Debris Review: In Universe (Season 1 Episode 4)
Debris Season 1 Episode 4, “In Universe,” has a lot of potential to do some fairly interesting things but generally ends up falling pretty short.
We’ve touched on with previous reviews how Debris is threading a good line between the episodic and the serialized — and that’s still true, for the most part — but this is the episode where it feels like that dichotomy isn’t enough for this show. It presents as more of a problem now: those two sides of the show being cleanly and evenly divided from each other.
The problem lies that when the two overlap now, the series doesn’t really know what to do with it or how to talk about it without blowing itself open. It can’t have a discussion about terraforming and what that means for its mythology and what the implications for that are, because the two aren’t meant to be connected just yet.
Without having confirmation one way or another, this feels like a situation where maybe the writers don’t have a full sense of what the overarching look of the show even is yet, so of course, they can’t comment on terraforming. It’s disappointing because there are intriguing places to take that or even touch on but it moves on as quickly as it can.
The other part that makes this episode a bit frustrating is the ways in which it is either unwilling or unable to do much of anything with the migrant settlement that this particular debris has found itself in. It wants the backdrop of that, which is laudable and good on them for making that choice from both a narrative and casting perspective.
The episode doesn’t really want anything to do with the obvious parallels or the sociopolitical aspects that would obviously have to come into play here. It’s almost race-blind, but it can’t be.
This is playing with a very specific type of community. This even more so when they are the ones not only being drawn the short stick but also seen as acceptable losses.
The episode doesn’t have time for any of that, though, and that’s somewhat understandable. That part of it becomes much more a conversation about family and the right to know what happens to them, which has all of the subtlety of a piano falling off of a cliff.
“In Universe” is extremely blunt with its themes and it makes us want to cringe or groan or do both. This is the episode where Finola finally becomes aware of the plot with her not-dead father and it’s clearly designed to put a wedge between her and Bryan, but it is so hackneyed and cliched that it has absolutely no weight behind it.
The piano crashed but it didn’t make the slightest sound.
There’s some good stuff here about the difference in how Bryan approaches things versus how Finola does but inevitably that’s all leading to her finding out and being upset at him. That’s all well and good but it’s something we’ve seen approximately a billion times before on shows like this and it is just simply boring.
What did you think of this episode of Debris? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
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Debris airs Mondays at 10/9c on NBC.
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Drew Koenig
Drew has an ongoing, borderline unhealthy obsession with pop culture, but with television in particular. When he's not aggressively trying to get out of a perpetual state of catching up, he can be found passionately defending the ending of Lost. More of his online work can be found at The Lost Cause and he also co-hosts The Lost Cause Pod.
One thought on “Debris Review: In Universe (Season 1 Episode 4)”
Debris episode 4- I am wondering if there more film done, more plot, more story and then in editing the best parts are lost. Like that couldn’t happen? If there is not a strong creative team who have juice to make sure from day 1 the story they envision is being made – then yeah it’s a committee making random choices.
So it seems the committee decided to make Episode 4 a sadly lame front story with so many science gaffs and holes it was painful. And did you notice how weirdly slow Brian moved in his astronaut suit? ( What happened to Red Suits?) Did the actor get a script that said ‘act as if you’re on the moon’ cause it sure looked that way. And so the back story- the UK agent is so overcome by female/mother/bitch hormones that she can’t behave like a real agent (or actually anyone with a job, right?).
Wow.
Just not willing to watch the show descend into a weak tortured relationship drama : (
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