Starhunter

Having finished BSG, waiting for the movies The Plan and Caprica, I had some empty slot during my lunch break at work. Amazon has actually a good (for them) algorithm to select stuff you may likely be interested in. Given your latest purchases and browse of their site, they are able to present you a small number item that have high chances to catch your attention.This is usually good, otherwise I doubt I could have come across some indeed good books, only seldom it could be somewhat irritating if you just bought something inferior to the item that you are discovering thanks to this Amazon service. So, when Amazon presented me with Starhunter 2300 tv series I was positively biased. By searching Amazon and other sites I discovered that Starhunter exists in two seasons, namely “Starhunter” and “Starhunter 2300”. Comments were overall good, so I decided to order both.
Now I completed watching the first season. The first sensation was disappointment. This is cheap sci-fi, the one that borders dangerously with B-movie. I am used to more shining productions, like the many incarnations of Star Trek franchise or the exceptional BSG. By cheap I mean that scenery and props are unconvincing, often you can recognize nowadays objects just repainted with silver paint. Characters are somewhat unlikely.
Well the story is set in the Solar System around year 2250. Mankind fully colonized the system both by terraforming some planets and by planting orbiting stations or installing colonies on moons of the other planets. Main characters live aboard the Tulip a “Trans Utopian” luxury liner of the past, now a decadent collection of crap and junk that is used to bring around a crew of bounty hunters. Dante Montana is the captain, to him bounty hunting is just what he does (he tells this at the beginning of each episode) he is a father searching the solar system for his kidnapped son. Then there is Percy, the captain’s niece a teenager and mechanical chief of the Tulip. Lucretia is an ex-special corps operative, daughter of Darius one of the chief of the Orchard, a mysterious somewhat secret agency. Last, but not least, is Caravaggio the Tulip computer, which displays himself as an hologram of an old man, disturbingly transparent with arms cut and an even more disturbing visible back spine.
Thats all. There are other recurring characters, but they are just guest of the show.
Characters are shallow apart, maybe, from Percy, who is able to develop somewhat the complexities of a teenager. Dante keeps the same dumb expression always, no matter he is eating a convivial lunch or fighting for his very life. Lucretia is more expressive, and sometimes is able to render the struggle between the tie for her friends and the loyalty to her father.
From scientific point of view the production is really lacking… maybe I lost something because there are no subtitles and my understanding of spoken English is fair, but not perfect. But I am quite sure that in one episode they bring the Tulip into Earth atmosphere after saying that the Tulip wasn’t designed for atmospheric flight. In another episode they say that they traveled faster than light, as it was just unusual.
Story quality-wise I cannot say that this show is far from good – there are some episodes that are quite entertaining, on the converse there are some episodes that are really bad. As they are presented in the DVD order, the first episodes are really harmful to the character of Percy. You are lead to think that she is just a silly girl, that disobeys and causes trouble.
The stuff about the Divinity Cluster, a fragment of human DNA implanted by aliens eons ago, that, once enabled, would give us god-like powers, is an amusing idea that is too often used in wrong or trivial ways. Raiders, a group of people living outside the law and kidnapping children, is much the same.
On the other hand the show deals with unusual themes – homosexuality, surgery and eugenics, teenagers emotional condition just to name a few.
The funniest part for me is how the Italian names are pronounced. Maybe “Caravaggio” is the one that triggers more laughs.
All that said, I would not advise you to buy this, nonetheless it is very cheap and the show got a second season, so it is not that bad, you have just to search carefully for the good.