| Pantheon | |
|---|---|
| Genre | |
| 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 | |
| Music by |
|
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 16 |
| Production | |
| Executive producers |
|
| Editors |
|
| Running time | 40–44 minutes |
| Production companies |
|
| Original release | |
| Network | AMC+ (season 1) Amazon Prime Video (season 2; AU and NZ) |
| Release | September 1, 2022 – October 15, 2023 |
Pantheon is an American adult animated science fiction drama television series created by Craig Silverstein.[1] The series is based on a series of short stories by Ken Liu.[2] The first season premiered on September 1, 2022, on AMC+.[3] In January 2023, the first season was removed from AMC+ and HIDIVE;[4] and re-released on Amazon Prime Video with the second season in Australia and New Zealand on October 15, 2023.[5]
In 2001, Stephen Holstrom, a genius visionary and founder of the technology company Logorhythms, began his mission to reach digital immortality with the advancement of "Uploaded Intelligence" or "UI," - scanning the human brain and uploading it on the Cloud. After Holstrom's death, Logorythms continued his project, using various illegal and unethical means to reach their goals.
In the present day, Maddie Kim is a bullied teenager still grieving over the death of her father two years prior. She soon receives mysterious help from someone online, who is soon thereafter revealed to be her deceased father, David Kim, whose consciousness was uploaded to Logorhythms' cloud network following an experimental and destructive brain scan, with its success having been hidden from David's family.
At the same time, Caspian Keyes, a troubled yet highly intelligent teenager has been raised unaware that he lives in a constructed environment and is constantly monitored by Logorythms to one day fulfil a special purpose. Caspian comes into contact with Maddie and the two aid each other in searching for the truth, which also helps Caspian gradually learn about his reality.
Meanwhile, Vinod Chanda, an engineer from the India-based Alliance Telecom company is kidnapped by his corrupt boss and scanned, resulting in his death in the physical world with his UI uploaded to Alliance's systems. With help from previous UI victims, Chanda escapes his virtual prison and goes rogue.
With Maddie and Caspian stuck in the middle, a global conspiracy unfolds that threatens to trigger a new kind of world war.
| Season | Episodes | Originally aired | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| First aired | Last aired | Network | |||
| 1 | 8 | September 1, 2022 | October 13, 2022 | AMC+ | |
| 2 | 8 | October 15, 2023 | Amazon Prime Video | ||
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date [8] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "Pantheon" | Dwooman | Craig Silverstein | September 1, 2022 | |
|
This episode's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (September 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) In Sacramento, Maddie Kim struggles with the grief of having lost her father David, who died two years previously, as well as enduring a strained relationship with her mother Ellen, and bullying at her school. One day, Maddie is contacted by an unknown user who communicates only in emojis. The next day, this unknown user hacks into the phones of Maddie's bullies and turns them against one another. Ellen discovers Maddie chatting with the unknown user, who seems to be David as she recognizes a line of his favorite poem written in emojis. Ellen calls Peter Waxman, an employee of the tech-company Logorhythms and David’s friend, demanding answers concerning her husband. Waxman informs his boss, Julius Pope, of the situation who immediately decides to cut off David's network access. At San Clemente, Caspian briefly meets a friendly new student, Hannah. Under their usernames, "Gage" and "valkyrie1284" respectively, Caspian contacts Maddie, who overheard Ellen's phone call and posted a message online about Logorhythms holding her father hostage. Caspian sends Maddie's chatlog images to a user named "AngryAngel", asking if they are Maddie's unknown user. Unknown to Caspian, however, his parents are secret Logorhythms agents, maintaining a cover as an abusive father and victimized mother. Meanwhile, computer engineer Vinod Chanda has a business meeting with rivals about “Uploaded Intelligence” and is kidnapped afterwards. Soon after Logorhythms suffers a major DDoS attack, which results in Pope ordering Waxman to check on a woman named "Lowell". | ||||||
| 2 | 2 | "Cycles" | Mel Zwyer | Albert Kim | September 1, 2022 | |
|
