Streaming on Foxtel Binge - Rod Bishop recommends the 'fast-moving, quite bonkers' RAISED BY WOLVES, Season 2 (Aaron Guzikowski, USA, 2022)

“Bonkers” is the most apt description for this Ridley Scott led TV series, now back for a second season. Like the first, his production company Scott Free has ensured everyone has plenty to spend on creating this sci-fi world. 

Season One  (click here for earlier thoughts) listed close to 400 eager beavers working on special effects and we were introduced to the mysterious Mithraic religion and its battle against The Atheists for control of the Earth during the 22^ndCentury.

 Actually, this bit isn’t as bonkers as it sounds. Mithraism was a real religion, popular among Roman centurions and slaves between the 1^stand 4^thCenturies CE. 

Known as Mithraeum, remains of their temples have been found across the Roman Empire in Italy (9), Germany (17), France (6), the UK (4), Israel (2), Spain (3), Syria (2), Hungary (3), Romania (2), Bosnia (2), Belgium (1) and Switzerland (1).

An offshoot of the ancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism, Mithraism lost popularity to the rise of Christianity. 

Martin Luther King Jr in his “A Study of Mithraism” (1949) points out the similarities between the two religions at the time of the Roman Empire – rebirth, sacramental rites, ethical behaviour, immortality and mediators between God and man.

Some believe had Christianity not risen in the Western world when it did, the popularity of Mithraism might well have made it the dominant religion of the Western world. 

In Raised by Wolves, there’s no suggestion Christianity ever existed. Rather Mithraism survived, thrived and dominated world religion into the 22^ndCentury.

The Atheists have been at war with the Mithraics for god knows how long and the Earth is ravaged. The Atheists send a couple of robot parents and some human children to the Keplar 22b planet to start a new world free of religion. Not to be outdone, the Mithraics send their own space craft to 22b, packed with believer settlers and unsurprisingly, the war between the two continues.

By the time Season Two starts, the robot parent known as “Mother” has mated with a computer simulation and given birth - not to a human child as planned - but to a gigantic serpent the size of a Western Australian iron ore train. As the plot beds down, it concentrates on what it’s like to be robot parents to a brood of unruly children in an extraterrestrial landscape populated by boab trees (that seem to have mated with the Michelin Man); oceans so acidic you die and melt in minutes; and a rampaging Mithraic terrorist trying to assemble a congregation of believers.

Mother sets out to destroy the serpent, but having given birth to it, she can’t overcome her ‘care-giving’ programming and her emotions. Father, meanwhile has assembled some old relics and brought an ancient robot back to life. She too, quickly becomes all broody over the kids, exhibiting more artificial intelligence emotions.

So, despite his sole credit as an executive producer on Season Two - Ridley Scott has, after all, been off making The Last Duel and The House of Gucci – his decades long fascination with artificial intelligence and its intersection with homo sapiens is all over Raised by Wolves.

If a fast-moving, quite bonkers sci-fi series made on a decent budget is your thing, then give it a go. But remember, despite the new family emotions Mother robot is feeling, when she pops her eyes out, she transforms into a necromancer. And like Series One, she becomes terrifying and vengeful and still a whole lot of trouble.  

 

Streaming on Foxtel Showcase - Rod Bishop reviews a new series produced by Ridley Scott RAISED BY WOLVES (HBO/MAX, USA, 2020)

 

Here’s an idea:

Resurrect the dead Mithras cult from the 1^st to 4^thCentury CE, a ‘boutique’ religion once pinched by the Romans from the Persians and popular among the Roman Centurions in Northern Europe.

Instead of perishing, let’s have them survive, thrive and by the 22^ndCentury, win a religious war against The Atheists. With the Earth war-ravaged, the Atheists are well in retreat but still manage to send some incubating children and a couple of very nifty androids to the distant planet of Keplar 22b where they plan to create a new world free of religion.

But those Mithraics haven’t survived the Millennia for nothing. They send a gigantic spacecraft named The Ark ofHeaven packed with Mithraic believers, their children and some double-agent Atheists pretending to be believers to Keplar 22b as well. Their mission: to create a New Eden and destroy The Atheists’ plans for an atheistic world. 

One of the androids, however is a Necromancer, and boy, can she cause problems.

Executive producer Ridley Scott directs the first couple of episodes and his son, Luke, gets to direct three as well.

Amana Collin, Raised by Wolves

Unsurprisingly, Scott’s preoccupation with artificial intelligence and its relationship to the human species (along the lines of “What makes you human?” and “Androids don’t feel empathy”) is in abundance as is the hoary old science versus religion debate. When one of the Atheists pretending to be a Mithraic is asked to help an ailing android, she briskly replies: “I’m a doctor, not a mechanic”.

There’s probably the artiest sex scene ever between an android and a computer simulation, if that’s your thing, along with silicon tumours and even a half-carbon fetus in need of plasma.

A lot of work (and money) has gone into the production design and art decoration and a very brief credit in the titles suggests inspiration from Zeitz Mocaa, the new Museum of Contemporary African Art in Cape Town, South Africa.

Cricket tragics will also recognize the striking Table Mountain above Cape Town with its orographic white cloud formations pouring over the cliffs from its flat top.

IMDB.com lists nearly 400 contributors to “Series Special Effects”.

A second season is in production.