Belated Review of Raised by Wolves S2
Apr. 3rd, 2022 08:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
labingiI love some of these characters, more than any in TV/streaming sci-fi in a while. I like the universe and want to learn more. I think the plotting largely failed this season, which made the episodes themselves a bit frustrating. I'm up for an S3 but really hope it will be a season with answers and some through-line.
The good, bad, and other with SPOILERS behind the cut.
The Good
Mother, Father, Grandmother, and the android concept: same as in S1, I love this concept to sentient, feeling, but so not-quite-human androids. On paper, it's not a new concept, but this take is nuanced unlike any I've seen, and I especially love Mother and Father as partners who love each other and have conflicts but not quite in a human way. Great performances!
Campion (and potentially Paul). I'm rarely especially fond of child characters, but Campion is a type I love, the type I call "the saint" (cf. Vash, Alyosha, Zhaan). He is person strongly attuned toward good and service, the kind who might grow up to be a great philosophical, moral leader, yet he also feels like a real youth with struggles and anger, etc. Paul as a decent kid somewhat stunted by religious fundamentalism is an interesting foil for him, and their friendship has some great potential for depth and possibly tragedy. This season, however, we only got about 1-2 episodes that explored it. I did, however, find touching Paul's assertion that he understood Sue's actions but still had to hate her because she didn't believe in Sol (God): an excellent articulation of the perils of fundamentalism.
The art direction, locations, CGI. This world is just beautiful, convincingly alien and eerie and lovely. I could just stare at it for hours. In general for moving creatures, I prefer practical effects, but kudos for making the serpent look pretty real, largely by letting it move slowly.
The theme song: you know, I hated this in S1 (same song). I found the melody repetitious and boring, but I think I hadn't fully listened to the words. Somehow the apocalyptic lyrics hit me this season, and the repetitious music seemed to fit with its death knell.
The Bad
Badly plotted. Instead of having an A plot, with maybe a B and C plot to contrast or reinforce it, the season went with five or six parallel plots, alternating episode by episode with little room for development: Father finds Grandmother, Mother deals with her serpent, Marcus is a false prophet, Paul's illness leads to a crisis for Sue, rejected Android goes berserk, supercomputer oppresses community, Tempest is ambivalent about her baby: there are connections among these, but they're rarely explored in a way that leads to thematic reinforcement. I wish they'd pick a lane.
No abortion discourse: this is actually a complaint about S1—and I should rewatch S1 to make it fairly, but it marred S2. Tempest is put in a horrible position, carrying the child of a man who raped her. She clearly hates this—that horror is well depicted. But the story never has a serious conversation about whether she should be allowed an abortion. The answer could plausibly be no: the human race is almost extinct; it makes sense her religion would be pro-life. She herself could choose to have the baby, but the conversation needed to happen. Not having it is irresponsible storytelling. Again, this is an S1 complaint, but it's not one I've seen anybody else voicing, and that in itself really disturbs me, so I felt I needed to say something.
Marcus is a dumb character. He's not compelling; he's not charismatic; he's not deep; he's not interesting, and I want to see a fatal puncturing of his plot armor.
Too much symbolism with too little explanation. While we did get some interesting info at the end, this season (like last) was typified by a lot of mystery boxes without answers. And the answers could be interesting to explore. Why the Eden symbolism? What is the voice/entity? Additionally, the viewer is kept in the dark about too much that the characters clearly know: how long has their civilization existed? What's its relationship to Earth? Clearly humans inhabited this planet long ago—what do the characters know/think about that?
Unclear writing. This is a pretty basic craft error it's a bit odd to see in a professional show, but sometimes the "making of" discusses plot points that were unclear in the narrative. Ex. People are drawn to Marcus not because he's charismatic but because of some magic force he's emanating. This did become clear eventually, but about two episodes after the "making of" presented it as a self-evident plot point.
The Hm…
Actually, I don't have much here. I suppose I wonder how the acid ocean works. Nothing else in the environment seems acidic, so why a whole acid ocean?
I continue to wish the atheist and Mithraic sides were less caricatures of extremists, but I did appreciate the bearded Mithraic guy who says he's not personally vengeful but torture has to happen because it's Sol's law. As with Paul, it's a realistic and scary fundamentalist vibe.