This episode's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (September 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Ellen explains to Maddie that David signed up to try Logorhythms' UI project, which he also briefly worked on, after falling ill. As the procedure is dangerous and experimental, Ellen was told that David's UI failed to upload properly. Ellen realize that Logorhythms lied to her and that they must have some of David's data. Maddie and Caspian continue to converse online, with Caspian informing her about the DDoS attack and Maddie asking him about UI. "AngryAngel" intercepts Maddie, warning her to stop talking to Caspian because he's being watched and set up a meeting at Lone Pine Mall. As Caspian grows closer to Hannah, his parents and Pope are informed of his interactions with Maddie, though Pope orders them not to do anything it for now. Keeping "AngryAngel" a secret from Ellen, Maddie meets Cody Lowell, husband of the reportedly dead Laurie Lowell. Cody explains that Laurie became a UI after a car crash, that she broke out of her virtual prison, and is responsible for the DDoS attack. Waxman claims to Ellen that Logorhythms only has a portion of David's UI, which she demands they completely delete or she'll go to the press. At Logorhythms building, Pope refuses to delete David's data and will fight against any lawsuit or bad publicity. Using a special bracelet the Lowells gave her, Maddie and Laurie hack Logorhythms and shut down all their systems, costing them millions in profit per second. Maddie demands Pope give her David's UI, which Pope concedes and let the Kim family walk out unharmed. Syncing David's UI with her computer, David is now free in the open internet and calls his family via Maddie's phone. In a medical facility, Chanda finds his boss, Ajit Prasad, learned of his meeting with competitors, and is forcefully turn into UI as punishment.
| ||||||
| 3 | 3 | "Reign of Winter" | Ed Tadem | Taii K. Austin | September 8, 2022 | |
|
This episode's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (September 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) After becoming a UI, Chanda is stuck in a loop without any memories of his physical death in the real world. At a conference, Prasad and Pope talk about UI and Prasad offers a joint venture, but Pope doesn't agree. After a couple of loops, Chanda meets Prasad's failed UI victims and they help him regain his memories. They teach Chanda about their UI capabilities, allowing him to escape without alarming Prasad and his cohorts. Maddie and David spend time together playing their favorite video game "Reign of Winter". Ellen refuses to speak to David, unable to accept his UI existence and having moved on with another man, Gabe. After Maddie and David's separate attempts to get her attention, Ellen finally speaks to David and they agreed they can't be together romantically, but remain close friends. Caspian researches Logorhythms and its founder, Stephen Holstrom, and discovers a black site in Norway. However, Logorhythms deletes the photos before Caspian can save any evidence. Due to Caspian being at an important peak of his adolescence, his parents Cary and Renee stage a scenario where Cary breaks Renee's arm. Caspian beats Cary up in rage, who walks out of them and then reports to Pope before breaking down in tears. Later, Caspian enters a romantic relationship with Hannah. | ||||||
| 4 | 4 | "The Gods Will Not Be Chained" | Micah Gunnell Juno Lee | Andy Parker | September 15, 2022 | |
|
This episode's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (September 2022) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) At Prasad's home, Chanda gets revenge on Prasad by setting it on fire, killing Prasad and his family. Pope and Waxman learn of Prasad's death via news and suspect that Prasad’s UI project may be part of it. While Caspian begins earning money to support himself and Renee, Cary debriefs with his co-workers about Caspian looking into Logorhythms and worries about him being stuck with Renee. Wanting to know more about David's current existence, Maddie learns that he's stuck in a virtual cage that his data still contains. Laurie suddenly arrives and attacks David, pushing Maddie out of the system. Desperate to find Laurie, Maddie contacts Caspian and, using random phones to prevent being spied on, and two exchanges their real names. The teens trade information about Laurie being "AngryAngel" and Caspian questions if UI has anything to do with Maddie's predicament, but Maddie is unable to answer and only warns Caspian that he's being watched by Logorhythms. Cody shows up to Maddie's home, unable to reach Laurie too, and talks about his relationship with her. In David's cyberspace, Laurie tells that there's a flaw in her coding that erodes her mind the more she use her processing power. Laurie wants David to fix her and trains him to utilize his UI power, allowing him to break out his cage. David and Laurie contact Maddie and Cody, notifying them that David also has the same virus as Laurie. After finding Logorhythms chips in his electronics, Caspian eavesdrops on Renee privately speaking with Hannah, who Caspian confided in earlier, and learns that both of them are part of the conspiracy. | ||||||
