Starhunter, Season 1 Final Thoughts

Noel

Here's the thing about Starhunter... for a period of nearly two years, it was a short-lived show. It had been cancelled, the cast had been let go to find other work, the sets had either been tucked into storage or slated to be re-used on other low-budget scifi affairs. This show had ended. And there's a very simple reason why...

Starhunter is a bad show.

Starhunter, episode 22 "Resurrection"

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We open on a video of Rudolpho, actually summing up where we are in the plot for once instead of just thinking out loud.

At a karaoke bar on Mars, a pale Eccleston (still half-dressed from when we saw him last in The Divinity Cluster) stumbles up to the stage and growls out "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star". The maitre d' sneaks away to contact Navarre, but Eccleston is suddenly next to him. With a touch of Eccleston's glowing hand, the man vaporizes. In her office on a battle cruiser, Tosca listens to the intercepted call.

Starhunter, episode 21 "Travis"

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We open on a Rudolpho video about how life is full of surprises.

On the Tulip, Dante is raging, Luc and Caravaggio using probes to try and find the path of the shuttle which took Percy. They receive a transmission from Percy, who drops clues which lead Dante to search his room, discovering that the VR device is missing and that the Seeds have been put in their place. They don't know what's in the vial at first, but eventually pour through enough research to figure it out. They pick up the shuttle's ion trail, following it to another hastily assembled Raider station. Dante is all set to go in alone, but Luc insists that she wants to fight this fight with him.

Starhunter, episode 20 "Bad Seed"

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We open on a Rudolpho video where he talks about secrets and lies.

In an office somewhere, Orchard official Navarre fiddles with an injection canister while pondering an upcoming choice he'll have to make.

Starhunter, episode 19 "Bad Girls"

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Dante and Luc receive a message from Rudolpho that they've been hired to transport Stephen Hamilton, an engineer and financier, to his summer home on the moon. Along for the ride are his two daughters, Ayla and Cordula, who introduce Percy to all the latest fashions, as well as a designer drug named Crash.

It turns out Stephen is actually on the run from the Orchard for embezzling money, and a faction is willing to call off the debt if he'll spy on Luc and find out what information her father may have passed along. The debt is still out, though, and a repo agent catches up and invades the ship. On the down side, Percy is stoned and the agent mistakes her for one of Stephen's daughter, taking her hostage. On the plus, Percy's experimental internal security system, wherein Caravaggio is armed with machine gun turrets, is fully operational, as it takes out a covert Orchard strike force which invades the ship with orders to kill everyone on board.

Starhunter, episode 18 "Eat Sin"

Sorry we missed a post last Saturday. Between the Minnesota heatwave, the State Fair, and a looming move, Noel's time was tight so we decided to skip a week.

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We open on a video where, with the Tulip and her crew now missing, Rudolpho waxes about how he once got lost as a child.

Following the TIME DAZZLE (they don't really clang this time around) of the last episode, Dante is alone on the bridge, but checks and finds out that their prisoner, Five, is still in his cage. Five talks about how his mission is to eat the universe's sins, and how only he knows the true future of events. When Dante leaves, the time ripple appears in front of Five and he greets it. After a TIME DAZZLE, the cage is now unlocked and empty.

Starhunter, Episode 17 "A Twist In Time"

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We open on a video of Rudolpho arguing he deserves a second chance after trying to sell the Tulip. While eating.

Our crew are transporting Five, a vicious psychopath and highly prized bounty. They've been diverted to a lab on Triton, where "graviton research" is being conducted in an attempt to break the speed of light. The head scientist is also noted for a theory about multiple universes. Contact with the lab has been lost, so Tulip has been asked to scope out the scene and hold it before an official investigation squad can arrive.

Starhunter, episode 16 "Super Max"

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We open on a video where Rudolpho defends greed.

