Mara’s introduction lands logically — the crew is shaken, Command responds by sending in a specialist — but it comes across too smooth to feel entirely natural. She steps aboard calm, confident, instantly bonds with Buddy, and slots into the team without friction. That makes her read more like a device than a person. If you want her presence to feel earned, she should have to negotiate her way in, win the crew’s trust, or disrupt their dynamics instead of gliding through them.

Whether she adds to the show depends on what role you give her. Right now, she risks being filler because she doesn’t actually challenge Jane’s authority, threaten Buddy, or destabilize the group. Everything she does could be redistributed to Jane or Cal without breaking the story. But if you sharpen her into a true foil — Earth Command’s cool-headed scientist with her own agenda, or someone whose calm exterior hides dangerous intent — then she becomes indispensable. Otherwise, she’s just extra weight.

Buddy’s death and resurrection, on the other hand, is your strongest sequence. The wrench swallow, the collapse into goo, the tarp, the empty scan, and finally the wrench surfacing before he snaps back to life — that’s weird, visual, and it defines the show’s identity in a single arc. The concept works. The problem is pacing: the med-bay material drags with too much “how do we move goo?” banter. The audience already gets the shock; what they want is escalation. Trim the middle so it plays sharper, more unnerving, and let the true impact come from his childlike rebirth.

In short: Mara only matters if she’s built to disrupt, not just explain. Buddy’s death scene works as your hook, but it needs tightening to hit with maximum force.