Raised By Wolves: Hello Mother, Hello Father

In the 22^nd century, the Earth is destroyed by a war of militant atheist and a religious order called the Mithraic.  Two androids, Mother and Father, are sent by the atheists to a new planet, Kepler 22b, with human embryos with which to begin anew.  We are told that all that is left of humanity are the Mithraic on a space ark called Heaven.   Twelve years after the embryos are birthed, only one of the six children survived, Campion.  The rest of the children succumbed to a strange illness.  Father detects the ark has arrived at 22b and with their mission of starting a new civilization a failure, tries to contact the ship.  Mother seems to start malfunctioning.

The Mithraic arrive on 22b led by Marcus and attempt to remove Campion against his will.  Mother, displays unknown abilities and is easily able to defeat the intruders.  She goes up to the Ark and takes five children and sets the ark on a course to crash into the planet.  The kidnapped children, Tempest, Paul, Hunter, Holly and Vita are brought to the settlement to be raised along with Campion.

Marcus, having survived Mother’s attack, finds the survivors of the ark’s crash and begins to search for his son, Paul.  In flashback scenes, we also see that Marcus and his wife Sue are not who they seem to be.  Mother senses that Tempest is pregnant and separates her from the others to make sure that the baby remains safe.

The new children begin to get sick, as the other children had, and Campion grows concerned that Mother may have poisoned them.  Even Mother begins to believe that she could unknowingly be the cause.  Campion betrays Father’s trust and helps the Mithraic children escape, only to be recaptured by father after he discovers what the cause of the illness really was, an issue with the food they grew on the planet.   The Mithraic survivors clash over whether or not to launch a rescue mission to get their children back.

From time to time, a new show comes along that has a certain magic.  That something special that makes it both entertaining and relevant to the current period events.  I am not saying this is the best show ever to come along, or that it will even be remembered as a Classic, but it is a really well done show that is intense, visually stunning and makes you think.  We are provided with enough expositional information at the beginning to understand that what is going on, but as the episodes unfold we learn more about each character and how they got where they are and often what we thought we knew isn’t necessarily true.  The series brings up some truly relevant issues that our society is currently facing, like the roll of artificial intelligence in our lives and the hypocrisy of religion and those that appear to be pious.

I believe that every show needs to have a character that is likeable and in recent years I have seen several shows that could have been amazing, but they lacked empathetic characters.  With Raised by Wolves, I feel like they have done the opposite.  There are likeable characters on both sides.  I attribute this to excellent writing and the amazing performances by the actors.  Amanda Collin shines as Mother as she battles emotions that she believes are only programmed responses.  She is a deadly weapon and yet a sympathetic heroine.  Winton McGrath also turns in a wonderful performance as the son who survived.  He is confused by his love for Mother and Father and the fear that his android parents have become unstable.  Other notable performances are given by Travis Fimmel and Niamh Algar as Marcus and Sue as they have to fake their lives within the Mithraic world and raise a son that literally  doesn’t know them.

Overall the show is well done and interesting to watch.  It is intense and thought provoking.  There were a couple scenes in the first episode where the computer-generated effects weren’t as believable as it could have been, but the rest of the show’s look is believable, and the art direction is stunning.  The storyline is intriguing and the show flows well.  The writing is well done and the performances are not good and endear you to the characters.  Definitely give this show a look!