Beacon 23: A Light in the Universe

Beacon 23 is a type of celestial lighthouse deep in space that is meant to guide spaceships away from dangerous dark matter.  As one such ship approaches, the keeper, Harlan (Stephan James), attempts to warn the ship not to approach, but something goes wrong and it crashes, leaving only one survivor, Aster (Lena Headey). Aster is a government official on her way to Beacon 23 to study some unique and possibly valuable rock samples that had been reported a year earlier, but Harlan becomes unstable and aggressive, and a battle of wits and wills ensues. The ships floating robot AI, Bart (voiced by Wade Bogert-O’Brien), has very strong opinions about Harlan and his trustworthiness, but Harmony (Natasha Mumba), Aster’s more levelheaded hologram AI is a bit more open minded.  Neither Aster nor Harlan is all that they appear to be and each of their true motives are as of yet unclear. Can Aster and Harlan survive each other and learn to work together and what is so special about the rock samples? Watch and find out!

Beacon 23 was created by Zak Penn based on a book by author Hugh Howey. The series premiered the first two episodes on MGM+ on November 12, 2023, and will run for 8 episodes ending on December 24, 2023.  A second season has already been announced and that the two seasons would film back-to-back.  The production value of the show seems very high with some unique visuals and great use of special effects. The set design is very well conceived and reminiscent of a lighthouse with spiral staircases connecting each level, but with the futuristic equipment and flare you would imagine from its 23^rd century setting.

I enjoyed watching the first episode and found the characters compelling and well displayed.  Lena Heady and Stephan James have great chemistry together and both do an excellent job in building their characters for the audience.  The storyline is interesting, and I liked the mysteriousness of the situation.  Neither character is what they seem to be, and the audience isn’t sure who the good or bad guy is. Possibly because both characters live in a gray area between good and bad. The series purposely does not give us much information on what is really happening. The audience is given little bits of each character’s history, like breadcrumbs, but not enough to really paint a clear picture of who they really are. The same can be said for the plot. There isn’t a lot of expositional material about what is really happening, what the universe is like during the 23^rd century, and how people live. This left me feeling a bit confused watching the first episode while trying to understand what was happening without any point of context. Purposefully, there is much that the audience is left to assume or piece together on their own and while this can work for some programs it was a small deterrent for this one. I wish I was given just a bit more historical reference to the world these characters live in, to help understand their motivations and the overall story.