A bullied teen receives help from a stranger online.

Pantheon is based on the stories of Ken Liu. If you don’t know who Ken Liu is you’ve a treat ahead of you as he is a writer of both fantasy and science fiction with serious vision and the skill to deliver his ideas in compelling form. Seriously, go and find his collections and novels.

Pantheon is one of those strange intersections – a story for adults, animated and science fiction all of which come together with the sensibility of writer Philip K Dick, the style of director Richard Linklater and the vibe of Alex Garland in his science fiction masterpiece, Devs.

I do not say any of the above lightly.

The story is complex and layered with multiple points of view that quite quickly intertwine in a way familiar to anyone who watched the hugely underappreciated Person of Interest.

What’s different here is the human angle. This show is deeply interested in how we feel about technology. Not simply wanting to be dazzled by the tech and ideas on display, the series’ creator, Craig Silverstein, has focused right in on the human element of technology.

And it works.

The tropes of human life are here for us to see – orphaned families, despotic corporations, espionage and paranoia. They’re woven together masterfully so that at the end of episode 2 I was not just hungry for more but entirely invested in what I’d experienced thus far.

The voice acting is great – not just words overlaid on the animation but feeling well meshed. Particular stand outs to Paul Dano as Caspian and Maude Apatow as Justine. They feel inhabited and it immersed me completely.

The show’s got eight episodes so I’m expecting it to go far beyond its initial set up. I’m hoping for explorations of trans-humanism, the transition and conflict between those of us left behind in such a scenario, and discussions around whether an uploaded human is still the same person they were before. After all, we’re embodied beings, if you take away our embodiment what’s left of us?

I’d like to say more but it feels too early to really comment on what the story has to say about these subjects – we still don’t really know what the stakes are, not properly. For all the human focus the danger here, the sense of threat, wriggles around under the surface like a snake ready to strike.

One thing to bear in mind is the title of the show – pantheon. There’s no doubt from the opening episodes that the internecine warfare and scandals and blood letting of polytheistic religions weighs heavily on the writing and I am expecting to see the idea of digital humanity being regarded as exactly this kind of divinity.

When that happens I think we’ll be able to see where the show is going and what it’s trying to talk about.

Verdict: For now though I’m in, I am going to travel this road to its end because from what I’ve seen so far? It’s going to be an exceptional ride.

Rating? 8 uploaded intelligences out of 10.

Stewart Hotston