AMC Plus’ Pantheon is a haunting hyperproductivity nightmare that shouldn’t feel so real

In a more stress-free world, the premise of AMC's new animated series Pantheon from Craig Silverstein would feel more implausible and far-fetched. At a time when people use phrases like " quiet quitting" with a straight face, a show about corporations racing to see who can perfect technology to turn workers into hyper productive machines feels far less fictional than it should be.

Pantheon tells a series of interwoven narratives set in a near-future world, but its story mostly revolves around a teenager named Maddie and her mother Ellen as they struggle to cope with a tragedy. Even though she understood how serious David's illness was, the shock of his death still makes it hard for her to be present or sympathetic to her mother's pain. Ellen knows that moving on is something she has to do for her own healing, even though her feelings about David's death are complicated and difficult to put into words.

Since David's death is so recent, Ellen and Maddie don't feel like they can talk to each other about their feelings or where they're at. But all of that changes on a single afternoon when a message written in emoji pops up in her command line interface.

Image: Titmouse

While Ellen and David taught their daughter to be tech savvy and careful about how she interacts with people she meets online, she can't help but vent her frustration about being bullied at school. The person on the other side of the chat should not have too much information. When a variety of strange things that work to her benefit start to happen offline, she is certain that whoever she has been speaking to in secret is behind them, and she believes that the person is her father. Part of him.

Eventually, Pantheon, which is based on a series of short stories, becomes a story about people coming together in the face of the show's villains. Pantheon is careful about spotlighting the small personal losses its heroes experience as their paths gradually intersect with one another.

The process of uploading people's minds onto server is exactly what the villains of Pantheon are on the verge of doing. As it clues you in to how the rival tech firms plan to useuploaded intelligence tech, Pantheon takes its time. The show leaves no doubt about the fact that both entities are driven by profit rather than a desire to dominate the world.

For Caspian, a brilliant and withdrawn teenager who spends too much time online, it is the way his father abuses his mother that is eating him up. The implosion of his family is a kind of death that he copes with by escaping into the kind of digital communities that can be lifesavers for people who are detached from society.

Image: Titmouse

The show avoids coasting on a general sense of technopanic and instead feels like a story about realistic people trying to navigate a world that they actually understand. Ellen and David aren't hapless analog parents trying to keep up with their daughter, they're tech savvy and potentially in danger as she is, because that's what it takes to succeed in their fields Even though their understanding of the society they live in is nuanced, the parents know there is little they can do to protect their daughter from the dangers of the digital world.

Pantheon has moments of gore and horror as it slowly reveals more and more of the slow burn mystery at its core. The way in which the series zooms in on the deep personal ways that people can learn to help and harm one another is arresting. It isn't a new concept, but it's one that Pantheon explores with a deftness that shows like this aren't always known for, and it's more than enough of a reason to give it a watch as the season continues.

AMC Plus broadcasts the show.