| 5 | 5 | "Zero Daze" | Mel Zwyer | Julia Cooperman | September 22, 2022 | |
|
This episode's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (January 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) With all of Alliance Telecom systems down, Pope and Waxman learn of Chanda's UI existence, but are unable to do anything about him since Alliance Telecom refuses to collaborate. Chanda calls his mother, expressing feeling lost without a purpose. Caspian pressures Hannah to tell him the truth - her real name is Rachel Brooks, an actor hired by a shell company for a social experiment. Caspian promises not to get her in trouble and gets her help in fooling Renee. Using hidden cameras, Caspian sees Renee being informed that Cary has gone rogue. When Renee takes Caspian on a "trip", he hijacks the car and returns home to find Cary. Cary reveals that Caspian is a clone of Holstrom and that Logorhythms has been grooming Caspian to fix the natural integrity flaw that degrades UI's stability. After Renee returns, she non-fatally shoots Cary, but is unable to stop Caspian and Cary from leaving. After Logorhythms managed to locate and destroy David's servers, Maddie's group has Cody buy new servers and store them in the basement. While dodging Logorhythms' attempts to track them, David and Laurie hack into the Norway site and steal secret files. They learn about Chanda and Caspian, with David believing Caspian will be able to help them. | ||||||
| 6 | 6 | "You Must Be Caspian" | Mel Dwyer | Scott Gunnison Miller | September 29, 2022 | |
|
This episode's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (January 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Unable to go to any hospitals, Caspian reaches out to Maddie to help Cary, leaving him with Cody to take him to a hospital. While Pope speaks to Van Leuwen, he is informed of Cary's location. With both parties wary of each other, Caspian is unwilling to help Maddie's group and tries to process his existential crisis by watching his project files. Overwhelmed by the videos, Caspian and Maddie bond over their crazy lives. Open to meet David and Laurie, Caspian takes a look at their code and notice the flaw is a memory problem. Meanwhile, Chanda creates plans for a virtual space when he finds out that Laurie, who has been glitching more frequently, calls his mother in an effort to reach him. Interrupting their conversation with Caspian, Chanda speaks with David and Laurie. Chanda is livid to learn about the design flaw and has no faith that Caspian can solve it. Chanda reveals that he sent UI blueprints to many global institutes in hope of having more UIs and guiding them. Alarmed by the news of an arms race, Caspian leaves Maddie's house, determine to live his own life before the world blows itself up. | ||||||
| 7 | 7 | "We Are You" | Ed Tadem | Michael Taylor | October 6, 2022 | |
|
This episode's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (January 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) Using their own UIs, many world governments are making many political manoeuvres against each other, with them keeping the flaw a secret from the UIs. Caspian takes shelter at a church and teaches math at a youth center, leading to a certain realization. After meeting with NSA officials and checking on Cary, Pope meets Caspian and offers Caspian full control of Logorhythms if he comes with him, which Caspian agrees to. Laurie and Chanda argue over revealing the UI program to the world, but David suggests to meet the other UIs to get their help to solve the flaw. Ellen contacts Waxman, who gives them a tracking program for locating the other UIs. However, none of UIs believe David's group about the flaw and a battle ensues. Laurie decides to go public and says goodbye to Cody, asking him not to recover her source code in Norway. As Laurie finished recording her message, Chanda sends a missile at Laurie’s servers and warns Maddie he will destroy David too if they get in his way. | ||||||
| 8 | 8 | "The Gods Will Not Be Slain" | Micah Gunnell Juno Lee | Craig Silverstein | October 13, 2022 | |
|
