Curate, connect, and discover
Like these are all pretty obviously intentional writing decisions
Ursula and Sam are meant to be foils to each other one who’s pragmatism and seeming focus causes more trouble than the other who’s more relaxed and willing to accept and explore the world
In the Bramble they specifically have an object that keeps you from being crushed and yet Sam panics and rushes almost dying while Ursula stays and sees something beautiful afterwards they get in an argument where Ursula says something she clearly doesn’t mean in the heat of the moment and IMMEDIATELY TRYS TO APOLOGIZE FOR IT only for that to be interrupted by Sam getting taken
Similarly with the spores Ursula wasn’t going to die without Sam, Sam does almost nothing to help her besides giving her something they most like discovered together, since again as we see Ursula is the one who explores the planet and life on it, being biologist in the ship as we see in flashbacks
And Sam doesn’t really get punished for Ursula’s flaws or his own it’s because the planet is a living thing and nature is dangerous, that’s the point whether you react perfectly or not things will happen and you’ll get hurt, for the egg monster it’s because they needed a way out of the storm, their other option was a cave that almost every creature that needed shelter would have gone for almost guaranteeing another confrontation meaning either way it was a shitty decision
Meanwhile Hollow (Kamen’s Creature) and Kris are again acting for very specific intentional writing decisions, Hollow’s a metaphor for addiction, grief and how humanity can warp an ecosystem with Kamen causing it to grow larger than it ever should have and changing its behavior to go to the ship it never would have otherwise
Meanwhile Kris is meant to be a selfish asshole to show how that doesn’t work out, they end up drifting alone and starving in space seemingly being taken by a cult for being an asshole
And even besides writing decisions all these character make sense within the show by looking at how people would react to an incredibly stressful situation of being stuck somewhere with little to no hope of escape
now that it's being moved to netflix and people are talking about it again, all i'm seeing is glowing praise and absolutely no criticism of the writing. i will gladly agree with anyone that it's visually stunning. like, a+ in that regard no argument. great looking show, and the worldbuilding of the planet vesta is super cool and clearly considered. i like those parts! but that seems to be all anybody is responding to when they praise it.
the character writing is fucking ridiculous. i could point at any of them individually and go "what the fuck is this" but it's been months since i watched it and i don't like arguing a point i can't clearly remember. but it was the most egregious around ursula so i'm going to focus on her. her character seems to exist just to cause problems for no reason, to the point where she's also the only character we get no backstory on. we never see her in flashbacks on the ship, never learn what she did for it or why she was there, nothing about her at all. she is the only one.
and she is the #1 source of shattering my suspension of disbelief. you cannot tell me that she and sam were surviving together for a month on this incredibly hostile planet, working together every day to call the ship down, to figure out how the world worked and what was dangerous and what they could use.... and then tell me she would turn around and treat him the way she does.
spoilers below the cut
she is so hostile toward him all the time for no reason. she wanders off to go look at a weird plant in the middle of a bramble that crushes you if you don't get out the right way, leaving sam alone on the outside with no idea what she's doing or where she is or if she's alive. and when she comes out and he is VERY REASONABLY upset that she did that and isn't interested in hearing about the thing she saw, SHE gets mad at him and says she doesn't need him.
YOU DONT NEED HIM? THE GUY WHO HELPED YOU SURVIVE THIS ENTIRE TIME? THE ONLY OTHER LIVING HUMAN ON THE PLANET AS FAR AS YOU KNOW, WHO IS THE ONE WHO KNOWS WHERE YOU ARE GOING, AND HAS THE CREDENTIALS TO GET YOU INTO THE SHIP? you have been alone with him for a MONTH, he is your ONLY HUMAN COMPANION, and you think you DON'T NEED HIM?? BECAUSE HE WAS WORRIED ABOUT YOU IN A LOUD WAY?
this could be explainable if there was any real tension between them, or if we're given any reason to believe she actually could survive without him, but there isn't! she fucks up with the spores in the very first episode and would absolutely die if she was alone. sam is never anything but a good leader to her and keeps trying to look out for her, and any time he's "wrong" it's because he showed reasonable caution about the fuckplanet. he gets hurt by the egg parasite because he didn't want to climb into a giant animal's egg sac. reasonable thing to not want to do! when he and ursula get into that argument about her disappearing on him, he gets hauled off by the weird emu for the dramatic irony. because he was upset his only companion in the world disappeared. he never does anything wrong. it's never his actual character flaws that he gets punished for, it's only ursula's ~trusting your instincts~ shit that ever gets him hurt. she is ultimately responsible for his death but the show never acts like it.
so much of the show seemed to be drama for drama's sake. do not get me fucking started on kamen's creature. what was that thing's fucking problem. what was kris' fucking problem?
if i have to ask 'what is their PROBLEM' at every other character's choices, your writing is not good.