"Raised by Wolves" Seasons 1 & 2 Reviewed

Season 1 [Adapted from these Tweets] - was more watchable than expected, knowing very little before hand, other than people thinking it a bit odd. I felt it was a decent, slow-burn sci-fi. It definitely has Ridley Scott flavours: grey-blue colour pallet of Prometheus [2012]; various visual details, from android blood down to hats; the horror-spun theme of birthing/raising children, intersecting with brooding alien mysteries.

Raised by Wolves was not at all as sci-fi silly/tacky as some of its initial appearances.

There really are some seriously dark themes (trigger warning). Including a teenage girl coming to terms with being coerced into carrying a pregnancy following rape (while unconscious). Then dealing with meeting the perpetrator (whose made theatrically monstrous). Attempted suicide. The grief of loosing several children (pictured right) and self blame for that. Mass murder. Loss of bodily autonomy. Orphan child soldiers. Child abduction, etc. But I guess its all softened the surrealness of a sci-fi setting. Anyway...

Much is lost...

The season had enough time to develop its main characters, particularly heroine/antagonist android "Mother". She took an opposed arc to Travis Fimmel, who was apparently reprising his King Ragnar roll (from Vikings). Military genius, usurps power, undergoes religious conversion, hobbles about injured with a staff, etc. 

Religion is another core theme, with the two squarely opposed factions from Earth: the Mithraic, who worship "Sol", verses the atheists (who are underdogs). This portrayal doesn't represent a fair reflection of our real world, for either side. The believers, here, are shown to be superstitious and quick to jump to conclusions convenient to their believes. 

While the atheists have to content with the fact that big mysterious stuff, beyond their powers, is very clearly happening. For a start, Sol apparently handed the Mithraic their unequalled "dark light" tech. This is what let them make the necromancers - indestructible, identity reconfiguring, flying android banshees of death - which were terrorising Earth. Also, possibly, their interstellar tech? 

The question really becomes, not whether Sol exists, but what is it and what are its motives? In manipulating humans, by speaking inside some of their heads (i.e. "the signal"), saving some. Setting them against others, in a confusing (possibly confused) series of events.

The costume design clearly embraces retro-futurism. Both 70s throwback and historical overtones of crusaders, British empire, Knights and armour later, etc. 

The brutally brief, unsettling action scenes looked good & punctuated well the stretch out human narrative focus. Giving an air of realism. There were some largely forgivable liberties with plausibility and the plot flailed around a bit, later on. 

Only a brief foray into spaceships; pretty much everything happens planet-side.

The world's mysteries were only gradually half paid attention to. One mysterious stranger is just randomly killed, forestalling any answers there. And the concluding action seems like an overly big sacrifice, that turns unexpectedly into merely a translocation of setting.

Overall, S1 was OK, hence preceding to...

Season 2 - expanded in scope verses S1, in many ways. But apparently lacked the time for as deep character development, or any more flashbacks to post/mid-apocalypse Earth. It lost focus and dramatic tension, then kind of devolved into a mess of stuff going on, with more plot holes/oversights opening up.

The SFX budget seemed stretched a little thin in places, particularly around "The Tarantula", but was overall still very high value for a TV show.

The tanks were ludicrously hopeless, in military terms.

An immediate irritation was the "acid sea", that instantly dissolves spaceship tech, but doesn't cause any breathing distress humans on the sore.

Biggest disappointment wash the Trust AI., which held interesting promise and looked cool, but its actions were disappointingly portrayed as bluntly brutal & reckless. Supposedly it pulled some military mastermind coup, in stealing an enemy ship to escape Earth with its people. But we only see it alienating many of its minions, like a mediocre sociopath tyrant.

Some continued playing on general
 fears of having children.

I guess it had to fail for the plot progress. So it wasn't allowed to shine via superior emotional intelligence and more subtle social manipulations. Like the show generally, it feels predicated on classic sci-fi conceptualisation. Big Bother, but with updated bells & whistles. Rather than an evolution of the kind of social engineering/manipulations of big data corrupting Brexit vote, 2016 US election, etc.

Character wise, they also seemed to act somewhat arbitrarily. For the sake of developing whatever plot thing. I guess there was a lot of flakiness in S1, too.

At the extreme, the little girl bot crowbarred in like Jason X. Going beyond her physical capabilities, and apparent psyche, for the sake of a horror trope. Then that's kind of just set aside.

While, in episode 6, Mother stopped existing, anywhere, when all the things needed to go wrong at once. Maybe production/editing issue.

Niamh Algar was very likeable in both seasons. SOme of the kids, not so much, perhaps. This scene kinda begged the question of why there's not more drones being used in this fictional universe..? 

And the big plot stuff feels like it throwing in random mystical/unsettling ingredients from all over: from (anti-)Christian imagery and monster movie elements, to an Anime space tentacle moment with a feel of Neon Genesis Evangelion.

So, at this point, I'm not so sure there's a definitive plot arc resolution in mind. Maybe it's doing a bit of a Lost [2004]. But I guess I'd watch a S3, to see if it gets even more silly.