Overall, I'll be very happy with S3 if starts opening the mystery boxes and lets the plot be driven by letting the chips fall rather than just stacking up more chips (pardon mixed metaphor).
The good, bad, and other with SPOILERS behind the cut.
The Good
Mother, Father, Grandmother, and the android concept: same as in S1, I love this concept to sentient, feeling, but so not-quite-human androids. On paper, it's not a new concept, but this take is nuanced unlike any I've seen, and I especially love Mother and Father as partners who love each other and have conflicts but not quite in a human way. Great performances!
Campion (and potentially Paul). I'm rarely especially fond of child characters, but Campion is a type I love, the type I call "the saint" (cf. Vash, Alyosha, Zhaan). He is person strongly attuned toward good and service, the kind who might grow up to be a great philosophical, moral leader, yet he also feels like a real youth with struggles and anger, etc. Paul as a decent kid somewhat stunted by religious fundamentalism is an interesting foil for him, and their friendship has some great potential for depth and possibly tragedy. This season, however, we only got about 1-2 episodes that explored it. I did, however, find touching Paul's assertion that he understood Sue's actions but still had to hate her because she didn't believe in Sol (God): an excellent articulation of the perils of fundamentalism.
The art direction, locations, CGI. This world is just beautiful, convincingly alien and eerie and lovely. I could just stare at it for hours. In general for moving creatures, I prefer practical effects, but kudos for making the serpent look pretty real, largely by letting it move slowly.
The theme song: you know, I hated this in S1 (same song). I found the melody repetitious and boring, but I think I hadn't fully listened to the words. Somehow the apocalyptic lyrics hit me this season, and the repetitious music seemed to fit with its death knell.
The Bad
Badly plotted. Instead of having an A plot, with maybe a B and C plot to contrast or reinforce it, the season went with five or six parallel plots, alternating episode by episode with little room for development: Father finds Grandmother, Mother deals with her serpent, Marcus is a false prophet, Paul's illness leads to a crisis for Sue, rejected Android goes berserk, supercomputer oppresses community, Tempest is ambivalent about her baby: there are connections among these, but they're rarely explored in a way that leads to thematic reinforcement. I wish they'd pick a lane.
No abortion discourse: this is actually a complaint about S1—and I should rewatch S1 to make it fairly, but it marred S2. Tempest is put in a horrible position, carrying the child of a man who raped her. She clearly hates this—that horror is well depicted. But the story never has a serious conversation about whether she should be allowed an abortion. The answer could plausibly be no: the human race is almost extinct; it makes sense her religion would be pro-life. She herself could choose to have the baby, but the conversation needed to happen. Not having it is irresponsible storytelling. Again, this is an S1 complaint, but it's not one I've seen anybody else voicing, and that in itself really disturbs me, so I felt I needed to say something.
Marcus is a dumb character. He's not compelling; he's not charismatic; he's not deep; he's not interesting, and I want to see a fatal puncturing of his plot armor.
Too much symbolism with too little explanation. While we did get some interesting info at the end, this season (like last) was typified by a lot of mystery boxes without answers. And the answers could be interesting to explore. Why the Eden symbolism? What is the voice/entity? Additionally, the viewer is kept in the dark about too much that the characters clearly know: how long has their civilization existed? What's its relationship to Earth? Clearly humans inhabited this planet long ago—what do the characters know/think about that?
Unclear writing. This is a pretty basic craft error it's a bit odd to see in a professional show, but sometimes the "making of" discusses plot points that were unclear in the narrative. Ex. People are drawn to Marcus not because he's charismatic but because of some magic force he's emanating. This did become clear eventually, but about two episodes after the "making of" presented it as a self-evident plot point.
The Hm…
Actually, I don't have much here. I suppose I wonder how the acid ocean works. Nothing else in the environment seems acidic, so why a whole acid ocean?
I continue to wish the atheist and Mithraic sides were less caricatures of extremists, but I did appreciate the bearded Mithraic guy who says he's not personally vengeful but torture has to happen because it's Sol's law. As with Paul, it's a realistic and scary fundamentalist vibe.
Overall, I'll be very happy with S3 if starts opening the mystery boxes and lets the plot be driven by letting the chips fall rather than just stacking up more chips (pardon mixed metaphor).
no subject
Date: 2022-04-05 01:58 am (UTC)I do quite enjoy it though. There's something compelling about it.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-05 03:24 am (UTC)