Its only episode one and a lot of things going on although not much since everything surrounds a single mystery, ever since I saw the trailer this TV series got my attention since it has to be related with some sort of alien tech although I was not sure if its also time travel related or both??
I feel the story is a little bit crowded to start with a lot of characters, there is the main character so far Ye whose daughter killed herself after probably watching a count down same as other scientist who have been going through the same trauma but in the case of Ye she is a survivor from a revolution in China during the 60's, a revolution mainly about science, I'm still not clear what were their demands but their leaders were after something big, trying to communicate with something out there, do they mean space? or future?
A group of friends, all scientist suffer the death of her teacher Vera, most of their projects are been shut down due to lack of results a common denominator across many Particle Colliders around the world and now one of the them is starting to see the count down everywhere she goes, the question is how, when and why would it stop or what it means?? certain only sci-fi events happen like the universe wink at you, like the starts start to Morse code all at once.
- IMDB: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13016388/
- Platform: Netflix
Revolution during the 60's going on in China, looks like a witch hunt, they hunting scientist but I'm not sure if its because they teaching or believe in certain not proven or wrong theories? Ye Wenjie father is on stage accuse, he refuse to accept there is space for God in any of the theories he teach so is this revolution about God? come one people make up your mind.
It seems that this was the young ones only, the puppets, Ye after loosing her father got recruited by higher ranks because they needed scientist like her with lot of talent to help with their communications experiments, makes me think then why kill her father? well probably he was at the wrong place at wrong time, a bit confusing this part of the story and this is not good for viewers.
Benedict Wong from Avengers show up this time as an investigator, his name Da Shi; working on a case where different scientist kill themself for unknown reasons, this last one had high possibilities of getting the novel prize on physics, Vera experiment also discover something they could not explain so is there something or someone killing all this scientist on purpose before they get to close to a big discovery?? this is the part that starts to get interesting, there is a connection between all this dead scientist.
Continue with introducing characters, Saul was working with Vera on her experiment and its the last day the Collider will remain functional after they were shut down because their experiment was going no where, Saul is very irrelevant at this point but he still alive that's what matters because what if this is a type of The Ring effect where everyone one of them start to see the count down at some point? Different than others Vera look very calm and cool before she kill herself jumping into a pool of some sort of fluid, probably deadly, her last question to Saul was about God.
Next in the group of friends, Jin and Auggie; at a bar having a drink were notified by Saul about Vera's death, they were discussing the anomalies on Vera's experiment and how physics and science over all have got to a dead end but I think they were talking about physics mostly, there are other parts of science probably making discoveries and working on things, it was at this moment that Auggie start to see the count down, it started as a Matrix glitch effect until numbers came up in front of her eyes making what ever was behind them look blurry.
After Vera's funeral all five friends gather to have a drink and talk about how weird all this was. John Bradley play the role of Jack Rooney but he is not a scientist, I like he is not playing a nerdy shy role as he usually does, this time a kind of ass hole all about money guy, as usual he is very funny. Auggie has been feeling off after constantly watching this count down even visit a Neurologist to figure out whats wrong with her, only Jin knows at the moment, that night she step out of the bar for a smoke and a young women offers to light up her cigarette with a very devilish smile on her, she tells Auggie she knows about the countdown and the only way to stop it is if she shuts down her lab, Auggie has a nano tech lab; its like some one is trying to stop different experiments going on that could probably lead to new tech? or the end of the world? again this is the part, the idea, that is interesting.
Jin visits Vera's mother, Ye; after a few days to help her and get some clues of why Vera would kill herself and Ye mention everything look normal with her, nothing strange, nothing out of the ordinary except a video game that Vera would play none stop, thats when Ye gave Jin the headset, looks like a piece of metal no lenses or headphones. I wonder why Ye been a scientist too didn't put it on after Vera die, trying to figure out the death of her daughter?
It seems critics and audience are in sync about this series, solid 7/10 on IMDB and RTT, I agree on this after watching the first episode I would say solid 7.5 for me, the mystery about why this scientist can see this countdown and why the women who talk to Auggie ask her to shut down her lab only tells me that either she will make a big discovery or could turn out very bad for humans, Aliens in movies usually want to help humans from eradicating themself although its not clear who is making this scientist watch this count down. The headset I want to see more of that and find out if it is really a game or a simulation of whats going to happen, the story about the China revolution not so interesting to me unless this series is about time travel and they have discover a way to send messages through time, lots of questions, I'll definitely continue to watch this series but on the traditional one episode a week since I don't like watching them all at once Netflix release style.
