Genre Drama, Science fiction, Thriller
Created by Craig Silverstein
Based on “The Gods Will Not Be Chained”, “The Gods Will Not Be Slain” and “The Gods Have Not Died in Vain” by Ken Liu
Voices of
Katie Chang
Paul Dano
Aaron Eckhart
Rosemarie DeWitt
Chris Diamantopoulos
Raza Jaffrey
Daniel Dae Kim
Ron Livingston
Taylor Schilling
Music by Marco Beltrami, Brandon Roberts, Buck Sanders
Country of origin United States
Original language English
No. of seasons 2 No. of episodes 16
Production
Executive producers Chris Prynoski, Shannon Prynoski, Antonio Canobbio, Ben Kalina, Juno Lee, Craig Silverstein
Editors Jocelyn Barkenhagen, Megan Love, Marco Vera
Running time 40–44 minutes
Production companies Sesfonstein Productions, Titmouse, Inc., AMC Studios
Original release Network AMC+ September 1 – October 13, 2022
Network Amazon Prime Video
Release October 15, 2023
The opening of Pantheon raises red flags. A bunch of junior high girls are snarking at one another. One immediately thinks of the lowest form of anime in which pantsu and sexual sniggering substitute for anything resembling talent or intelligence.
But the tone was wrong, and so was the art. The main character is a 14 year old girl, but she’ll remind you less of Sailor Moon and more of Rachel Maddow (yes, that’s a compliment).
Pantheon is solid, intelligent, probing science fiction, as good an example of the genre as you can hope to encounter. The scientific literacy and verisimilitude will remind you of Andy Weir or Peter Cawdron, and the moral and ethical complexity and ambiguity is straight from the pages of Harlan Ellison or Phillip K. Dick. Yes, it’s that good.
The series are based on short stories by one Ken Liu (and I plan to get out and look for his work!) and center around the concept of UI—Uploaded Intelligence. Scanning brains and putting them in the cloud. While not a new concept—there was even a comedy TV show called Upload that featured it—Liu takes a hard look at the political and ethical problems, particularly since with ability to control all computer based functions, UIs have almost god-like powers. And yes, there are more than one: the US, India, China and Russia all have their own UIs, each with their own sets of loyalties, motives, and disloyalties.
However, there is a flaw—they will descend in fairly short order to random code, and the more processing power they use, the faster the degradation.
In the US, they have hatched an ambitious program to clone the inventor of the UI process, a man who was on the verge of solving the flaw when he died.
Season One is now on Amazon, and it’s my hope that Season Two, which aired on AMC in 2023, will follow.
Anyone who likes their SF taken neat and in big shots will want to see this.
Now on Amazon and already broadcast in Australia and New Zealand.