Review: 9 Years to Neptune “The Harold Herald”

Overview

Unbeknownst to the crew, there’s an oxygen leak on the ship making them seriously sick. They blame it on food poisoning from their robot chef Philippe’s cooking. Natalie reveals the news of an oxygen leak to Stuart and they work together to solve the crisis while the rest of the crew continues to falsely accuse Philippe. Meanwhile, in an effort to assign himself a job on the ship, Harold decides to start a newspaper…



Our Take

Picking up from the previous episode’s twist, the crew are slowly become progressively sick causing paranoia and potential brain damage. At the very least it’s entertaining to watch everyone’s reactions from all the crew members even if their reactions come across as exaggerated as the grotesque stereotypes many of these characters represent, with the introduction of an unusual pet that Harold accidentally took with him during the space trip.

Much of the plot is primarily focused on Stuart this time around as he gains closure after miserably failing a test he could’ve easily solved. However, You’d think Natalie would’ve contacted at least one of them a lot sooner or have the computer be aware of itself being damaged but the real question should be how did the oxygen leak even happen in the first place?

Overall a passable yet fun episode. It mostly had some lessons in the end about how bad rumors can spread along with how bad having a “mob mentality” can be. And with the way the episode ended, I’m left wondering how this major conflict with the ship’s oxygen leak will be resolved?