Season Five Episode Reviews

5X5    Boone's Awakening  
Plot: Sandoval ressurects Boone to lead Renee into a trap.

It's wonderful to see Boone again but he doesn't elevate an inherently lame episode.  Once again Renee goes to the Mothership and does nothing, once again a hybrid runs around, once again there's a trap in the sewers but nothing comes of it... it's not just that they're doing really lame stuff, but they're doing the same thing over and over!  The only good stuff was seeing Boone and seeing him adjust to how much the world has changed in three years, made for an interesting retrospect on how lame the show has become.  Nice to hear the fates of Augur and Lili, and to see Sandoval's nano trackers again.  And the logic for Sandoval resurrecting Boone, and for Boone's departure, are completely artificial.  Count me out...

5X4    Subterra 
Plot: Renee attempts to alert the media of the Atavus and stop their infiltration of it.

I'm dropping this show after the two Boone appearances.  There is absolutely no redeeming values left to the show.  A down on his luck hobo reporter... hobo killings... yet another hybrid/takeover plot... yawn.  About the only interesting thing is Sandoval surfacing to speak with a reporter, and having Patrichio and the FBI in his hands.  The whole bit with the reporter was absolutely lame, but at least they killed him...

5X3    The Seduction 
Plot: The Atavus create human hybrids and kidnap Urick.

Okay, the show is officially crap now.  Renee scampers up to the Mothership yet again, yet another alien-human hybridization project, yawn.  The Atavus are just sitting on the Mothership doing nothing but snarling at each other, yawn.  At least the ANA admits their existence now but won't nuke the Mothership since they're too close to Earth.  And we get confirmation that Renee and Sandoval are immune to the Atavus because of exposure to Taelon core energy.  Ra'Jel makes another appearance but it's pretty worthless.  The only good thing here is involving Urick directly, and killing him is a shocker, but it also meant the removal of the last interesting character on the damn show.  Sigh.

5X2    Pariahs 
Plot: Sandoval forms an alliance with the Atavus as Renee attempts to alert Urick.

Another decent outing but not encouraging.  The Atavus are much too animalistic to be taken seriously, though it is interesting that Renee and Sandoval are immune to them.  Like Urick's role as an adversarial friend to Renee, I always liked that character.  Sandoval's character has been completely trashed; wanting revenge on humanity to rule them?  No sir, not even after "Atonement", he's gone from a dark horse hero to a cardboard villain.  At least he won't have that stupid scarring anymore.  Interesting to see Ra'Jal around trying to stop the Atavus.  Street capturing Urick through the portal jack and holding a gun on him was pretty cool.  Renee behanding Howlyn to give Urick proof was a pretty neat twist.  Sandoval managing to stop the Mothership crashing was pretty lame, and what happened to Ra'Jal?  And once again I have to wonder what now, we've got the Atavus and Sandoval on the Mothership so why doesn't the ANA just nuke them?

5X1    Unearthed 
Plot: Renee's search for Liam frees the Atavans from their imprisoned chamber.

While Renee versus the Atavus, without Liam Taelons or Jaridians, is an inherently flawed descent into lameness, this wasn't as bad as it could have been.  Renee has always been a character without a personality, and having her as the lead is absolutely insane.  The new title sequence is horrible, especially with that horribly monotone Renee narration.  Sandoval in the Mothership toasting the shuttle was a nice little surprise.  Renee quitting Doors International to go searching Liam was a little surprising, which really leaves me to wonder what her role is now (create a new Resistance? Old one's gone).  The location shooting on the sub was a good touch.  The whole shoot-out with the Atavans was vaguely interesting.  Ra'Jel a Taelon ghost appearing to Renee was a nice little surprise, though this talk of Renee being the savoir of mankind is yet another damn messiah character on this show.  The Atavus themselves were vaguely interesting, mainly in their violence.  It was a nice little twist to learn the Atavus helped create life on Earth back in the day (but why have to go into stasis because of an asteroid?  They have ships, don't they?!).  I continue to seriously doubt this season will turn out okay, but this one was kind of okay.  I'm interested to see how they'll build up the Atavus threat from literal ground zero and then defeat it.  It's a real shame they didn't make Sandoval the dark horse hero of the show, now that would have been some stupendous dramatic material.  But at least he's still around.