Killjoys

I'm only writing this review to tell the people: don't get fooled by the first couple episodes. This show looked like trash. A small and skinny woman with no muscles and no hips is supposed to be a badass fighter and so sexy. Of course she is black too. Diversity! Yeah. The bossy woman (sorry, the actress wasn't convincing AT ALL at the beginning) has two sidekicks, two good looking man. The first one is the typical nice guy, bff material, the other one is a very manly man, a soldier with a war trauma. Of course there is some sexual tension going on between him and the female lead. To make it short: I wasn't impressed. Slow motion scenes and those cringy one liners while fighting ('I like to dance') weren't helping either. I dropped it after episode two, and came back because I had nothing better to watch. Even though it was stupid, I didn't hate it. Well, so why the high rating? This show surprised me from the very beginning with the great world building. It reminds me a lot of Firefly and Cowboy Bebop. It was so excellent and creative in this area, that I was wondering how they decided to go with such cliche characters. The thing is: those characters aren't cliche. They did an incredible job with developing them over time. The chemistry between all of them is great (it reminds me of Supernatural in that matter), the story itself is one of the most suspenseful I have seen in a while. At the end of the day it's sci-fi fantasy and there may be some plotholes, but overall this is the kind of storytelling that I thought wouldn't exist anymore. It is really, really smart. Everything comes together so well, everything is exciting and suspenseful. The show is not too sexual (like many nowadays), but has some mature dialogues I really enjoy. This review doesn't do the show justice, which is a shame. But I tried.

Season 4 totally went away from what I liked about the series. Way to much time spent on the green and "the lady". I was bored with it. They need to get back to apprehending warrants, shorter storylines and settling disputes in the quad that don't take up more than 2-4 episodes tops.

How does this show have a relatively low rating (of 7.2), along with some terrible reviews, while much trashier shows, with much worse scripts and acting have such great ratings?

I mean Killjoys does not pretend to be a high-production quality sci-fi like say TNG, but it has its own more carefree, free-spirited sci-fi drama vibe - which is so rare to get right. I think this show is underrated.

In our times when everything has to be great, excellent, the best of the best, this show celebrates the virtue of being "good". It has its own charm - of not over-indulging, not going too crazy on storytelling or visual effects. Instead just enjoy 45 minutes of good, classic, free-spirited adventure and drama that has character, charm, a great cast, and have a great time watching good science fiction. That's what KillJoys delivers in spades.

The one thing I liked the most is that it has some mature dialogs, they feel more real, especially the ones with Aaron Ashmore. Not sure if it's just good writing or if the credit goes to the actors, but they sure do a good job at making us ignore the whole studio- like atmosphere and the somewhat-hard-to-follow greater plot.

All in all, the episodes (so far in s01e09) provide density in character development, original plot and doesn't follow a formula; which is what's making me wanna continue watching.

I've seen many shows featuring fantastic ideas but very poor execution, with some dumb as hell episodes (think Terra Nova or SGU)... I THINK Killjoys wants to tell its story above everything else without filling it with crap as to have more seasons.

Give it a try

I'm in the middle of the fourth season. Is this really a scifi show? It's hard to tell aside from the shiny gadgets. Certainly not the space opera it wants to be. The only clues that this is a show that takes place in a space-age era are the occasional blips of space and spaceships. Otherwise, it feels like it all takes place in a pretty small world.

If you want to believe regardless that this a space show, all that goes out the window when you see things like a slow and drifting space capsule somehow find a planet in some far-off system in mere days, somehow not burn up in the atmosphere, and crash land safely. Distant stars are mere hours away while closer ships are days away??? It just depends on the laziness of the writers in resolving plot stuff.

Speaking of lazy writers, I'm tired of ultra-super-human geek characters that are at least 100 times more unrealistic than your average action hero that survives an impossible number of fights. Got a sticky plot situation? Don't worry, just put a computer hacker on it and all your problems will go away in just a few minutes. Such laziness in writing is boring to the point of offensive.

I find myself not caring about the characters or the story arc. They could live or dies, succeed or fail. Who cares? Thus the character development is obviously weak, as is the plot. I do, however, find the banter to be really well written and well delivered by the main characters. I would just like to see that banter and those characters in a more interesting show. The banter makes this show tolerable and a decent watch when I'm stumped for something better.