For all that Mallozzi talked in the interview about planning everything well in advance, this show continues to feel to me like they're making it up as they go. The story structure is weird, with characters and threads being set up and then arbitrarily dropped, such as Devin confessing his drug addiction, then randomly getting killed and the show basically forgetting about him from then on. The mystery behind the murder of One's wife, and then One, seems to have been cut off without resolution when they killed off Corso. And then there are these weird twists the episodes sometimes take in the final minutes, like that random sidebar about the blobby monster thing that possessed Three in the final minutes of the Rook space-station episode, which didn't seem to serve any purpose beyond padding out a short episode. And now we get this weird sidebar with Five's memory fugues from the neural link, which seemed like the setup for the next episode dealing with the ongoing degeneration and the risky operation she'd need to undergo, but then they just wrap up the whole thing in the last two minutes and it's all just about the twist that Five has a sister. And we got that random glimpse of Sarah at the beginning and then nothing. What the hell? This is very clumsy story structure.
I barely remembered who Anders is, but I get the impression he's taking over Kierken's role as the recurring GA adversary who might turn out to be sympathetic to the crew. But then, that's another example of the clumsy plotting. They were setting up Kierken for that arc, but then in the season 2 finale they just abandoned it and had him be a closed-minded hardass who got himself killed, and all the work they did setting up the character over the course of season 2 was for nothing. I have to wonder if there's something going on behind the scenes that leads to actors walking away from the show or the producers deciding to write them out, so that the planned story arcs with those actors get dropped and replaced.
At least Marc Bendavid is, by all appearances, still on good terms with Mallozzi so unless it's an availibility problem (and DM doesn't have a massive budget to force priority over other shows) I don't think there is anything weird going on.
I do agree that it looks like Anders is taking over Kierken's role, in many ways. Having said that: nor in the show, nor (to my knowledge) in interviews has it been confirmed that Kierken is dead. He can be brought back as easily as Anders' was. Just as Anders gunshot hits weren't deadly (turns out he was wearing a bulletproof vest), Kierken on EOS9 can still be a clone body.
The Sarah thing was already suggested in the S1 season she died in (albeit only teasingly), and apparently she will appear more often (and I guess, dole out more Three backstory). In a similar way, I expect that the Blobby Monster is connected to the creepy old man that Alexander Rook was talking too after Two escaped his facility (the first time, end of S1) and will be revisited when Dwarf Star is the focus of an episode again.
One and his wife - Mallozzi has confirmed that more revelations about Three (and the others) are coming this season. Three still is being accused of being the killer, and allthough we now tend to assume he is actually innocent this has never been confirmed. This story pretty much has to be picked up again.
Devon's story was unceremoniously dropped - that's the only time I wonder what the point was.
Ultimately these first couple of episodes feel like a massive reset to me. The two new crew members from season 2 (both of whom I liked) are dead and the blink drive is off the table for now. Aside from the loss of One and Four going to the dark side, in many ways we've gone backward. And as Christopher said, clumsily at that. I do like the show and wish good things for it, but these nits are adding up. Did anyone notice the change in Android's demeanor? Usually she's wide-eyed with a goofy smile, but here she seemed quite melancholy throughout.
The conversation between the Android and Ryo was golden. This kind of dialogue is what the shows excels at - along with heist episodes (Ep 2 was superb).
In some ways this is a reset, but losing two out of 7 crew (original) crew members is significant and the goals and, to some extent, attitude of the remainder have changed quite drastically. S3 appears to be "Two going against Ryo" and that can hardly be called a reset.
Also, we didn't see all the Seers killed, just the few who were on Zairon. Their ship is presumably still out there somewhere, even without their leader.
There was an interview, sometime during or right after S2, where Mallozzi confirmed that the Seers are still out there. They must have faced a leadership crisis though, post S2.
I thought the Seers were not the strongest part of S2 and I'm not in a hurry to see them back, though.
