Scavenger's Reign
Entry updated 13 November 2023. Tagged: TV.
US animated tv series (2023). Titmouse Inc, Green Street Pictures. Created by Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettner, based on their animated short Scavengers (2016). Directed by Joseph Bennett, Charles Huettner, Jonathan Djob Nkondo, Diego Porral, Rachel Reid, Christine Jie-Eun Shin and Vincent Tsui. Writers include Joseph Bennett, Sean Buckelew, Charles Huettner and James Merrill. Voice cast includes Sunita Mani, Pollyanna McIntosh, Wunmi Mosaku, Alia Shawkat, Bob Stephenson, Ted Travelstead and Dash Williams. Twelve episodes of circa 25 minutes. Colour.
The Spaceship Demeter carries colonists held in Suspended Animation (see Colonization of Other Worlds), but an accident caused by the selfish recklessness of Kamen (Travelstead) has the surviving crew flee in lifepods; four manage to reach the nearby planet Vesta. They are split into three groups: Sam (Stephenson) and Ursula (Mani); Azi (Mosaku), accompanied by Levi (Shawkat), a robot; and Kamen. They discover Vesta's Ecology (see Life on Other Worlds) is extraordinarily rich, but dangerous: its strong inclination towards Parasitism and Symbiosis means it is disposed to be compatible with Technology and humanity.
Sam and Ursula are able to repair their damaged Machines by incorporating parts of local organisms (see Biology), enabling them to initiate the Demeter's emergency landing protocol; they then travel to meet it. They have quickly learnt to use the planet's wildlife to survive, for example wearing a creature as a filtering face-mask when entering a spore-filled cave. However in this instance Ursula's mask fails and we (but not Sam) see her erupt with fungi, yet the next moment she seems unharmed. Later a plant takes blood from Sam and grows a Clone, which tries to continue its life cycle by burying him: Ursula manages to kill it, and the stricken Sam is cured by an apparent survivor from an earlier shipwreck. We see her plant a seed inside him: she has been assimilated by a monstrous being that dwells in a shrine. The pair flee, but Sam has to fight against the urges created by the parasite hatched within him: he fights it as long as he can but, once the Demeter is in sight, insists Ursula finish the journey alone.
A tortured Kamen is trapped in his escape pod until a small Telekinetic Alien, the Hollow, frees and feeds him; it accesses and replays Kamen's Memories as a means to shape his moods, enforcing its instructions to gather food. The flashbacks reinforce Kamen's grief over his actions, including the death of his girlfriend, overwhelming him: the Hollow responds by engulfing him – a return to the womb – but now he seems to be influencing his host's behaviour.
Azi and Levi have set up a farm (see Agriculture): the encroaching "biological material" in Levi's body "seems to have a complementary composition to my circuitry"; they begin to behave erratically – such as planting a spanner to see what will happen – reflecting their growing sentience (see AI). Azi and Levi see the Demeter landing, so travel to it; during the journey Azi develops more empathy for Levi, but when they are attacked by the Hollow, Levi is shattered. On Vesta's moon a mining expedition from another solar system's struggling colony picks up Azi's distress call, but on landing their ship is destroyed by the Hollow: the three miners – soon down to two – join Azi's journey to the Demeter. The miners' leader, Kris (McIntosh), wants to plunder any supplies that could be useful to her colony (the real reason for answering the distress call), and then depart in the Demeter's escape shuttle. When Azi's insists that the frozen colonists must be woken when they arrive, she is tied up and left to die.
The Hollow is the first to reach the Demeter, lying down beside the corpse of Kamen's ex-girlfriend; the miners arrive next and their actions result in the girlfriend's corpse being crushed: the Hollow is not pleased. Ursula has run into Levi, rebuilt by some of Vesta's creatures (a Hive Mind might be suspected) and now with so many organic parts they're essentially a reverse Cyborg: polite but unhelpful, Levi is "adapting" and farming – and has managed to grow versions of themself. Ursula goes on to find Azi: she unties her and the pair make their way to the Demeter, where they're attacked by the Hollow. The other surviving miner, Barry (Williams), an autistic teenager, demands they help Azi and Ursula wake the colonists: he is left behind by Kris, who departs in the shuttle. Levi, discovering Azi is alive, rescues her from the Hollow, within whom Kamen is having an epiphany: accepting his guilt, he is reborn and the creature is reduced to its original size. Azi shoos it off with stones, then awakens the colonists. There is a time skip and we see the survivors contentedly making a new life for themselves on Vesta. Meanwhile, Kris arrives back on her home planet: the shuttle is boarded by her people, who seem to be a Religion or cult, having masks and bandaged feet. They discover a withered Kris and the craft overrun with Vesta's vegetation, then are greeted by one of Levi's children.
Scavenger's Reign is an outstanding Planetary Romance whose excellent animation appears influenced by the work of Moebius (Jean Giraud): despite illustrating much gore and body Horror, the art is beautiful. Though the wildlife and ecology of Vesta, with its bizarre life-cycles and transformations, are the stars of the series, the story and characterization are very satisfying and strong. Unanswered questions remain, such as what happened to Ursula in the cave and was there an intelligence behind Levi's rebuilding; fortunately the creators plan further seasons. [SP]
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