Raised by Wolves: Season 2 Premiere

 

Created by: Aaron Guzikowski

Executive producers: Aaron Guzikowski, Mark Huffam, David W. Zucker, Ridley Scott, Adam Kolbrenner, Jordan Sheehan

Starring: Amanda Collin (Mother), Abubakar Salim (Father), Winta McGrath (Campion), Niamh Algar (Sue/Mary), Travis Fimmel (Marcus/Caleb)

I've been having a hard time with this blog. I started it right when season 2 aired and it's been several weeks now. It finally occurred to me that while I do enjoy the show, this season hasn't excited me nearly as much as its first did. 

The original beginning I wrote is still accurate: 

This is such an amazingly original series! 

I love the fact that it was created and written originally for HBO Max. It's not based on anything else--no previous book or story--and that's so rare these days. 

I found the first season extremely compelling. It's high science fiction (if that's real term--adapting the phrase from "high fantasy"), meaning it's very departed from reality and heavily fueled by the science fiction elements. The series centers around two androids, "Mother" and "Father," who were sent to an alien planet to raise children from infancy in order to establish a human colony. 

Those facts are still extremely compelling to me. I love that it's a completely original series--not adapted from anything else--and that the story, as well, is very original. 

But much of the intrigue from the first season was based on its mystery. The planet was completely new and the universe--its place in the timeline, its society--was completely new. So much of the season was awe and discovery and excitement about what was going to happen. This continued toward the end, when the Mother android made herself pregnant through sex in a virtual reality program combined with a transfusion of real blood (I forget whether human or alien). 

But this second season has normalized the environment harshly. It opens with an established town-like colony of normal people. Mother and Father have been peacefully integrated as "caretakers." The viewer has come to understand humans in this world and the alien planet is also more familiar. The intrigue, the excitement of discovery, has gone. And now it just feels... normal. Boring. 

I don't see these things as criticism, but more a bump the season is trying to overcome. There's still so much potential. So many places this series and world can go. For now that's all I think I need to say. I hope the finale has me return here with more excitement!