While his ship is docked at Reno-7 station for repairs, Dante is hit on at the bar by Zelda, a vampy and bored rich trophy looking for some action. Amused but uninterested, he joins Luc and Percy, only for them to get a sudden emergency call from Caravaggio. They arrive at the Tulip to find Max, a hyper-eager businessman, and his crew of men loading prison materials into the docking bay for a retrofit. It turns out Rudolpho just went and sold the Tulip to Max, who's looking to turn the ship into the first of a fleet of mobile prison vessels as part of his aggressive start-up company, Super Max. Dante is of course befuddled, even when Max offers to hire him as the ship's warden and even keep the other two on board. Looking into things, they find out the sale is fully legal and Max continues his pitch, only for Dante and Luc to pull their guns and force him and his men off the ship. They then try to take off, but Caravaggio has been reprogrammed to be loyal to Max, and the station operators are authorized to shut down Tulip's systems, which they do and Max and his men re-enter with armed guards.

Starhunter, episode 15 "Dark and Stormy Night"

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Noel

We're skipping a full synopsis this week because "Dark and Stormy" night is largely a clipshow, and since I'm first at bat, I figure I can sum up what few relevant threads we get within my review.

Starhunter, episode 14 "Half-Dense Players"

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We open with a video where Rudolph waxes on about destiny and stuff.

On a station, Darius has been summoned to see an oddly disfigured corpse, which, he tells the Orchard scientists, does tie into their research in multidimensional warping of time and space. They reveal that DNA on the body ties to celebrity artist Andrea Arquette, who we flash to as she furiously paints the Great Red Spot of Jupiter.

Starhunter, episode 13 "The Most Wanted Man"

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We open on a video of Rudolpho talking about risk and how he's not nearly as rich as people think he is.

In a bar on Mars, a group of heavies (we later learn they're Orchard agents) walk in, take up a perimeter, and chase away what few regulars are around. In walks Harman, a casually intense man, who meets the lead Orchard agent at a table for a drink. The agent goes into a spiel about how all of the requests are being met and Harman's security will be assured, but Harman interrupts him by saying he was supposed to meet with Darius (Luc's dad). The agent says Darius is tied up at a conference, and he's been entrusted to hold the negotiations. He wants to know the location of the "Rosetta stone". Harman smiles, lights a cigar, and says he himself is it. The agent is angered and his men move in, but a sudden pulse erupts in the room, knocking them all to the ground, unconscious. Harman nods to the bartender, then zips out of the door at the hyperspeed of one with an unlocked Divinity Cluster.

Starhunter, episode 12 "Goodbye, So Long"

NOTE: We're gonna take a brief break following this post. Noel had a sudden family medical emergency pop up, on top of another family medical emergency he's already dealing with, and his work schedule is all over the place as a result. It'll just take a week or two for the situation to settle, so we don't plan on being absent for very long.

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We open on a video from Rudolpho, where he waxes about how friendship is more important than family.

On High-Node (at least I think that's what was said), a merchant bazaar station, a dealer named Marco chases off a few thugs who try to free him of a kaleidoscope which isn't for sale, and they move to the next stall to rough up a dealer named Ike, to guarantee he follows through on his end of an upcoming deal. When the thugs move off, Marco helps Ike up and it turns out they're business partners.

Starhunter, episode 11 "Black Light"

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We open on a video of Rudolpho, with a moll on his lap, talking about how people (including the Raiders) keep grasping for immortality through their children, but he intends to remain childless as all he cares about is the here and now.

Dante and Percy grin in laid-back amusement as Luc shows them some card tricks before dealing out a round of poker to see who gets stuck with kitchen duty. Percy wins. Rudolpho calls, congratulating them on their latest bounty: Electra, a young, female, arms-dealing Raider. Percy head down to holding to feed their prisoner, but Electra kicks the food away.

Starhunter, episode 10 "Cell Game"

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In an opening video, Rudolpho rants about how hard it is to find a good bounty hunter, how many people sign up without a clear understanding of what it takes, and how it's the best training ground to learn human nature.

