HBO Max unleashes a Ridley Scott-powered space adventure with familiar vibes and shocking twists.
Raised by Wolvesis f—ed up.
The cosmic drama streams Sept. 3 onHBO Max, with three episodes available immediately.
Coco Van Oppens/HBO Max
Earth is a battle-bled Hellscape, and that’s just the flashback.
Androids incorporate a remote space colony, and it all goes so wrong.
If you want a sincere conversation about the benefits of atheism, here’s the science-fiction saga for you.
And it’s real f—ed up.
I realize this is a family-friendly website.
Writing “f—ed up” isn’t what I’m going for.
It reads like “effed up,” which teens probably say on Nickelodeon.
The “uck” is missing; the “uck” is what I’m going for.
Here are my notes on theRaised by Wolvespremiere, rendered within our website’s linguistic barriers:
Uck.
Uck, uck, uck, UCK.
Raised by Wolvesbegins with two androids landing on a distant planet, designated Kepler-22b.
Their precise mission is unclear, though their names tell a tale.
They build a settlement, growing crop circles around a high-tech yurt and a grungy cabin.
Using cool-gross biotech, they grow human embryos into a multiethnic gaggle of kids.
The “bad stuff” starts early.
Very terrible things happen to very young people, and then more terrible things happen to other people.
More humans appear in orbit, led by Marcus (Travis Fimmel).
He’s a warrior-priest in service of the Mithraic, a puritanical neo-religion that worships the sun.
They wear all white and have a couple of rayguns shaped like revolvers.
Everyone’s fleeing an apocalyptic Earth.
I should explain more.
If you have a thing about eyes, you will get stressed by all the eye-things.
Mother has secrets, and so does Marcus.
Much of this is a little too familiar.
There are ghosts that might not be ghosts, and paranormal whispers.
There are bargain-bin insectile endo-skeletal reptile monsters, though how fun to discover those creatures taste like pork.
I’ve seen six episodes, and worry that the momentum drags.
The eccentric performances are intriguing, though.
Fimmel’s the most familiar face, and theVikingsstar brings his knack for loopy mannerisms to the straightfaced material.
Marcus smiles when things are going bad, and frowns when people cheer.
I’m torn.Raised by Wolvescan be slow and silly.
The later episodes backpedal off the wowzer twists in the premiere.
(In episode 6, one character says “Are you going to kill me again?”
which sums up the current hysterical state of genre storytelling.)
People keep talking about going to Kepler-22b’s tropical region, and, like, just go there already!
How is it possible that horribleRogue Oneis the only recent space adventure with palm trees?
By the end of episode 2, the “heroes” are all mass murder-adjacent.
They’re either motivated by lunatic belief systems, or they lie all the time about everything.
“I gotta admit, I’m starting to get a little confused,” says Marcus.
