Playing Hard To Get
Episode 2 of A Girl and an Astronaut starts with Niko opening his eyes and seemingly regaining consciousness – at least for a bit. Nadia points out to her assistant, JJ, that she knew who he was back in 2022. She was just a little girl then and upon their meeting, Niko commented that she reminded him of his little sister. She was there when the capsule went missing on the radar too. She tells JJ all of this while getting her cybernetic enhancements sorted, before looking deeper into this Niko situation.
It turns out Niko’s body has barely aged a day in the 30 years he’s been missing, but he’s barely responsive to their tests. There’s stimuli to light and the environment but he’s not really talking.
Nadia finds some of her dad’s old project files and begins searching through for clues over Niko’s condition. As she continues to do her research, Nadia uncovers a picture of Marta and Niko joyously riding a motorbike together. On the back reads “”If anything happens to me, please contact Marta, my fiancee”
Meanwhile, Marta starts to look through all the different news reports, wanting to know more about Niko and what’s happening. Bogdan is over for dinner and the atmosphere is rather frosty, to say the least. The pair have been married for 32 years but for the last 10, Marta has been treating him like a friend rather than a lover. Things have been getting progressively worse between them and Oliwia feels like the odd one out, caught in the middle of this. With Niko now back, it seems like things are going to get even more complicated. Marta claims that she loves Bogdan but whether that’s true or not remains to be seen.
Back in 2022, we return to Bogdan and Niko coming to blows both professionally and personally. Bogdan is not happy about Niko swooping in and taking his girl, which impacts their work as the pair end up miscommunicating up in the air. Naturally, the pair end up coming to blows outside and trade fisticuffs.
After, Bogdan slinks off back home while Niko continues to persist with Marta, heading over to see her and asking for a date. Marta plays hard to get though, but we know they end up together so it all seems rather pointless. That night, at a party, they take time away from the chaos to look out at the stars together.
When the action moves to a nearby funfair, Bogdan confronts Niko and tells him that he’s just going to mess things up. Niko ignores him, naturally, while Marta and Niko end up by the carousel in secret, eventually getting hot and heavy and undressing.
In 2052, we learn a little more about Niko’s condition. It turns out he actually underwent an experimental procedure, not just to test the invisibility radar, but also an a sub-hibernation procedure to extend the human lifespan by an average of 20 years. This explains why Niko has barely aged a day and potentially could explain the lack of atrophy too. Niko is the focal point here, as shadowy forces conspire to try and gain access to his files and figure out exactly what’s been going on.
Part of this search comes from finding Niko’s research notes. From what Nadia has gathered, it seems like the initial plan here was for the Colonel to use his stem cells to come up with a cure for Nadia, but that never transpired. Still, Niko is still alive and that’s bound to change Marta’s opinion on everything.
The Episode Review
A Girl and an Astronaut has a really frustrating structure. The back and forth timelines do absolutely nothing to help this drama and if anything, undermine whatever’s happening in 2022. We know that Marta eventually ends up with Bogdan but is deeply invested in her relationship with Niko too, as evidenced by half the files Nadia and the others have found. T
here are snippets to this stem cell research and the mission up into space but it barely registers as a footnote at this point in time, with the show deciding to use the love triangle as a vehicle to push the show forward.
There could be some great themes explored here, especially seeing Niko try to pick up the pieces of his life, but given he’s been unconscious the whole time, it lacks the humane touch that a show like Glitch managed to achieve when the dead returned to life.
Hopefully this drama improves in the episodes ahead as so far, this one has really failed to light up the streaming sky.
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Episode Rating
(2)