Tune In Or Tune Out: Surreal Animation And Grounded Philosophical Questions In ‘Pantheon’ Make The Digital Feel Real
AMC’s adult animated science fiction series Pantheon sheds corporeal restrictions. The series centers on the idea of Uploaded Intelligence (UI) — digital copies of human brains uploaded to the Internet. Pantheon visualizes this abstract concept and pulls the viewer into a fantastical digital realm through animation. Animated by the production house Titmouse, the series’ aesthetic is reminiscent of Invincible’s graphic novel look — a similarly gritty animated sci-fi/superhero series — but more surreal. Familiar questions around grief and safety in technology ground the show’s trippy image of what humans could do if they were living code. Created by Craig Silverstein (TURN: Washington’s Soldiers) and adapted from Ken Liu’s short stories, Pantheon follows Maddie Kim (Katie Chang), a teenage computer whiz mourning the death of her programmer father David (Daniel Dae Kim). However, it is soon revealed that her father was “uploaded" by his company, Logarhythms; through the uploading process, his brain was lasered away, copying every neuron and storing it on the Internet as a digital copy of an entire human. Maddie gets pulled into the conspiracy when her father begins communicating with her through her computer. Teenage coding prodigy Caspian (Paul Dano) is also sucked into the world of Logarhythms and UI as he begins suspecting his life is part of a larger conspiracy. After transferring from AMC+ to Amazon Prime for its second season, Pantheon concluded its 16-episode run in October. Blending stunning animation, heartfelt storytelling, suspense, and questions contemplating technology and what it means to be human, it is a shame that Pantheon lacked the time to delve deeper into its unique world.
Meet Maddie
The series opens with Maddie’s mundane teenage life of class and school bullies, but soon escalates when she receives enigmatic, emoji messages on the laptop her father built her. When the messages allude to specific memories and Maddie’s bullies’ phones all get hacked, Maddie knows her dad isn’t truly gone. Like her dad, Maddie is a computer whiz, and her longing for his return drives her journey. By grounding Maddie’s motivations in genuine emotion, her season one path from teenage problems to a war against technology feels fluid. Season two maintains a steady pace before an action-packed final two episodes. In only 16 episodes, the series escalates logically, step-by-step, setting up just enough questions, organically building tension, and transporting the viewer from a recognizable world to one that, fantastic as it may be, they can easily imagine.
One of the greatest buildups surrounds Caspian. He seems like a normal teenager, if unusually brilliant, but doubt is gradually thrown on that normalcy; his mom makes strange calls, his dad comments conspiratorially to his mom, and his connection to Logarhtyms is finally revealed in an unexpected yet inevitable twist. His compelling struggle to fight the destiny Logarhythms wrote for him and use his immense power as a programming genius for good bolsters this plot.
The depth of character detail not only provides rich plot material, but also builds attachment to the characters and the world. Even supporting characters have fleshed out backgrounds and compelling motivations. Caspian’s dad Cary (Aaron Eckhart) is a cult-level believer in the mission of Logarhythms, but he struggles to reconcile his commitment to the conspiracy with his genuine love for Caspian. Cody (Scoot McNairy), the living husband of an uploaded woman, is driven to extremes by his love for his wife, willing to help or betray Maddie in turns, or even expose the secret existence of UIs. In the second season, when upload technology spreads and more UIs pop up, the audience glimpses each of the uploaded individuals’ lives, what they have given up and gained, and how they find connection and humanity in the digital realm. One of the most entertaining characters is the main antagonist, CEO of Logarhythms Stephen Holstrom (William Hurt). Singularly terrifying even if he is a visual rip-off of Steve Jobs, his callous mind takes Silicon Valley’s “move fast and break things” to the scale of human lives and biological reality. Pantheon grounds sci-fi and suspense in unique and genuine characters, delivering not only entertainment but substance.
Was it Tune In or Tune Out?
With major themes of both loss and technology, Pantheon blends science with heart. Not only does Maddie’s love for her father push her to enter the fray of UI technology, but David’s love for his daughter, despite existing as code, gives him the power to reach out to her in the first place. While mostly explained scientifically, some of the UIs’ functions come down to human notions of what makes something — whether flesh or digital — human. Even the resolution to one of the central conflicts (SPOILERS), the cure to the flaw that eventually degrades every UI, is explained only perfunctorily by studies on how social connections prevent brain decay. Ultimately, the show makes it clear that love is the answer to making the perfect UI.
Science and math aren’t the focus of the show. Despite brief mentions of coding problems and their solutions, the viewer isn’t meant to fully understand or learn about coding from Pantheon as they might in other sci-fi series. Instead, Pantheon unbinds its creativity, animating fantastical representations of the digital realm that depict what people might look like and do if they were code. Before realizing his full capabilities, David is a paper-thin version of himself. Decayed, buggy uploads appear as sagging, pupil-less, gray monsters. An anti-malware system is depicted as a swarm of black dots that consumes any UI it finds. Video game-style animation is a common visual. Maddie finds one group of UIs who portray their digital selves as fantasy video game characters. The show’s coding battles also occur in the video game world, playing out through swords and spells. When Holstrom joins the fight, he breaks himself up into different body parts, enlarging them to incredible sizes and shattering his opponents into shards of light. When Pantheon finally reveals its version of digital utopia, there are upside-down cities, floating heads, dog people, and structures of colorful geometrics that defy physics. This is not The Matrix; Pantheon is its own unique translation of binary into tension-filled action.
More time to fully explore Pantheon’s philosophical and hypothetical questions would make the show even greater. Maddie wavers between believing uploads are truly human and believing physicality, death, and grief are essential to the human experience. Holstrom’s dream of uploading all of humanity has its benefits — less pressure on natural resources, seeing loved ones, freedom from disease and death — so seeing the characters stew in the emotions that lead them to favor uploading would be more convincing; the show would be more moving if it gave doubts wider space and left questions open. Also, important questions about how an uploaded society would function are left unaddressed until the last few episodes. The vast majority of the series ignores the downsides of immortality often discussed in fiction; it also sidesteps key sci-fi questions of who gets left behind or exploited in the wake of technological progress. Viewers are left to wonder if there is any way to die after being digitized, or who will have to provide the physical labor required to maintain the servers powering digital utopia. And, if uploads come from organic brains, how will new people and new UIs be made if everyone goes digital?
By the finale, most of these questions are at least cursorily answered and our protagonists’ stories tie up nicely. However, the last couple episodes move fast, covering a great deal of technological progress and changes in characters’ lives. This further adds to the desire to spend an adequate amount of time with the characters and the questions.
Who will like it?
Pantheon contemplates what would happen if humans could shake off the shackles of the physical world and become all-powerful digital beings, complete with all the emotions and memories of their human brain. Leveraging animation, the show represents this through fantastical action sequences, terrifying creatures of code, and people turning into every imaginable shape and color. The series grounds this science-spurned, fanciful realm with familiar philosophical conundrums: what is the role of loss, death, and mourning in our lives? How do we balance technological progress with safety and democracy? What makes us human and how does that definition fail in the face of developing UI (or AI for us)? The science of the show isn’t fully explained, rather used as a vehicle for examining loss, fear, and love. For some, the lack of scientific rigor or the quick 16-episode run may feel unsatisfying. However, if you are looking for suspense, action, a unique world, stunning visuals, sci-fi with heart, and clever, substantive writing, then stream both seasons of Pantheon on Prime.