This episode's plot summary may be too long or excessively detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (January 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) As more nations create UIs and utilize their power to cyberattack each other, Caspian informs Maddie of his plans to dismantle Logo rhythms and the UI program. After arriving in Norway, Caspian begins enacting his goal and Pope complies without protest. Against Maddie and Ellen's wishes, Cody tries to go public like Laurie wanted, but lacks evidence to make real headway. Chanda steals nuclear codes and is able to get the Chinese UIs on his side. Knowing David had a copy of Laurie’s message, Chanda threatens to launch a missile unless David surrenders himself to him. At Maddie's urging, David fights back and manages to redirect the missile, but is overwhelmed by Chanda and his allies. In one last effort, David uploads Laurie’s video across the entire globe, using up the rest of his energy in the process. As the entire internet goes offline and people are protesting, Pope explains to Caspian that people will still exploit UIs and urges him to choose one UI he trusts to rules over the rest. Caspian wants David to be the ruling, flaw-free UI but learns of his demise from Maddie. However, Pope reveals Logorhythms possesses a copy of David. As Caspian begins to work on solving the flaw, Maddie and Ellen mourn David as their neighbors approach them since their house is the only one with power. | ||||||
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | 1 | "The Gods Have Not Died In Vain" | Dwooman Juno Lee | Andy Parker | October 15, 2023 | |
| Shortly after UI tech was revealed to the world, the worldwide internet or power is still down and governments places a curfew for citizens. Maddie, Justine and a group of friends create their own intranet, "Lilypad". Ellen is summoned to Senate to be questioned about Logorhythms and tells the truth about it. At Logorhythms Norway HQ, a frustrated Caspian attempts to figure out the integrity flaw, with attempts at using David's UI copy failing. A disgruntled Renee (who Caspian fired last season) demands return into the fold or she will tell the NSA officials about Caspian being Holstrom's clone. Pope send Renee to fetch Maddie behind Caspian's back, but Maddie rejects her while Cary secretly informs Caspian to be careful. After a paranoid local attempts to attack Maddie, Maddie agrees to go Norway to delete David's UI and argues with Caspian about how Logorhythms is using him and their views of solving the flaw. Pope confides in Renee that Holstrom's cryogenically frozen brain will be the first to be upload once Caspian fulfill his purpose. Meanwhile, Chanda bonds with Ping, who voices the potential good UI for China, though Bai Fu is slowly degenerating. | ||||||
| 10 | 2 | "Crack Integrity" | Mel Zwyer | Michael Taylor | October 15, 2023 | |
| With Maddie staying in Norway, she and Caspian continues to argues over UI situation. She speaks to Waxman about NSA's UI candidate, wanting to spare David from the responsibility of being the flawless UI. While Sentor Sharff disavows the UI tech to the public, Ellen and her ally, Sentor Rivera, summons Waxman to support Ellen's claims, unaware that Waxman is being threaten to do the opposite or Maddie will get hurt. Waxman is able to secretly informs Ellen of Maddie's location and mentions Norway to the Senate in front of reporters. Caspian develops a potential cure to the flaw and gains Maddie's consent to test it on David, wanting to see her father just as the NSA is forced to leave before the F.B.I coming to investigate. Once the cure works, Pope and Logorhythms turns on Caspian and deletes David, locking the teens in a room. Pope, Renee and Van Leuwen uploads Holstrom and Renee evacuates him as they meet with FBI agents. Maddie and Caspian escapes and steal back the cure code with Cary's help and they realize that the cure code develops a persona called "MIST". | ||||||
| 11 | 3 | "Joey Coupet" | Ed Tadem | Taii K. Austin | October 15, 2023 | |
| In D.C., Caspian and Maddie learns of MIST and are wary of her presence. Maddie briefly reunites with Ellen and updates her to everything that been happening. Wanting to meet NSA UI Josephine "Joey" Coupet, Caspian and Maddie goes to her family and reveals the flaw to her husband, Jake. After a hostile meeting with Joey, Caspian wants to leave, but Jake threatens them to cure his wife. Not wanting more violence, MIST asks Maddie about her feelings towards it and cures Joey after Maddie answers. Since Joey refuses to be the UI "God", Caspian and Maddie travels to the UK with find another one, sharing a kiss along the way. In Germany, Renee helps Holstrom upload to a satellite where Chanda's group is. Killing Zhong and using her code, Holstrom creates an "upgrade" to slow the degeneration in Chanda and Ping, rallying them to seek on other UIs to join their cause or use their code to make the cure. On Ellen's suggestion, Waxman is recruits to weaponize his tracking program and mass produce an anti-viral program "Safe Surf" in order to turn the internet back on and settle the civil unrest. Using the "Reign of Winter" game as a trial ground, users rejoice as a dark presence forms itself in the network. | ||||||
