CW’sPandoraIs an Embarrassment

For the past few year , the CW has been on a red-hot streak . The electronic web is producing some of thebest comic book showson television and has branched out beyond the DC universe withRiverdale , Charmed , and others . Its latest venture into tough sci - fi , Pandora , carry through something the CW has n’t done in twelvemonth : It ’s made something bad .

I watch a lot of TV pilots for work — including ones for shows that never make it to vent — and Pandora ’s is quite possibly one of the worst I ’ve seen in geezerhood . The show debuted Tuesday on the CW . As of now I ’ve seen the first two episodes , and it is potential the series will get better over clip . So far , it has n’t . Its initiation is … rocky .

Pandora ’s first episode , “ Shelter From The Storm , ” is what happens when you combine Disney Channel Original Movies with Asylum mockbusters , without understanding what makes either of them actually make . The dialogue is stilted , the acting is wooden , and the sci - fi is either mind - numbingly simple or frustratingly vague . People do thing because the book says so . character reference become friends because the plot of ground take them to be . Almost every “ Eureka ! ” moment is full of unearned exposition . Nothing find real , natural , or necessary .

She’s Space Jesus. Maybe. It’s kind of hard to tell.

She’s Space Jesus. Maybe. It’s kind of hard to tell.Photo: All images via the CW

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The series opens on our heroine , Jax ( Priscilla Quintana ) , leaving her family home on an alien satellite to go for a campaign . Who ’s her family ? What ’s their deal ? Does n’t matter , they ’re straight off blown up . tailor to a short meter afterwards . Jax is head to Earth to join the Fleet Training Academy , only to have an awkwardly hostile meet - cute with a teaching helper named Xandar ( Oliver Dench ) . But I ’m just gon na call him Eventual Plot Twist because that ’s essentially all he is .

Here , thing are futuristic . you could tell it ’s the hereafter because hoi polloi wear plastic crownwork , aliens instruct philology division , and Jax becomes friends with a new womanhood who ’s dress like an extra fromZenon : daughter of the 21st Century . This is Atria Nine , play by Raechelle Banno — and out of all the role player on the show , she ’s the one I feel the most understanding for . She ’s intelligibly trying , but there ’s no room any actor could make this fibre work .

You can tell I’m a clone because literally nothing suggests I’m a clone.

Atria Nine is described in the show notes as “ a bubbly , very gabby , free spirited , sexually fluid , royal - haired young woman . ” I ’d parent my supercilium at the decipherable stereotyping if I was n’t cackle so severely at the whim that someone besides me had to write that sentence . Atria is little more than a walking Tumblr stereotype begging for stroke - fic that no one will ever write . Well , there is a gimmick : She ’s a formerly enslave clone . Huh ? Yeah , plain she ’s a knockoff who maybe murdered her master and now goes to distance school . The show throws this world - altering item out there and then does very little with it . The follow - up instalment does focus on her and the world she get from … and oh boy , that ’s another can of cloned worms for another cloned time .

Jax is introduced to Atria Nine ’s circle of friends at the place schoolhouse ’s , umm , cabaret ? It ’s the hip cool hangout for all the space 20 - somethings . This prospect mainly serves as a cheap apology for the show to tell us : “ These are the main characters and they ’re cash in one’s chips to be Best friend Forever ! ” Except the resonance does n’t support it ; these people do n’t hang out together so much as exist around each other . But the show needs them to be friend , so they ’re friends now . For representative , the crew ask Jax to be in their sketch radical after speaking with her for about five minutes , and then afterward they ’re unforced to break a bunch of blank school rules and risk of exposure riddance for this almost - unknown . Make it so , plot .

Also , there ’s space racialism against some foreign bro named Ralen ( Ben Radcliffe ) who ’s part of a species that was at war with Earth some years ago . His makeup job is a hodgepodge of thing that Star Trek has donebefore and good , combined with floppy whisker and an outfit from Hot Topic circa 2005 .

You can tell I’m a clone because literally nothing suggests I’m a clone.

Jax is coolheaded with him — she ’s no distance racialist — so alien bro is coolheaded too . Even he gets to be in the study group . Best Friends Forever ! The show hints at a love Triangulum between Jax , alien bro , and either Eventual Plot Twist or this other guy who matters even less than him . But they also suggest that Jax is epicene , so who the hell knows or cares . I ’m jolly sure her only love is glaring at hoi polloi . She ’s real good at that .

There ’s a lot of other stuff in the sequence that does n’t make sense , and I do n’t want to watch the instalment again . I tried and could n’t survive five minute of the rewatch , okay ? I ’m sorry I ca n’t be perfect . I ’m going to do my best to explain it anyway . The sequence concentrate on around this whole whodunit about Jax ’s parent ’ death , and it ’s linked to something her parents found on New Portland , the place she lived before her family was killed . There ’s some backroom talk , codewords , and secrecy — Jax conceive it ’s a cabal that goes all the style to the top ! The space top . And yeah , it does . She and some of her new friends pirate a ship and head to the planet to get response .

Where they come across , wait for it …

“Here’s what I think of your space racism. Pew pew!”

Eventual Plot Twist nooooooo I never saw it coming .

It turn out Eventual Plot Twist is a space cop who ’s also secret as a teaching supporter at outer space schooling . But he ’s starting to think that maybe the people in thrill are n’t being totally honest with him . g-force , do you think it ’s because there are now giant wormholes that take him and Jax through some kind of spacedoor because Jax might be an alien hybrid that will determine the future of humanity ? Also , they ’re attacked by alien soldier that look like golden poo ?

What the perdition is happening on this show ?

Argentina’s President Javier Milei (left) and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., holding a chainsaw in a photo posted to Kennedy’s X account on May 27. 2025.

Then , that ’s the oddment . Seriously , the show ends with a billion questions … and zero desire to ever have them respond . I ’ve never left an episode of a show this grateful that I did n’t have to return to it . It ’s empty the series is sample to set up this prominent epic closed book about Jax . Who is she ? What is she ? Why is she ? But as interesting and charismatic as Quintana is as an histrion , there ’s little that holds her to Jax . She ’s not a compelling fictitious character , she ’s surrounded by less - compelling friends , and all the enemy she ’s faced have either been airless professor or favourable poo aliens . And I did n’t even get into her stuffy prof uncle and his outfit that looks like what would pass off if L.L. Bean made a bulletproof vest . He ’s part of the whole confederacy too , but , like , who even cares at this point ?

I can not in good conscience recommend Pandora , except if you ’re fascinated by shows that should ’ve never made it past the pilot stage but for some reasonableness have . It ’s not NBC’sWonder Womanor Poochinski levels of bad , but it ’s not far off . I ’ll keep the door open for betterment in the future , but I cerebrate this is die to be a one - and - done summer blank trainwreck ( spacewreck ) . Pandora involve a serious coming to Space Jesus moment to excuse pass any more time on this god - awful planet .

Pandora airs Tuesdays on the CW .

William Duplessie