Transferring a prisoner to a station in orbit around Oberon, a moon of Uranus, Dante, Luc, and Percy are confronted by Rex and Maks, a husband-and-wife pair of bounty hunters with a history of poaching already captured bounties. There's a tense standoff over the prisoner, during which Dante tells Percy to return to the ship, but she instead sneaks back and plugs Maks with a stun round. Our heroes have the upper hand, but then the authorities arrive, and instead of arresting Rex and Maks, the ruling local militia reveals the two have recently signed on as members, and Percy is taken into custody for assault, which has an automatic sentence of five years.

Starhunter, episode 9 "Order"

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We open with a Rudolpho video, wherein he rages about how much he hates the very concept of religion.

Despite warnings from border guards, a large pyramidal ship plunges toward the sun. It's filled with the praying worshipers of the cult of Vahooti (sp?), led by the charismatic and towering Brother 13, with his devoted teenage bride Marina at his side. A worshiper, Jacob, expresses momentary doubt, but when he passes a test of faith, Brother 13 gives him a "rejuvenation" - literally transferring energy into the other man through the laying on of Brother 13's hand - and Jacob becomes zealous in his devotion.

Starhunter, episode 8 "Past Lives"

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We open with a video from Rudolpho, in the midst of a wild party, in which he admits he's never been married.

At a station in orbit around Saturn, a dude named Eric loses his latest bet at a gambling machine, and walks right in the arms of two thugs who remind him of the debts he owes. He's instead taken to a lab, where he finds out his debt has been bought off by an organization represented by a female doctor who injects him with a solution, then reveals everyone else she's injected has died with 48 hours and she's trying to figure out why. Eric feigns unconsciousness long enough to steal a gun from a guard and shoot another, and when the doctor tells him there's no antidote, he makes a run for it, getting past security and stealing a shuttle.

Starhunter, episode 7 "Frozen"

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In an opening vid, Rudolpho reminisces about his father.

After waking up from a nightmare, Dr. Devon is being told he's no longer allowed to have access to his teenage son, Ryan, at this medical facility. After politely signing a waiver, he ducks down a corridor, dons a biohazard suit, and slips into the room where Ryan is being held. He's forced to kill a technician in order to free the boy, who has scars on his temples and doesn't remember his father.

Starhunter, episode 6 "The Man Who Sold the World"

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Rudolpho opens with a video, where he opines about love, lust, deceit, and other afflictions of the heart as he sets out on a vacation where he hopes to get laid.

Our heroes are short on supplies, with Percy complaining about the quality of the mush they're stuck eating. Caravaggio counters her by mentioning the schooling she's skipped out on, so Dante orders her to learn. Rudolpho calls, sending the team to Pluto to retrieve war criminal Dr. Novak - aka "The Butcher of Callisto", a main player in government led genetic experiments on thousands of victims in a quest to further human evolution, which led to a massive civil war on the moon Callisto - where he's been mining and dealing iridium under the name Kayvon. Rudolpho warns them that Novak's identity has already leaked and a brutal mess of a hunter they all know named Chorsky may already have beat them there.

Starhunter, episode 5 "Siren's Song"

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In a drunken video, Rudolpho drones on about dreams and monsters.

Rudolpho then contacts the Tulip, telling Dante than there's been a meltdown on the ultra-prison on Ganymede, and that 32 prisoners have escape... all of which offer pricey bounties for their capture. Dante's not interested, but he owes Rudolpho 5 years back rent on the ship.

Starhunter, episode 4 "The Divinity Cluster"

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Rudolpho has a video where he say some crap about how he runs his business, molesting a woman, and how things are rarely as they initially appear.

Earth in the present is a smog drenched cesspool. A beautiful, naked blond named Lily is in a hotel room with the drawn and captivating Eccleston. She says it's time for everyone to know the truth, so he injects her with a solution and tells her she has two hours to complete her task. As she leaves, Eccleston suddenly goes into spasms. He swaps out the vial on the syringe and injects himself.