Review: Scavengers Reign “The Signal/The Storm/The Wall”

Overview (Spoilers Below):

The Signal

After crash-landing on Vesta, survivors Sam (Bob Stephenson) and Ursula (Sunita Mani) use their technological know-how to attempt to locate their missing ship, the Demeter. Elsewhere, Azi (Wunmi Mosaku) wrestles with her malfunctioning robot, Levi (Alia Shawkat), while Kamen (Ted Travelstead) meets a powerful alien creature.

The Storm

As a storm ravages the planet’s surface, Sam and Ursula head off in search of the downed Demeter while Levi and Azi scramble to find shelter. Kamen joins a pack of psychic creatures capable of bringing his best and worst memories to life.

The Wall

While Ursula witnesses Vesta’s unique transformative powers, Sam attempts to keep his partner focused on the journey ahead. Elsewhere, Azi and Levi encounter a deadly stampede, and Kamen proves to be a useful servant to Hollow.

Our Take:

Max is continuing to churn out more of its animated content this year to go along with its slew of DC and reality programming. It hasn’t even been a month since we concluded its previous animated series, Young Love, which dropped a jaw-dropping four episodes weekly, and here we are with another piece of adult animation to keep us subscribed to Max. This latest original series from the animation library, Scavengers Reign, takes us from the African-American community to an unknown planet in the far reaches of space, where survival is the key to living in a dangerous yet gorgeous world. Best of all, it’s another show based on a short film, with the source material’s writers and directors, Joseph Bennett and Charles Huettner, being involved with Scavengers Reign, similar to Young Love. I haven’t watched the 2016 short film Scavengers, but based on what I’ve seen so far in Scavengers Reign, it’s something I should consider later.

Regarding the first three episodes, Scavengers Reign plays out like any other survival horror storyline we’ve seen in movies and television, like Alien. However, it quickly captured my intrigue in its characters and conflicts amid its tranquil horror aspect and beautiful sceneries. It immediately starts with the crew stranded and separated from each other on Vesta, with the aftermath of the destroyed Demeter being shown in the title sequence. The episodes showcased the scenario from three different perspectives, each encountering one obstacle after another during their trek to find the Demeter.

Out of the three perspectives I’ve seen so far, I would say that I was mostly interested in Kamen’s venture, where he winds up being a slave to a toad-like psychic creature called Hollow. This is mainly due to the creature’s ability to showcase Kamen’s memories, mostly involving him and his wife, further developing the character before being stranded on Vesta. From the looks of things, it’s possible that Kamen’s memories would continue to play a factor in his inner conflict to break free from the creature’s control. This was followed by the relationship between Azi and Levi, with the latter behaving differently from the other Levi robots due to the moss affecting Levi’s behavioral patterns. Sam and Ursula’s scenario didn’t reach the same amount of intrigue as the others until “The Wall”. That episode has Ursula starting to see the beauty of the planet’s environment, which could contradict Sam’s attempt to return to the Demeter before its sleeping crew members die, serving as the series’s intense time limit.

Like Fired on Mars, Scavengers Reign has the opportunity to be another engaging and thought-provoking sci-fi gem regarding its story, characters, and themes. Of course, this is based on my experience with the first three episodes, which gave me hope that the series would get better as it progresses. Aside from its captivating and well-paced storylines, the voice cast was decent in their roles, including Stephenson as Bob and Mosaku as Azi. I also thought the animation by Titmouse was sublime in showcasing its unique creature designs and gorgeous settings despite a couple of frame drops during a few sequences. Suppose it maintains the elements that worked for the remaining episodes. In that case, we could be looking at another out-of-this-world example of quality-based storytelling in animation.