TV Feature: George RR Martin's latest TV blockbuster, Nightflyers

Clank, clank, clank... Hot Press is descending deep into a stygian netherworld. Shadows crowd close; dark shapes seem to flutter just beyond sight.

As a frequent visitor to League of Ireland football grounds none of this is exactly a novelty (if you want dystopian despair there are a few away ends I could point you towards). But then comes the "not in Kansas" moment as we turn a corner and see the corridor stretching towards infinity.

This is a visual hack utilising an advanced technology known as a... mirror. By placing a reflective surface halfway along, the tunnel looks far lengthier than is actually the case.

The effect is breathtaking. It truly feels you are on a spaceship travelling through the lonely depths of space.

The actual location is a hulking soundstage near the University of Limerick. It's the final day of principle photography on Nightflyers, the megabucks new Netflix series adapted from a George RR Martin book and which, it is hoped, will become a Game Of Thrones-scale success.

"It's the craziest looking spaceship, backed by the most amazing ideas," says Nightflyers producer Sean Ryerson. "But the characters are grounded in reality."

Martin's original 1980 novella is about a ragtag crew at the edge of the solar system who begin to suspect their starship might be haunted.

Netflix's Nightflyers builds on this premise and introduces several curveballs of its own. Civilisation is collapsing and humanity is on the brink of abandoning all hope (it might take a minute for you to realise you're watching Netflix rather than the news headlines from post-Brexit Britain).

But there's a spark of light. Genius scientist Karl D'Branin (Irish actor Eoin Macken) in convinced that an alien species at the edge of explored space has technology that could save earth.

He also - this is something he helpfully keeps to himself - believes the aliens could cure his daughter, who visits him via creepy zero-g visions. As if that wasn't complicated enough - and it obviously is - the ship's captain suffers from such acute social anxiety that he never physically manifests before the crew (he prefers to take on the form of a hologram).

Oh and it has been decided that the best way of contacting the aliens is via a physic who speaks like Danny Dyer, if Danny Dyer was a dangerous lunatic from a David Cronenberg movie.

In other words - and despite the George RR Martin connection - it is unlikely anyone could mistake Nightflyers for Game of Thrones.

"These are people locked on a spaceship. The people on Game of Thrones are not locked anywhere," says Ryerson. "They keep going going and going. If you are going to do another George RR Martin project, it's better that it has no connection whatever with that kind of fantasy world. This is a scientific future thing that will be its own unique thing, hopefully."

The new Nightflyers is far from perfect and endured a bit of a critical pummelling when debuting on the SyFy Channel in the US last year (Netflix holds the rights for the rest of the world). However, it is deliciously scary and, if you can attune to the silliness and to a storyline that often makes no sense, is a fun rollercoaster. And you will certainly know that it flows from the same imagination as that which gave us the Red Wedding and the Battle of the Bastards.

"How can you not green light a project which has George RR Martin's name on it?" exclaims Ryerson. "His fascination with the fantasy world is grounded in a weird reality. It's fairly unique. Take The Hobbit - that's a world not at all grounded in reality. It is grounded in mysticism and religion. George's stuff is always pretty concrete."

SyFy and Netflix are keeping the budget under wraps. But given the scale of the soundstage at Troy Studios, it is clearly a huge investment. Even Ryerson - a film and TV veteran who previously worked with John Boorman - seems taken aback at the sheer lavishness.

"The business of how things works is bigger than I am," he says. "I don't really get it. I don't understand how you can put so much into a show and make a profit. But it just keeps on growing. I hear people saying the bubble is gonna burst. And the next year it's bigger and the next year it's bigger still - and here we are."

• Nightflyers season one is on Netflix.