Season Review: Pantheon One

I’ve said this multiple times over the seven weeks at Pantheon has been airing on AMC+. Pantheon is a nexus of so many pop culture references, while giving off a major The Matrix vibe. I mean, that movie is one of my favorites, so anything that comes close is going to hook me. And Pantheon makes the last three Matrix movies look like a pile of dog shit.

Titmouse crafted a wonderful show. From the beginning, the show looked beautiful. We were treated to abstract views and ideas like how to put the human mind into a computer. There needs to be more shows like this that push the boundaries of what’s possible. From the beginning of “Pantheon,” Where the main character, Maddie, was in a sort of Mean Girls bait and switch, the story took a hard turn real quick into the mind melting explosion that I was not expecting. One thing that cannot be stated enough is that the set pieces for the entire show was amazing.

The animation is beautiful. I haven’t seen a stylish show since Tron: Uprising. But the great thing about what Titmouse created was that they took Pantheon, and managed merge the angular character designs of Tron: Uprising, and merge them with an anime aesthetic. There hasn’t been a show that Titmouse worked on that has looked like shit, and Pantheon has continued that trend.

That said, this has been the most complete all around show that I’ve seen in a long time. Pantheon, from episode one, has been a hook, and constantly building on itself. There hasn’t been an instance where I was sitting there going “man, this is dragging hard.” From the Mean Girls bait and switch, to the introduction of David’s UI and the entire UI world, all the way through the slightly disappointing final showdown between David and Chanda, everything that was presented to the viewer during Pantheon‘s eight episodes was splendid.

Caspian is a character that deserves special attention. While Maddie, expectedly, grew into a confident and strong person, Caspian’s growth and story is bigger. He goes from a nondescript, edgy wannabe hacker to the savior of the UI in one fell swoop. Everything, from his girlfriend to his “parents,” were hand picked and selected to make Caspian what he was designed to be: the second coming and clone of Stephen Holstrom. With Pope coming around and being the nurturing person that no one thought he was going to be, Caspian was able to fix the defect. Fucking hell, this was a fantastic arc.

One of the most endearing parts of Pantheon is all of the nods and references to different games, movies, and anime. For instance, episode one has a reference to NERV from Neon Genesis Evangelion. The mall Maddie met Cody at was the Lone Pines Mall, also the same mall from Back to the Future. Reign of Winter was a mix of World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14. Hell, the feeling of the VR interface that Maddie used to communicate with the UI made it feel like The Matrix, just with less jacks at the base of the skull.

There were only two things that were a detriment, and they were both stretches. However, it was enough to make me pause and think about it for a minute. The first is the audio mixing in the first episode as well as the scene where Caspian met up with Maddie, Cody, and Laurie in “You Must Be Caspian”. I chalked up any miscues in “Pantheon” being a pilot. However, By the time “You Must Be Caspian” aired, Paul Dano’s lines should have been rerecorded to not sound like he recorded that scene into a Campbell’s soup can.

The other instance is the final showdown with Chanda and David. This was being built up over the course of the last half of the season, with Chanda becoming increasingly more and more unhinged as the endgame approached. He was supposed to be the big bad end boss. Yet, the fight was short, and he was punked. The only good thing is that his end was left ambiguous to possibly come back during season 2.

All in all, Pantheon is a top notch show, and definitely worth binging and the subscription price to AMC+. However, I would love to see Pantheon to get a run on the main network so more of the world can get to see it. Also, read the short stories that Pantheon is based on by Ken Liu. They are god damn amazing.