 What's up guys and welcome to One Take. I'm Gil and today we're talking about Biohacker's Episode 1 titled Arrival. This video will of course have spoilers for Episode 1, but I haven't watched anything beyond that, so no spoilers for Episode 2 onward. Before we jump into the highlights of the episode, just overall thoughts, I thought it was a solid episode. I thought the opening sequence was a great visceral way to pull us into this intense situation, create some mystery. Why are all these people suddenly going into cardiac arrest? Why was Mia, or as we later learn Emma perhaps, the only survivor of that situation? And the cinematography in that scene really helped. If you noticed, a lot of it was done in a single take, and I thought that added to the immersion. And that wasn't the only strong choice with the cinematography this episode. I thought they made a lot of interesting choices. One that I'll call out is in our introduction to Dr. Lorenz. The first time we're in her class, most of that scene is shot from her perspective. The camera follows her as she walks around the room. When she's standing in front of all the students, we're looking up from her perspective. She's in the foreground and seems to be commanding this faceless mass of students as they raise their hand. I thought that visually looked interesting, and it created a sense of power and ego for this character. Speaking of which, I don't think we have a great sense for the characters yet. We know a little bit about Mia or Emma. We know a little bit about Dr. Lorenz. But the show has a mystery, and that mystery is drawing me in. However, it is a risky endeavor because part of the mystery is the characters themselves. We don't quite know exactly what Mia or Emma is after, and that's risky. Other shows have tried this. Westworld, for example, will often have a twist later in the season that sort of recontextualizes our understanding of that character. So actions they took earlier in the season don't fully make sense until you learn the truth later in the season. That's interesting. It creates that mystery, but it also creates some buffer between us and our emotional investment into these characters. If we don't fully know why they're doing what they're doing, we may not feel everything the show wants us to feel. That really hasn't been a problem for me so far in episode one, but it is a risk if they wait too long to shed some light on what Mia is up to. So overall, I was a fan of the first episode, loved the cinematography, I'm interested in the mystery. To some degree, I'm invested in the characters. I have a couple of worries about where it's going, but I enjoyed it enough to keep watching. Let's jump into the highlights of the episode, but first, just a quick reminder to hit the like button, hit the subscribe button and the bell icon so you get notified the next time we do a video and you can keep up with our coverage as we watch the rest of the season. I already mentioned the opening scene. I thought it worked really well as a brief introduction to the Mia character and it was just a great way to start because it was an intense situation. The cinematography helped to put us right in the middle of it and really feel it viscerally. So strong start. Then we meet Mia's roommates. So far these other characters seem to just be defined by their quirks and they don't really have any depth yet. You've got the biohacking guy, you've got the laid-back party girl, and then you have Chen Lu, the fast-talking smart girl, who did give a pretty good tip by the way. I did not know about the Netflix Chrome extension that allows you to watch on 1.5 or 2x speed. Very useful if you're doing a rewatch and just want to pick up on some additional details. Back in Mia's room, we see that she has some magazines and journals and publications about Dr. Lorenz. So clearly she's here, she's up to something. She came to the school because she's looking for Dr. Lorenz and is trying to get close to her. She is trying to keep that under wraps because she puts all those papers and materials, hides them inside of her speaker. We also see Mia look at a figurine that from a flashback we learned came from her brother. Her brother presumably died. We saw him at the hospital and later Mia tells Chen Lu that she has no siblings. Also we should note that at the hospital when her brother is being taken away, we hear somebody on the loudspeaker ask for Dr. Lorenz in the ER. So it seems like Dr. Lorenz had something to do with the death of Mia's brother. I'm also guessing that Dr. Lorenz had something to do with why Mia or Emma was the only survivor of the incident we saw earlier in the episode. Mia also tells Jasper that she's never been sick and I get the impression that she is telling the truth. Later in the episode Dr. Lorenz says that she's helped 8,000 people have children who otherwise couldn't. My question is did she perhaps perform genetic experiments of some kind on those children? Is Mia or Emma a product of those experiments and that explains why she's special, why she doesn't get sick, and why she survived that incident from the beginning of the episode? And perhaps her brother was also part of those experiments but in his case it didn't go so well and that's why he died. I also mentioned earlier that I loved that Dr. Lorenz's introduction the first time we see her in class gave that sense of ego and power with her in the foreground all the students in the background on top of that she says they are going to make God obsolete so they definitely sell the idea of ego here. Personally in this moment I got the sense of her as a villain also we know the main character is sort of investigating her so she's definitely painted as a sort of villainous character which is great setup for the twist we get later in the episode. Then