Saturday, September 8, 2012

Starhunter

Pilot Season
 ¯

Galactic bounty hunter Dante Montana finds himself on the trail of an unstable geneticist who has discovered the secret to the divinity cluster, an alien gene that could allow superhuman capabilities.

Starhunter is a series that I discovered at two in the morning while putting off writing a term paper, and it was entertaining enough to keep me from writing said paper until at least three o'clock in the morning. More accurately, I discovered the second season, and only ever managed to see the same three episodes on repeat, but developed a fondness for it all the same. The second season appears to have undergone a massive re-tooling, as I discovered in this episode when only two of the characters had carried over to the show I remember watching, so I look forward to seeing how it gets from here to there.

In a series severely lacking in chemistry, Tanya Allen (Percy) and guest star Ron Donachie (MacDuff) do fairly well in convincing the audience of their relationship, playing off of one another with ease.

The desperation of Claudette Roche's Lucretia to get her father Darius' (George Harris) love and affection is played quite well. Their inability to relate to one another, caused by the untimely death of Lucretia's mother, only perpetuates their estrangement; written and acted very naturally, Roche and Harris make it clear that, while their characters love each other very deeply, they no longer understand how to act upon their affection.

The effects on this series sink into the ludicrous at points during the show, most noticeably during the death of Professor Renfrew (David McAlister) when both he and his assassin literally explode into a ball of fire whilst in a tiny airplane-sized restroom; the effect is something akin to that of an iPhone application, and the fact that every explosion in this episode looks exactly the same, one might wonder if said application was created for use in this series and later exported to the handheld device. Malcontent to be only visually-offensive, a voice-effect is sometimes used for those who have undergone an alien gene-splicing, and it becomes a distraction that kills the serious mood that the series is striving for.

Helen Latham's take on Lily is cringe-worthy; her lines are poorly delivered, her dialogue is atrocious, and she just doesn't make a believable human being. It might have been worth looking into dubbing over her lines, because hers is a performance that had me reaching for the remote's off button.

For the most part, the acting in this episode is bad. Latham's assassin Lily is wooden and awkward, Allen's Percy flips back and forth between stoicism and mania, and Mark Powley's villainous Eccleston might be better suited to a G.I. Joe cartoon. Leading man Michael Paré does have some good moments here, but, like the rest of the cast, only manages to show the ghost of most emotions that he tries to get across.

Director Patrick Malakian chooses to linger on shots of CGI landscapes in an effort to widen the universe around these characters, but can't seem to find a shot from his live-action footage that he likes. Many serious moments fall victim to jump-cutting as Malakian attempts to get a reaction shot (or two) from each of his characters, but instead it only creates a massively jarring effect. His sight gags, both involving food, fall flat, as the shot of larger man Rudolpho (Stephen Marcus) eating a sandwich seems, not only easy, but lazy and unfunny, where Percy's tossing of her hot dog, and the resulting sound effect used, is just out of place.

Nelu Ghiran's script is difficult to follow; there's a difference between keeping your viewers in the dark until a big reveal brings everything together at the end and just confusing the audience to the point that they have no idea what's happening. It's not easy getting invested in a story where even the characters seem unsure of their motivations. Throughout the script are a scattering of horrible one-liners, the highlight probably being MacDuff's "kiss my haggis," and it just doesn't work for this, or any other, television event.

This is a good example of a series that could be much better with a few minor adjustments. It's also the kind of series that could get sunk due to an unfortunately poorly produced first attempt such as this one. Starhunter most certainly has an audience, and this may be the kind of episode that grows over time as knowledge from the rest of the series fills in the gaps left in this script, but this is a sloppy episode at best.

Starhunter is in the running to become the feature for Saturdays. The series ran from 2000 to 2004 on the Movie Network with a total of 44 episodes.

2 comments:

carver said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

i actually liked Starhunter although i think i only saw the first season , and parts of the second (thought there was only 2 seasons) although in fareness part of the reson i watched is i find Tanya Allan hot lol

(*potentional spoiler* i liked the fact the ship was not ment to be a combat ship and the main gun almost never worked lol)

Unknown said... Best Blogger Tips[Reply to comment]Best Blogger Templates

@carver I loved what I saw of the second season back when I found it on TV, so I was honestly shocked when I didn't like this episode. I think either I was in a bad mood watching it, or the series gets dramatically better during the second season.

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