Nautilus’ Episode 6 Review

In episode six of ‘Nautilus’, the crew stumble upon an ancient structure beneath the waves, that looks like it could be man made, leading them to leave the submarine to investigate.

A big problem with this show is the way it has so many single use plot points that are only kept around as long as they’re useless, before being discarded, never to be mentioned again. This time it’s the mysterious virus that was brought from the island in episode four. All the crew were infected by it and seemed close to death, but are now fine, with no symptoms or signs that it had any lasting effect on them. It’s a really bad way to deal with such an important thing, as it almost doomed them, but there’s not even an explanation of how they all recovered so quickly. I know Kai made an offhand reference to the fact cold temperatures had an effect on it, and now they are in a cooler part of the ocean it might recede a bit, but there could at least have been an acknowledgement in this episode that that was probably the reason.

Now that they are all recovered, they go to explore the mysterious underwater city. Is this supposed to be Atlantis? Benoit mentioned it could be in the Pacific, rather than the Atlantic, but there are no signs of there ever being an advanced civilization there, so maybe it’s just a red herring.

It all goes a bit ‘Alien’, as the crew are attacked by starfish creatures that try to strangle them, similar to facehuggers. They get hold of Benoit and drag him away, presumably to his death. I can’t say it bothers me, though, as there’s not much in the way of character to get upset about.

In some ways, the East India Mercantile Company storyline is perhaps the better part of the story. Youngblood is one of the few genuinely decent characters in the show, and there’s some tension between Maitlis and Crawley, given the former’s hidden past, even if they are a bit two dimensional. Perhaps there’ll be some good reveals coming up.

Really, though, there wasn’t much of importance that happened in this episode, outside of a couple of deaths. The city under the sea was a dead end, apart from the glowing rock Benoit gave to Nemo. Even the action was limited, leaving it all to a lot of slow-moving underwater scenes. For the most part, it could be considered filler to bulk up the episode count.