we have the entire sequence of Mia seducing Jasper. I'm assuming she's only doing this so she can get closer to Dr. Lorenz so I'm not exactly invested in this budding relationship but I do hope we get more development of the Jasper character. What exactly are his motivations? In general I'd say I hope we get more development for some of the background characters overall like Mia's roommates for example. But I at least bought into the process of Mia and Jasper getting closer meeting at the party getting that drink him showing her his lab all of that felt organic to me and all of that worked. One comment on the party sequence though I've been praising the cinematography of this episode throughout visually the one part where the show has disappointed a little bit is when they show us some of the biohacking. For example at the party when they take eyedrops I had a feeling they were going to show us what do things look like from the characters perspective after they take those eyedrops. Now I was excited to see what they would show us but essentially it was just a red pink hue over everything we were looking at and I didn't find that especially interesting. Not a huge gripe with the show but because I was praising the visuals I expected more and it was a little disappointing. Another part of the episode where we get another biohacking example Chen Liu created some plants that can play music and overall that also just looked kind of cheesy and kind of hokey to me. So like I said not a major gripe with the show but I was hoping that the genetic engineering and the biohacking would look a little more interesting. So I mentioned we get a nice twist at the end of the episode and that happens when Dr. Lorenz meets with the journalist who she clearly has some history with. Earlier in the episode I got a villain vibe from Dr. Lorenz but here they try to build up some of her motivation and try to create some sympathy for her. The whole scene was a little bit on the nose the way they straight up ask her are you happy and that opens up the window for her to explain a little bit of her motivations but overall the scene did work for me and it did build some of that sympathy so we learn that she loves the sense of discovery. She loves discovering something that nobody else has and that's what gives her joy. She's also helped a lot of people she mentions all the couples who are able to have children thanks to her but I get the feeling that part of it the helping people part of what she does is a little bit of self-rationalization and she's primarily in it for that sense of discovery and for that personal sense of satisfaction she gets all this seems to have been at the expense of a personal life no partner no family etc so she felt like a villain now we get a little bit of emotional connection with her in fact I feel like we know even though we spent so little time with her we actually know a little bit more about Dr. Lorenz than we do at Mia because with the Mia character everything we're seeing is part of her ruse part of her pretending to be somebody she's not whereas I think Dr. Lorenz at least to some extent was being honest in this scene then interestingly enough we get a sort of role reversal Lorenz felt like a villain Mia's our protagonist in the next scene we see Mia spying on Dr. Lorenz and you see Mia's reflection in the darkness in Dr. Lorenz's window if this show were done from the Dr. Lorenz character's perspective then in this sequence Mia would come off as a serial killer or a stalker this is Jason from Friday the 13th stalking his prey so if the show can play with these alternating viewpoints where at times we see Mia as potentially someone who's up to no good and at times we see Dr. Lorenz as someone with ulterior motives it could be interesting to play with those perspectives so that's something which excites me about where this show could be going then in the final sequence of the episode we see Mia after the incident in the opener it looks like everybody else has died by that point and she's the sole survivor one of the health workers asks her what's your name and she says Emma my initial read on this is that she actually is Emma but she's taken on the fake identity of Mia perhaps so that when she gets closer to Dr. Lorenz Dr. Lorenz won't make the connection that Mia is the younger girl whose brother died so many years ago it's a little murky though because if Mia is the fake name she's going by why did she reveal her real name in this scene and how long has she been going by the fake Mia identity we see her wearing that necklace and clearly the guy she was with at the beginning of the episode thinks she's Mia because that necklace is prominently displayed there so it's intriguing I'm interested to see where they go with this mystery what is the Mia character up to I just hope that they don't let the mystery undercut good character development and in general I'm hoping that for the other characters like Jasper some of Mia's roommates we get some more development so it's not just the Mia and Dr. Lorenz show so overall I thought this was a solid start to the season I'm going to go check out episode two so if you enjoyed this video make sure to hit that like button hit the subscribe button and hit the bell icon so you get notified when we get the review for episode two uploaded probably later today and I'll say I'll keep going with these episode by episode reviews assuming the show keeps up with this solid quality if not and it's really just good enough to binge but not necessarily deep dive into every episode I might just watch the rest and then report back for a full season review either way make sure you're subscribed so you can keep up with our coverage and be a part of the conversation with that thanks for watching and see you on the next one take