Pantheon Season One

Look, everybody’s talking about Severance Season 2, and rightly so, but I’ve only had a single person recommend Pantheon, which almost demands to be in the same conversations.

I get why it flew under the radar: it’s an AMC (AMC does like being extra protective of its streaming rights), animated (which many Americans still seem to think means “for lil smol BABIES, amirite?”), sci-fi (still not exactly four-quadrant appeal) show. But if Severance takes some of the fundamental human questions about identity, empathy, power, and human connection and stuffs them into a cubicle, Pantheon takes a run at those same questions on a vastly larger stage.

Forget AI, the show tells us. Consider UI, Uploaded Intelligence. A complete human mind converted to code, functionally unbound, functionally immortal… right? What would powerful people do for a chance at immortality? What would corporations do to Innies who not only couldn’t communicate with the outside world, but who were also considered intellectual property?

Sometimes sci-fi is all about the ideas, letting the human characters feel like empty puppets shouting those ideas at each other. But this show gives its characters some real emotional weight. Without giving too much away, one of the best scenes in a fantastic first season involves a separated husband and wife having drinks and rocking out to Pearl Jam. Rod Serling wishes.

The world is a nightmare right now, which I think has become my catchphrase the past six months, and if shows about the threats of multi-billion dollar companies and untested technology just aren’t your jam right now, I completely get it. That said, I think there’s always something important about stories that where characters in impossible situations try to look out for each other.

…Especially if they do a funny Eddie Vedder impersonation.

5 singularities out of 5, available on Netflix.