Nautilus’ Episode 5 Review

Episode five of ‘Nautilus’ sees the crew having to fight off sea monsters as the submarine risks sinking.

The episode picks up right where the previous one left off. After escaping from the island, the Nautilus is attacked by a giant eel which is attracted to the sub’s electric generators.

An interesting point is how this feels more like an entry in an episodic series, which is unusual for a lot of streaming shows. Most of the action takes place on the Nautilus, with a few cuts to catch up on what the Dreadnaught is doing, and there is a threat which has to be overcome before the end of the episode. It’s nice to see a show using this type of format, even if it is technically a miniseries.

Sadly, it’s not enough to redeem the episode, which still suffers from the same problems as before, not least in its characters. If there’s a character who’s misnamed, it’s Humility, who doesn’t show any such virtue when trying to fend off the eel, shocking it with 1500 volts from the engine, making it burn out and leaving them stranded underwater with no power. I know she puts it right, and there’s the potential she’ll become more likeable after this, but it’s hard to care much for a character who’s been so insufferable up to this point.

The other big threat this episode is a parasite brought from the island by Archie the dog. It quickly spreads among the crew, incapacitating them all except Humility, which is odd as she was in the engine room with Archie. There also seems to be an easy solution to the problem, as Kai says the virus retreated when he was in the cold storage room, so why not just go and stand in there for a few minutes? If nothing else, it might buy them some more time to fix the ship before they are overcome.

There’s not much for the rest of the cast to do here, as they are out of the action for most of the show due to the parasite. The main focus is on Humility, with flashbacks to when she was in college. The scenes aboard the Dreadnaught are arguably more interesting, as Mallais questions Jagadish about Nemo.

In all, it’s entertaining for what it is, if relatively unimportant to the overall story. The runtime is really too long for what’s going on, and it feels like there are several random things crammed in to fill time, like the guncotton that’s threatening to explode. Maybe things will pick up again next episode.