Killjoys - 'Boondoggie'

Negotiations for the new series went as well as could be expected.

Have your levels of space-bound sass and swagger been getting a bit low of late? Well, worry no more, because the Killjoys are back.

Well, that's sort of true. Dutch and D'av are present and correct, still in their rocky alliance with RAC superior Turin and forming a supergroup with Fancy Lee, Alvis and Pre, to root out infiltrators from the Hullen(1) and prevent the conquest of the Quad by the green goo monsters. Unfortunately, although he is feeding them locations for goo pools, Johnny is not back with the team. Still on the run following the murder of Delle Sayer, he is separated from Clara (probably because Stephanie Leonidas landed a featured gig on Mockney TV spin-off Snatch) and left with new face Olli and Alice, Clara's good arm, now attached to Olli. He does still have Khlyen's dope ride, at least.

Dutch and D'av kidnap a fixer named Pippin, also known as 'the Mouth', to help them retrieve a chemical beacon sent from allies outside the Quad to identify the Hullen infiltrators. Now, this is one hell of a thing to just drop into the first episode of the season, but it turns out to be a bluff. The beacon flushes out the infiltrators because the Mouth is just indiscrete enough to tip off a group of sixed agents, who turn up to arrest the team and thus give them the opportunity to a) prime and collect some more plasma-killer to take out the pools, and b) be all kinds of sassy badass.

"And I shall call my good finger 'Steve'."

Meanwhile, Johnny bonds with Olly as he explains that he and Clara were planning to take out the Factory; the industrial plant which creates hackmods. They find out that Rat City, a hackmod sanctuary, is increasingly unsafe, and Johnny is given a mod of his own – a tiny lightsabre in his finger which makes him incredibly chipper – as the price of leaving a hackmod bar alive. The barkeeper also insists on giving Olli's mods a once over. Later, a supposed contact dummies Johnny away while a mysterious assailant comes to take out Olli, but luckily this isn't Johnny's first rodeo(2). Less fortunately, Olli collapses for reasons unknown, although I feel the barkeep maybe is owed some pointed questions.

Every time a beloved series returns, I worry that it's going to go tits up, but this is a promising opening for my current favourite space opera and inter-Librarians TV happy place. The humour is sharp, the action is cracking, and the characters are just the best. Within the space of the episode, Hanna John Kamen's Dutch is kicking arse, telling scary stories to scary people, and sitting cross-legged on her cabin floor working up a heartfelt conversation with Johnny's latest voicemail. Separating Johnny and Dutch is a bit of a risky play, since so much of the heart of the series rests on their relationship – Olli asks what his deal with Clara was 'fetish, wifey, non-sexual life partner' and he tells her that the latter would be Dutch – but this episode at least makes the separation play to strengthen the bond.

My one disappointment is the absence of Clara, who was awesome, but Olli is pretty good too, and has an immediate chemistry with Johnny as they share 'dark talk' and save each other's lives. She seems pretty eager to belong somewhere, and I hope that's tragedy and not infiltration, because I like her.

(1) And not, as I misheard last season, Holla.

(2) As ever, huge props to the series for remembering that Johnny is the least badass of a Killjoy crew that includes Dutch and D'av, not a wimpy tech diva.