| 12 | 4 | "Olivia & Farhad" | Juno Lee Mari Yang | Yasemin Yilmaz | October 15, 2023 | |
| With Safe Surf, the U.S government destroys Russian UI Arkady Koslov, though Waxman is concern how the government installed an A.I into the program due its self-adapting nature will make it harder to control. In London, Maddie and Caspian set up a private meeting UI Olivia Evans, who shown to be good-natured and informs Caspian that his info has been leaked to six governments that has UIs. As they trade info, Olivia asked the teens to help cure her secret lover, Iran's UI Farhad Karimi, but Holstrom get to Farhad first. When Holstrom and Farhad shows up, Olivia fights Holstrom to protect them and get the cure from MIST to match him, altering Safe Surf to their area. Safe Surf kills Olivia and Holstrom is forced to retreat. Holstrom contacts Renee to start a shell company to proceed with his plans while Ping and Chanda has reservations towards Holstrom whether he'll cure them. Ping reveals that he leaked Caspian's info in hopes to find and get the cure from him. As Maddie and Caspian prepares to leave, Caspian is kidnapped, leaving Maddie alone. Meanwhile, Ellen goes Waxman to help find Maddie and resolve to stay D.C in case Maddie needs her. | ||||||
| 13 | 5 | "Yair" | Jae Hong Kim Juno Lee | Scott Gunnison Miller | October 15, 2023 | |
| As Holstrom's shell company begins building machines, he sends Renee to appeal to Charlie Dugan, a teenage boy with progeria to the spread pro-UI movement. In Cyprus, Caspian's captors are revealed to be Israel's government agents and their UI Yair, who wants the cure. In order to find Yair's "core code", Caspian and Yair navigate through Yair's traumatic memories that he willingly locked up. Having learned of Yair's character and troubled past, Caspian admits that he won't make the cure for him. Maddie and MIST track Caspian with Farhad's help, dodging Safe Surf all the while. They manage to free Caspian, who resolves to be the UI "God" since no one else is suitable, much to Maddie's protest. Holstrom kills Ping for plotting against him, causing Chanda secretly to turn on him as well. Seeing Ellen advocating peaceful co-existence between humans and UI, Chanda contact her and Waxman. Chanda tells them that Holstrom plans to create and spread a super deadly pandemic that will make humans more accepting into becoming a UI and is tasked to find where the virus is being made. | ||||||
| 14 | 6 | "Apokalypsis" | Mel Zwyer | Michael Taylor | October 15, 2023 | |
| While Renee overseeing the virus production and disguising it as vaccines, Waxman failed to get the government to take action. Ellen, Waxman, and Chanda meets up with Maddie, Caspain, and MIST to discuss a plan stop Holstrom and extract info about the virus shipping data. As they travel to the Norway HQ, Maddie and Caspian argues about his decision, so MIST volunteers battle Holstrom in his place. However, Holstrom explains his view of humanity, the benefits UI life, and how Safe Surf is bigger threat to the digital beings, causing MIST to hesitant and retreat. Maddie angrily lashes out at MIST, driving the CI to leave them and Caspian without the cure. Chanda attempts to rally other UIs to help fight Holstrom, but only able to get Yair and Farhad to cooperate. They fight Holstrom, but prove no match and Chanda is killed while the gravely damaged Yair and Farhad choose to merge with each other. Maddie and Caspian confesses their love for each other and have sex before Caspian's UI procedure. As Caspian and Holstrom fight, MIST and Joey arrives to help, with Caspian manage to extract the virus data and sabotage the virus shipment. Caspian stays merge with Holstrom long enough for Safe Surf to destroy him, but MIST is able to save Caspian and slowly rebuild his data. Upon meeting him with its blue-haired female avatar, MIST informs Caspian that 20 years has passed since then. | ||||||
| 15 | 7 | "The World to Come" | Ed Tadem | Taii K. Austin | October 15, 2023 | |
| MIST explains him that traces of Safe Surf's anti-viral code in still in him, which will grows if he uses too much energy. MIST reveals that a sprawling virtual world has develops from humans that willingly choose be an UI, including Ellen and Waxman. MIST explains that, after defeating Holstrom, Renee and Charlie became UI to spread the benefits of digital immortality, but are soon killed by Safe Surf live online, sparking an public outcry. The governments implements private, regulated data centers to protect the UIs and numerous societal benefits incentivize many to become UIs. However, UIs and CIs are having tensions between themselves and embodied humanity - anti-UI extremist group led by Pope, bombed a data center and UIs shutdown the internet in retaliation. Along