In the relatively near future, the earth is shaken by wars between supporters of the religious cult of Mithra, who worship the god Sol, and atheists who do not believe in any gods. The Mithraists know how to produce combat android robots, but the atheists also have their own weapons, so the two opposing factions ended up almost destroying the entire Earth.
Some of the atheists managed to send a space shuttle from Earth towards the planet Kepler-22 b: in the shuttle are two androids named Mother (Amanda Collin) and Father (Abubakar Salim). They carry twelve human embryos in an incubator: upon arrival on the planet and settling in, the Mother will feed these embryos with the juices of her body, after which the androids will raise these children.
But everything didn’t work out as planned. Children at a very young age began to fall ill with some strange disease and die. As a result, out of twelve children, only one remained after twelve years, Campion (Vinta McGrath). He was born the weakest, almost unviable, and the Father wanted to dispose of the baby, as was necessary according to the protocol, but the Mother left Campion. And now it turned out that of all the children only he remained.
In addition, “guests” appeared on Kepler-22 b – the Mithraist ship called “Paradise”: there are a lot of armed people in the ship, and several children brought up in strict reverence for the god Sol. The Mithraists discover a settlement with androids and Campion and plan to take Campion in with them: Sol needs as many people as possible to worship.
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For some reason, many viewers and even critics write that this is a Ridley Scott series, but this is not entirely true, although, of course, Ridley Scott is directly related to the series. The showrunner of the series and one of the authors of the script is Aaron Guzikowski, screenwriter of the popular films “The Captives” by Denis Villeneuve and “The Moth” by Michael Noer. When writing the script for this series, Eron, as he said in an interview, was inspired by his own parental experience (it generally sounds very peculiar, we will notice with the cat Bagel), he also said that he is a fan of Star Wars and Alien and these works are also he was inspired.
Guzikowski brought the script to Ridley Scott’s production company Scott Free, and Ridley Scott himself was so interested in this idea, which, of course, strongly resonated with many of his films, that he himself did a full storyboard of the entire pilot.
The project was launched, Ridley Scott directed the first two episodes as director and was an executive producer on them. The rest of the episodes were directed by four other directors.
How is it filmed? Visually – very interesting. Obviously an alien planet that keeps some of its secrets: huge wells going down a great distance, a huge dark cube, obviously of artificial origin, mysterious figures that appear in the forests from time to time – this planet holds many mysteries.
An android named Mother, played by a little-known Danish actress Amanda Collin, is just some kind of masterpiece! How she walks, how she moves, how she talks. There, in the first series, when the Mithraists tried to take Campion away from her, the Mother found out that she was also a top-level battle android called a “necromancer”. In a combat state, she was completely transformed, and the sight of a necromancer android flying across the sky in the pose of a cross (it was Guzikowski who came up with this) was downright immeasurable.
Well, I note that at some point the Mother will have to find out who she was before receiving the task that she is performing on Kepler-22 b, because only the Mithraists had android necromancers, and now the Mother is clearly on the side of the atheists and is educating children (well, more precisely, the one remaining Campion) in an atheistic spirit.
The android costumes were designed by Ridley Scott. And when he showed them to the film crew, everyone was a little perplexed, including Eron. However, when they were put on the actors, the film crew understood why Ridley suggested this option – in these costumes, androids looked like they were completely sexless and sharply different from people. At the same time, in these costumes, they looked as if naked, and here analogies were obviously drawn to Adam and Eve of the new world – naked people, on bare earth, whose task is to restart earthly civilization.
Several dozen of these costumes had to be made, because they were often torn. Well, Amanda Collin and Abubakar Salim told how hard it was for them to wear these costumes during the filming: they filmed in South Africa, it was quite hot there, and in such costumes you start to overheat pretty quickly.
The series, as they say, is very atmospheric. A meditative dim screensaver that sets you in the right mood, the atmosphere of this strange, unfriendly and bare planet, the inhabitants of the planet – either wolves, or creepy-looking dogs (some of Ridley Scott’s films just come to mind), – bones of huge reptiles scattered in different places – we understand that the planet had its own, very complicated history.
In the Mithraist squad, whose characters are not very interesting, there is one very colorful couple – Marcus (Travis Fimmel) and Sue (Niv Algar). They once fought on the side of the atheists, and when it came time to flee the Earth, they killed a couple of Mithraists, appropriated their identities and began to take care of their little son Paul (Felix Jamison), who, at least for Sue, is really almost like a son .
It is very cool with Marcus how he tries to impersonate a person who allegedly directly hears the deity of Sol, in order to first of all become a squad leader, and then his roof gradually moves out on the basis of this religion and he really begins to consider himself the chosen one.
Fimmel played Marcus well, but I liked Niv Algar much more, who played Sue: she is very charismatic, combative and, unlike Marcus, is not subject to all this religious dope. Great character, one of the best in the series.
Of the children’s roles, Campion, played by Vinta McGrath, and Paul, played by Felix Jemison, stand out the most. Campion and Paul became friends when the Mother took the children from the Mithraist ship to her camp, but at the same time, Paul and almost all the other children, except for the pregnant girl Tempest, are very religious and believe that Sol controls all the events.
The first season has ten episodes of 50 minutes each. The second season hasn’t come out yet. I watched almost the entire first season with great interest, and only somewhere from the seventh series the series began to disappoint, because it was not really clear where they were going to taxi at all. And only the tenth, final, series, made straight to the ridiculous in a purely Ridley-Scottian spirit, showed this, and I realized that I would hardly watch the second season. But, however, I will not promise.
But the first season as such is not disappointed even once, well, except perhaps for the ending. However, it really all depends on how they interpret it all in the second season.
Why, you ask, “raised by wolves”? I have no idea. It is rather “brought up by androids”, but what does the wolves have to do with it – it is not said. But maybe the title is again with an eye on the second season? Maybe some gray wolves and red riding hoods will appear there? Or maybe this is a hint of Mowgli – such an assumption was made by the cat Bublik.
Raised by Wolves movie review
Director: Eron Guzikowski Cast: Amanda Collin, Travis Fimmel, Abubakar Salim, Vinta McGrath, Niv Alga, Felix Jemison, Ethan Hazzard, Matias Varela, Jordan Loughran, Aasia Shah
Series, USA, 2020, 50 min. 2 seasons, 10 episodes in 1 season