol vehicle flies over a skyscraper in New London, a perspective we see from ground level.

The Gist: Ash Harper (Savannah Steyn) receives a distress signal from a colleague calling for backup. She lands, and after a chase, she runs down a thief named Verona (Imogen Daines) with a stash of new ore. When she returns to police headquarters, we see a graphic that says “COMMONWORLD 2143”.

After she vaults the evidence, her commander, Sgt. Wendell (Neil Maskell), says he put her in for a commendation. But while celebrating with her coworkers at a bar that night, she’s arrested on charges of stealing the new ore from the evidence vault, an offense so serious that she’s to be remanded to an off-planet prison ship to await trial. She insists that she was framed, despite the video evidence to the contrary.

Her mother, Rebecca (Parminder Nagra), a vice director of the Commonworld, tries to get the director, Dr. Lee (Craig Parkinson) to release her, but he insists that the rule of law be applied equally to Ash as it would to anyone else in her situation. Ash is rocketed to the GCC Hemlock along with other people awaiting trial — including Verona, who is gleeful at getting her revenge.

While in their holding cells, two of the prisoners, the severely off-kilter Tula (Sharon Duncan-Brewster) and her obedient daughter Genevieve (Diany Samba-Bandza), who can control her braids to the point where she can use them to grab things and choke people, execute a plan. Right as Rebecca presents proof that Wendell framed her daughter, and Ash is about to be sent back down to Earth, Tula and Genevieve escape and kill most of the crew, save for a bumbling guard named Drew (Thomas Turgoose).

Ash tries to hide and send a signal back to Earth that there’s been a breech, but the “pig” is ratted out to Tula by Verona. and she’s forced to pilot the ship to coordinates tattooed on Luna’s arm. When Dr. Lee finds out that a dangerous prisoner, Emma Greaves (Natasha O’Keeffe) is on board, he orders the ship destroyed, lest she land in enemy hands. Ash jumps them out of there, destroying two fighters in the process.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Perhaps one of the J.J. Abrams Star Trek films, if the Klingons took over the Enterprise. In a lot of ways, though, it feels as generic as other recent dystopian sci-fi efforts, like Vagrant Queen.

Our Take: There’s a couple of good ideas in Intergalactic that could have worked well on their own — the planet that’s mostly underwater due to climate change, the stellar cop falsely accused of a terroristic act, the mother-daughter dynamic between Ash and Rebecca, and the take-no-shit women who take over the prison ship and try to get to freedom. But the first episode of the show, written by Julie Gearey, crams all of that into 45 mind-spinning minutes, making you wonder what exactly the show is about.

World building in sci fi is tough, and the more successful shows try to focus in on a few details and a more limited environment before expanding outwards. Intergalactic doesn’t do that, so we’re left grasping at bits and pieces of why the Commonworld exists, what its leadership structure is, why Dr. Lee is such an asshole and why these prisoners are so determined to take over the ship.

It’s just too much, too fast, despite good performances from Nagra, Steyn and especially Daines. A better show might have taken two episodes to introduce us to Ash, establish her relationship with her mother, and then throw her onto the Hemlock. But there seems to be a bigger adventure afoot, so writer Julie Gearey wastes no time getting to the meat of the story. In doing that, it makes the characters one-dimensional.

What do we know about Tula besides the fact that she’s unhinged? Her daughter can move her hair? Then, with all this going on, we have the factor that Emma Greaves, who is supposedly very dangerous, is on board. Why is she dangerous? None of those questions are even remotely answered in the first episode.

Sex and Skin: None.

Parting Shot: Emma takes off the mask and needle that have been keeping her sedated, and says, “I’m here.”

Sleeper Star: We liked Daines as Verona because her character seems to be playing both sides, and she’s looking out for the most important person: Herself. We’ll see how that goes.

Most Pilot-y Line: As Genevieve chases Ash around the Hemlock’s tight corridors, she sees a drop of blood hit the floor from above, but doesn’t think to look up at the fan shaft to see if Ash is there. It just feels like something that extended the chase for filler reasons.

Our Call: SKIP IT. While we like the idea of a sci fi show dominated by women for a change, Intergalactic tries too hard to create its world, leaving a confusing mess in its wake.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream Intergalactic On Peacock