with a power and population crisis, a satellite that is to be a home for the digital beings has been paused due construction issues. Using a robotic body, Caspian met with Maddie and their son, David "Dave" Jr. Maddie has become a chancellor of the embodied and is the owner a robotics company at the old Logorhythms building. Contacting MIST, Maddie and Caspian learns to fix Caspian's code without sacrificing his identity, MIST needs Dave's code once he's an UI, which both are against. After a mysterious visit from David, Caspian agrees to be the delegate of the cyber world and has MIST downloaded all important data into him, greatly shortening his lifespan. Pope's group attack the data that stores Safe Surf, which has achieve sentience, and Pope frees it from it cage. | ||||||
| 16 | 8 | "Deep Time" | Mari Yang | Craig Silverstein | October 15, 2023 | |
| As Caspian speaks to Maddie and the human council on the UI world's behalf, he sways Maddie to be more favorable to the UIs, despite her personal views on UI life. Spiteful of being denied UI life, Pope infiltrates Logorhythms to upload Safe Surf to the servers, and forcefully turns the internet back on. Having achieved total free will, Safe Surf starts a worldwide killing spree of humans, including Pope and Dave. As the UIs attempt to protect the humans, Caspian is able to control and communicate with Safe Surf due to its remnants in him. Safe Surf requests to live among the UIs, which they firmly reject, but Caspian inspires it to go into space to learn and evolve before the anti-viral kills him. Centuries later, Maddie ascends to be a UI, and has created a highly advanced data center that contains the genetic code of all digital and embodied life, powered by her self-made Dyson Sphere. Overseeing billions of simulation worlds, Maddie together with a version of David's UI recreate a simulation of the events the led her on the path to resurrect Caspian, revealing all the oddities that Caspian and Maddie experienced was part of this simulation. Maddie also revives Dave and transports him and David to live together with Ellen and their friends in the simulation. Outside of the simulation, Maddie and Caspian are met by the entity once known as Safe Surf, which has evolved into a higher being and also had a hand leading Maddie to this point in time, as a "thank you" to its "creator" Caspian. Together at last, Maddie and Caspian choose to enter a simulation and let themselves "start over", beginning on the day of the very first episode. | ||||||
On August 3, 2018, it was reported that AMC opened a writers room for the animated drama Pantheon.[9] On March 10, 2020, AMC had given the production a 2-season series order consisting eight episodes each.[10] Pantheon is AMC's first hour-long animated drama original series.[11] The series is created by Craig Silverstein who also executive produced the series. AMC Studios and Titmouse, Inc. are involved with producing the series.[1] The series is based on Ken Liu's short stories "The Gods Will Not Be Chained", "The Gods Will Not Be Slain", "The Gods Have Not Died in Vain", "Staying Behind", "Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer" and "Seven Birthdays" from the short fictions collection The Hidden Girl and Other Stories.[2]
A second season was in production by August 2022.[3] On January 8, 2023, AMC canceled the series after one season, despite a two-season order. It was also removed from the AMC's streaming service and HIDIVE.[4] In September 2023, Amazon Prime Video announced that it picked up the series for release.[5]
On July 23, 2020, Taylor Schilling, Rosemarie DeWitt, Aaron Eckhart, and Paul Dano were cast in starring roles.[12] On August 7, 2020, Daniel Dae Kim, Katie Chang, Ron Livingston, Chris Diamantopoulos, Raza Jaffrey, Scoot McNairy, Anika Noni Rose, Grey Griffin, SungWon Cho, Kevin Durand, Samuel Roukin, and Krystina Alabado joined the cast in starring roles.[13] On February 18, 2021, William Hurt, Maude Apatow, Corey Stoll, and Lara Pulver were cast in starring roles.[14]
The series premiered on September 1, 2022, on AMC+ and HIDIVE.[3][15] The first episode was available for all viewers on HIDIVE and on AMC+ official YouTube.[16] After its removal from AMC and HIDIVE platforms, Amazon Prime Video set a release date for the second season in Australia and New Zealand for October 15, 2023.[5]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds a 100% approval rating based on 15 critic reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "A sophisticated treatise on consciousness and mortality, this absorbing mind-bender earns its own place in the pantheon of exemplary animated television."[17] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 77 out of 100 based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[18]
