It’s hard to make something feel truly alien. Film, television, books, and video games have all explored so many extraterrestrial possibilities that even the strangest depictions have shifted into normalcy over the years. Surprising people is a challenge in itself. To have audiences who are saturated in media options all the time be struck with an equal mixture of awe and confusion as an adventure unfolds requires real skill.
Scavengers Reign, an original adult animated series available on Max, achieves this feat in spades, and offers one of the most visually striking and thematically relevant science fiction stories I have seen in years. I won’t spoil anything beyond the first couple episodes here, as I mainly want to explore how it draws us into the alien landscape of Vesta. Over a number of months, survivors of spaceship Demeter 227 have come to understand many of the planet’s unique characteristics, but everything around them is still fraught with unknowns.
Creators Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettner don’t explain much of anything as the series begins. Five survivors are spread across the planet. Two are trying to use a makeshift device to call their ship down from orbit with a bunch of their cryogenically frozen crew in tow, while another is living off the land with a robotic companion as they fend off nearby wildlife. A third is trapped in the escape pod he arrived on this planet within, caught in the midst of trees with depleting rations and no human contact, pushing him to the brink of insanity.
We spend a significant amount of time watching these people do little more than survive. The way fauna can be constructed into breathable pockets of air and certain animals can quickly be tamed or scared away in times of crisis save our ensemble from an early death on many occasions, making it abundantly obvious that all of them are in a permanent state of danger.
Familiar pockets of grass and terrain are earth-like in some ways, but everywhere you look this familiarity is subverted with bold alien designs, gorgeous environments, and a pervading sense of dread waiting beneath a thin layer of beauty. Birds made out of paper sink into tall trees made of marble, within which await entire ecosystems where animals and plantlife can thrive away from obvious threats. It’s like turning over a rock as a child and catching a glimpse of a dozen bugs scurrying away for safety. Entire ecosystems exist under our noses, and we never have the right perspective to acknowledge them.
Scavengers Reign is that on such a larger scale, making us feel uncomfortable with the uniformity of nature on a planet human life was never meant to call home. The first two episodes never need to pull you into a false sense of security, since we’ve been on guard for the very beginning, fearing the next moment could be our last.
It’s also tinged with psychological horror, and everything we witness is brought into question as we watch characters perish, only to see them emerge unscathed a moment later, while it’s possible for some creatures on the planet to hypnotise humans before taking on the form of a past person or memory, luring them into their nests to consume or enslave.
Elsewhere in the series, a plague sits beneath the surface that is capable of turning whoever encounters it into a mushroom-addled zombie of sorts, becoming one with the environment with no means of escape. What exactly causes this, and other such secrets the planet hides aren’t explained, and for the most part we are discovering new things alongside the characters. Afraid, yet also eternally curious.
Scavengers Reign is a triumph of original ideas told through animation with a visual direction so distinct that I struggle to conjure up a worthwhile comparison. How its characters and the wider themes it explores will develop remains unpredictable throughout, as we discover more of what makes this alien planet tick, and the sacrifices required to bring everyone home. The entire series has been available for a hot minute now, so those after a science fiction banger shouldn’t sleep on this one.
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