This science-fiction series on Apple-TV is something that I find refreshing and a new take for shows that are post-apocalyptic. The overall theme of what would humanity be like after a world-ending or world-changing event is something that I think has been done probably too many times so the fact that they were able to come up with something really original has left me mostly impressed.
Spoilers Ahead!!!
one of the first things that drew me to this show was that it has the same creator as Breaking Bad which is a show I consider to be top-5 of all time. Also, the lead actress Rhea Seehorn did an absolutely outstanding job in Better Call Saul so I felt as though she wouldn't disappoint, and she doesn't.
There is potential for mild spoilers in this write-up so if you want to go in fresh, just know that I heartily recommend this show to anyone, not just sci-fi fans. It is one of the better series that I have seen in recent years and if they carry on making it like they have been so far, that "recent years" will change to "all time."
this series can be legally streamed on AppleTV+
Once again, Spoilers Ahead!!
Things start out a big vague in episode one as we are shown a bunch of different sets of people that are all working in different fields such as research and stargazing in a SETI (search for intelligent life) sense. They are all going nuts because they have discovered a signal that is coming from 600 light years away that appears to be intelligent. Unfortunately for these people doing the discovery, the signal isn't as innocent as they had hoped.
In a research lab that is replicating the signal in the form of an injection RNA sequence to rats, one of the scientists ends up getting infected and starts to convulse. A bit later she comes back to consciousness and then kisses the person who was with her when she started to convulse and then he goes through the same process of first convulsing, then coming back in a sort of robotic sense. No words are spoken, nobody is injured, but these zombie-like people are just spreading their infestation to everyone by saliva.
It's strange, weird, and kind of confusing, but it all starts to make sense later when we are introduced to exactly what this infestation is. It isn't an alien invasion per se, but it also kind of is. The zombie-like people only remain that way for a short while, but during their conversion they can sometimes fall and hurt themselves or others and in the case of people operating vehicles such as airplanes, the results can be quite disastrous. We only see snippets of this.
Basically the entirety of the world is taken over in a very short amount of time by this infestation and the new inhabitants of the bodies are not really the individual that they were before, but it doesn't really matter because out of the entire planet only 13 people were not infected. Our main character, Carol Sturka (played by Seehorn) is one of them.
At first we are not made aware if the infested are dangerous or not but we soon realize that they are reaching out to Carol and trying to help her, as they say they will "move heaven and earth to make her happy." All of the infested share a hive-mind and everyone knows everything that the other know including their most intimate thoughts and secrets. The infested claim to be happy and are working around the clock to figure out why it is that Carol isn't one of them and they want to change that.
Carol, being one of the only people on the earth that is not one of them, has a different perspective on this though and doesn't see their "glee" as a good thing and doesnt' want to be converted even though every single infested that she encounters doesn't appear to be a prisoner against their will at all.
Not only do they not appear to be unhappy or enslaved, they are completely incapable of processing anger so when Carol has a freak-out session (which she does frequently) they go into "blue screen" mode and when this happens to one of them, it happens to all of them. This might seem like a great way for Carol to get what she wants but the thing is, and you will discover this very early on, the infested only want to do whatever it takes to make Carol happy - or any of the other 12 people on the planet who were immune to the takeover.
Carol can have literally anything that she wants that they can possibly bring to her, even if the things they bring her are to her own detriment which you will see in episode 3, can be very dangerous.
Should I watch it?
As I mentioned near the start of this write-up, this is one of the most imaginative series I have seen in many years and I am thoroughly enjoying it. one of the only things I don't like is how Carol regularly freaks out even though it is determined very early on that this is an extremely dangerous thing for her to do. This isn't Rhea Seehorn's fault, she is just doing the lines and script that was handed to her... I just think they return her to an enraged state much more frequently than they should seeing as how Carol doesn't really have to remember very many things and I think that this one thing would be something that she would definitely remember.
You'll see what I am talking about when you watch it as it is a bit frustrating to see this happen over and over again.
Even with that going on though, there is so much about this show that is extremely entertaining and original and that is something that we just don't see very often in movies or series these days.
The only thing I am disappointed about now is that I was unaware that this series is being released one-episode-a-week and if I had known that I would have waited until more of them are out before I started on it. The remaining episodes of season 1 will be released once per week until the end of 2025. At the moment, only 3 episodes are available and only on Apple TV+