8

This episode is in the style of movies "The Thing" or "Life" even "Planet of the Apes" but it suffers from a flimsy plot underneath it''s slick veneer. The cast manage to keep a straight face throughout, but I felt like this script was written by a high school biology student, it seemed so unbelievable and contrived. I'd advise skipping this episode, unless you like 80s B sci-fi movies.

So the TZ had these types of ecological morality tales dotted throughout the series. They were never my favourite, but this one is good for what it is. Some good sci-fi, flawed characters making mistakes that lead to bigger consequences and such. As with most of the episodes this season the story is based around characters and there's a good narrative overall.

Well, this is a first. All through the first and now second seasons of this reboot one of the underlying downsides has been that the stories have been stretched to fit in with the shows' overlong running time. However this episode clearly is an anomaly in that everything was rushed to comply with its 45 minute allowance. Much too often it relied on (mostly) the leader, Rudd, narrating the plot for us instead of actually showing it on screen. Overall it felt like a low-budget 'The Thing' as produced by a particularly enthusiastic bunch of high schoolers.

It's a joke, right? A rib on Jordan Peele? My guess is that it costs the network too much money, so someone has replaced every other episode of this season with something so utterly awful that the show gets cancelled. That's the only explanation for this half-written nonsense episode.

At an Antarctic exploration platform, a group of scientists led by Orson Rudd (Joel McHale) is investigating changes in Ice depths bringing different deep sea creatures nearer to the surface. When a pair of divers fail to return on time, suspicion points to an Octopus species that they have discovered, but they have no way of knowing just how intelligent their discovery really is.

OK, so, from a technical standpoint this episode actually looks quite good. Though the geography of the base is occasionally a little wonky, it's a convincing set and the CGI Octopuses when they appear look quite good. But everything else about the episode is awful, or in some case unintentionally hilarious. One thing not funny is Joel McHale, given that he's such a natural comedic performer the straight and series role as the lead scientist is another time this series has wasted its talent. Nadia Hilker, from "The Walking Dead" is also in it as, slightly bizarrely is, Tim Armstrong from the band Rancid.

I can understand, I think, the genesis of the episode. The idea that Cephalopods are more intelligent than we previously thought has been in the news, and their ability to do fine manipulation of objects is comparable to ours. They are also capable of editing their own RNA, put this together and you get this one hacking an Iphone to learn about DNA research and then taking over the world. It is, a bit of a stretch, to state the case mildly, and it's not sold by the dull and oddly told story where nothing much actually happens. At one point the Octopus narrows its eyes, whilst throttling a human, which was a genuine laugh out loud moment.

Decent special effects and nice "The Thing" references aside, this was a comically badly written episode. I can live with outlandish premises - in fact TZ episodes probably should have them, but the dreadful non-story that led from this one can get in the sea.

This "TZ" episode called "8" is one that's pretty lame and not that good or to interesting the story is pretty simple and cut and dry without any twist or surprises. It is a tale of a team of scientists lead by Joel McHale who are doing cutting edge research only when they find a strange species in a hole down below it's like everything from their project to their own lives are in danger! Maybe this episode was trying to parody "Alien" overall it really didn't entertain much or have any twists really not one of the better ones.