We open on a wide, heavily CGId shot of a space station surrounded with spaceships. We zoom in. It’s like a badly lit Baltimore in there, everything’s crumbling, gusts of steam coming up through the ground, aliens and neon lighting. There are only bars and brothels here, with a limitless supply of backrooms for alien smuggling deals.

We cut to an alien brothel. Heavy purple mood lighting. Our hero, Klance Kobolt, is a grizzled smuggler assassin veteran who copes with an as-yet-unspecified-but-constantly-alluded-to-trauma by drinking, smoking and fucking. Right now he’s fucking a half-alien prostitute who shrieks in an alien language. Klance grizzles at her. He rolls out of bed. There’s an achingly long silence as the camera zooms into his face. Both of them slowly light up fags. The prostitute takes a hit from an alien bong.

We cut to Klance on a filthy street. There are holographic posters of naked women everywhere. He takes a swig from a bottle. A street protestor/preacher is urging the peoples of Space Baltimore to throw off the shackles of Earth’s colonialism (or another planet, take your pick). Klance grizzles at him. The crowd cheers.

Cut to Earth, all scenes filmed in Vancouver. The United Nations has performed a remarkable turnaround from having no power in the present day, to ruling the world in the future. A female politician character talks about political things rapidly to a suited milquetoast. We get a shot of her naked breasts for whatever reason. Before the audience can figure out what’s happening, we’re back with Klance. He walks into a bar. An alien man outside in an alley masturbates furiously. There is a rape scene to show us what a tough place Space Baltimore can be. Another breast shot.

We see a whore with a heart of gold being killed. Klance decides to investigate the crime. He befriends another whore with a heart of gold, and sleeps with her in a heavily mood-lit room. To find out who killed the prostitute, Klance goes into the slums. Things are rough here, it’s like a shanty town. Everyone only has enough money to afford neon mood lighting or a weird centrepiece that the camera swoops and dives around like a hungry buzzard. Klance meets Dave Pachowski, a hacker. Dave puts a USB cable into Klance’s head to let him enter the Grid. ‘Patch me in, Dave’ says Klance as he enters the matrix.

We see a vision of Klance’s little sister being shot in the head when they are kids. We also see his drunk abusive father and a vision of the dead prostitute. Klance comes out of the matrix, grizzles at Dave, and announces he knows the richest man in the universe did it.

We cut to Mars where the separatist movement is having a space battle.

Back on Earth, the politician lady is sleeping with someone for power. We get a boob shot. This new guy is a grey-haired power broker. Expect to see a lot more of him over the course of the series. The guy enters the matrix and whispers some nonsense about his past. He then announces that if the UN can’t control Mars, they should blow it up. Politician lady looks conflicted.

The richest man in the universe, some evil British guy called Kanye von Trapp or something, lives in a low-budget mansion. Klance enters, grizzles, makes a boring speech about inequality or whatever issue was relevant when the show was being written. Kanye Von Trapp fucks his wife. Boob shot. Cringy background music. Klance is kicked out of the house.

Klance decides to put together a crack team and hire a spaceshp to go to a planet for a reason. Cue indulgent zero gravity scenes. The crew really love smoking and trying to look badass. Lots of fake dirt. The most important one is Qiara StormAngel, a rebel faction kung fu dominatrix general which Klance has an unsubtle thing for. She makes insipid speeches about freedom. Klance looks weary and battle-worn when he gazes at her. There is also a lesbian couple who are killed in episode 5.

A little more Earth politics.

The cliffhanger; a CGI-heavy battle on Mars which is incomprehensible. Kanye Von Trapp looks at the camera. ‘It’s time’, he says.

End of Part 1.