Pantheon: Season 1 (all episodes)
April 11, 2024 7:01 AM - Season 1 (Full Season) - Subscribe
Bullied teen Maddie begins receiving messages from a mysterious stranger that claims to be her recently deceased father, David; his consciousness has been uploaded to the cloud after an experimental brain scan, and it turns out he's not the only one.
Though it might be difficult to find a place to watch in some countries, this is a series that by all rights should have been a popular modern classic. (On the blue)
Gizmodo: Somehow Pantheon is AMC Networks’ first traditionally animated series, a style that contrasts with its near-future tale of technological horrors—and how love just might be able to transcend them. Based on short stories by multiple Hugo-winning author and translator Ken Liu (“The Paper Menagerie,” The Dandelion Dynasty), the eight-episode series boasts a tremendous voice cast and a morally complex mystery at its core.
Common Sense Media: The Big Brother type of conspiracy behind this technological thriller feels familiar, but there are just enough twists to keep it from being stale. Pantheon is part Homecoming, part The Matrix yet still manages to maintain a fresh tone. The main characters are likable, the writing smart, the action fast-paced, and there's even some heart to the story. Plus, the animated format means there are no limits on what can be done. Here's the rare thriller that family members of a variety of ages can enjoy together. Even if adult cartoons aren't usually your thing, with an impressive cast that includes William Hurt, Daniel Dae Kim, Ron Livingston and Maude Apatow, this one is worth a look.
Hollywood Reporter: Like so many of the most compelling sci-fi concepts, it’s a scenario that feels simultaneously farfetched and depressingly familiar. (Is there anything easier to imagine than, say, Facebook doing exactly this to its top employees if it could?) And it’s one that hits especially hard in Pantheon precisely because the animated series takes such care to ground its big ideas in recognizable emotions and current realities. It’s a portrait of a rapidly changing world that takes care to document the emotional carnage left in its wake, to gripping, troubling and ultimately quite moving effect.
Variety: The combination of angular, occasionally surreal animation from production house Titmouse and profoundly human performances from Chang, Kim and DeWitt make the Kim family feel as real — or at least as personal — as the show’s otherwise lofty concept requires. Other storylines opt for a blunter, more cerebral style, especially when circling the mysterious microchip conglomerate behind David’s regeneration founded by a long-gone Steve Jobs figure (embodied by William Hurt, whose steady voice guides one of his final performances). As embittered co-workers playing house, Taylor Schilling and Aaron Eckhart throw poison darts at each other as Paul Dano, playing their introverted son, leans into a teenage monotone. Raza Jaffrey, as brilliant programmer Chanda, has one of the harder jobs, as his character gets caught in a vicious loop beyond his wildest nightmares. Other notable names in the “Pantheon” credits include Scoot McNairy, Ron Livingston, Maude Apatow and Anika Noni Rose, all lending their voices to scripts that, though strong, need that extra jolt of emotion to keep the show’s ever-expanding mythos rooted in a recognizable reality.
Though it might be difficult to find a place to watch in some countries, this is a series that by all rights should have been a popular modern classic. (On the blue)
Gizmodo: Somehow Pantheon is AMC Networks’ first traditionally animated series, a style that contrasts with its near-future tale of technological horrors—and how love just might be able to transcend them. Based on short stories by multiple Hugo-winning author and translator Ken Liu (“The Paper Menagerie,” The Dandelion Dynasty), the eight-episode series boasts a tremendous voice cast and a morally complex mystery at its core.
Common Sense Media: The Big Brother type of conspiracy behind this technological thriller feels familiar, but there are just enough twists to keep it from being stale. Pantheon is part Homecoming, part The Matrix yet still manages to maintain a fresh tone. The main characters are likable, the writing smart, the action fast-paced, and there's even some heart to the story. Plus, the animated format means there are no limits on what can be done. Here's the rare thriller that family members of a variety of ages can enjoy together. Even if adult cartoons aren't usually your thing, with an impressive cast that includes William Hurt, Daniel Dae Kim, Ron Livingston and Maude Apatow, this one is worth a look.
Hollywood Reporter: Like so many of the most compelling sci-fi concepts, it’s a scenario that feels simultaneously farfetched and depressingly familiar. (Is there anything easier to imagine than, say, Facebook doing exactly this to its top employees if it could?) And it’s one that hits especially hard in Pantheon precisely because the animated series takes such care to ground its big ideas in recognizable emotions and current realities. It’s a portrait of a rapidly changing world that takes care to document the emotional carnage left in its wake, to gripping, troubling and ultimately quite moving effect.
Variety: The combination of angular, occasionally surreal animation from production house Titmouse and profoundly human performances from Chang, Kim and DeWitt make the Kim family feel as real — or at least as personal — as the show’s otherwise lofty concept requires. Other storylines opt for a blunter, more cerebral style, especially when circling the mysterious microchip conglomerate behind David’s regeneration founded by a long-gone Steve Jobs figure (embodied by William Hurt, whose steady voice guides one of his final performances). As embittered co-workers playing house, Taylor Schilling and Aaron Eckhart throw poison darts at each other as Paul Dano, playing their introverted son, leans into a teenage monotone. Raza Jaffrey, as brilliant programmer Chanda, has one of the harder jobs, as his character gets caught in a vicious loop beyond his wildest nightmares. Other notable names in the “Pantheon” credits include Scoot McNairy, Ron Livingston, Maude Apatow and Anika Noni Rose, all lending their voices to scripts that, though strong, need that extra jolt of emotion to keep the show’s ever-expanding mythos rooted in a recognizable reality.
Finally watched this show due to the metafilter post, and it's pretty great. Like others though, I think there's a significant drop in quality from season 1 to 2. Season 1 is easily 9/10 for me, whereas Season 2 is more 7/10. Season 1 was just a really tight concoction of mystery, heady philosophical themes, and excellent character work. Season 2 is interesting, but also goes in a lot of thematic directions that I'm not sure really play to the show's strengths.
I also have a bit of a gripe with a central conceit of Season 2, which is that uploaded minds are just way more resource efficient then biological brains. Of the many things that our brains are really good at, FLOPS/watt is one of them, and we're at least a couple decades out from even approaching the general, energetic efficiency of the brain. This maybe doesn't matter so much on the individual level, but when you're talking about the computational costs of 1 billion humans versus 1 billion uploaded minds, barring some major hardware innovations, the uploaded minds are likely to require a lot more energy to run. It may be a trivial point, but IMHO it's actually a very important one, which I think both constrains and adds a lot of texture to brain vs computer comparisons.
posted by Alex404 at 1:28 PM on September 23 [1 favorite]
I also have a bit of a gripe with a central conceit of Season 2, which is that uploaded minds are just way more resource efficient then biological brains. Of the many things that our brains are really good at, FLOPS/watt is one of them, and we're at least a couple decades out from even approaching the general, energetic efficiency of the brain. This maybe doesn't matter so much on the individual level, but when you're talking about the computational costs of 1 billion humans versus 1 billion uploaded minds, barring some major hardware innovations, the uploaded minds are likely to require a lot more energy to run. It may be a trivial point, but IMHO it's actually a very important one, which I think both constrains and adds a lot of texture to brain vs computer comparisons.
posted by Alex404 at 1:28 PM on September 23 [1 favorite]
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I really liked Pantheon and was genuinely horrified by the parenting choices made for Caspian and delighted (as a community-minded middle-age man) about the payoff at the end of the season for what's needed to make these Uploaded Intelligences stable.
posted by k3ninho at 1:48 AM on April 12