Fleeing an Earth torn apart by war, a pair of androids guard what may be the last cache of human children. But their world, Kepler-22b is far from hospitable and they are far from the only survivors to reach it.

Well, Ridley Scott’s remembered how to direct again. The iconic director is like no one on Earth (Alien, The Martian) until he isn’t (Alien Covenant) but this has very much the same feel as The Martian. Sturdy but fallible technology, bleak, inhospitable locations and basic survival are all depicted with Scott’s wide eye for visual invention. The speed with which Mother and Father raise their ‘offspring’ is just one of a dozen pieces of smart visual worldbuilding that the episode packs in. Arguably the most impressive is the precise, brutal fight between Mother and a Mithraic android that opens the third act of the episode. Amanda Collin’s physicality in that, simultaneously selling the damage she’s taking and expressing no pain is crunchy, disturbing and leads into the hardest third act I’ve seen in a while. Mother, increasingly erratic, responds to the arrival of their enemies by slaughtering first the landing party and then the entirety of the crew of their ark.

Aside, of course, from the children she ‘rescues’. The image of Campion (Winta McGrath) her one surviving child watching as the ark sails into a nearby mountain is pure European SF comic spectacle and the episode is full of moments like this. But they all, oddly, highlight the problem which is less the script, and more the premise.

Aaron Guzikowski’s basic premise is equal parts arrestingly new and depressingly familiar. From the moment Mother and Father arrive in their skintight suits to the closing, brutally offhand slaughter of the Mithraics, the series plays a lot like classic European science fiction. There’s the scale and stillness of The Incal here, and the Mithraics are absolutely the sort of odd, not quite zealots that everything from Dune on up has embraced. But there’s also an echo you can’t quite shake. The tension is impeccable, the production values extraordinary. But in the end this is still a story about a female android going crazy and becoming an overprotective mama bear. Or to put it another way, a hysterical woman battles forces beyond her control. Done right, that’s Rosemary’s Baby or Ellen Ripley’s horrific encounters with the Xenomorph. Done wrong, it’s ‘Calm down, dear!’ with a body count. Right now it’s too early to say which one we’ll be getting.  Likewise the show’s central faith vs science conflict. If they land it, it’s going to be a fascinating examination of a massive issue. If they drive it into the side of a mountain, it’s going to be a wreck, in every sense.

What is clear is that this is a show everyone involved is taking seriously. The production design is stunning, even unsettling in places and the actors, especially Amanda Collin and Vikings’ Travis Fimmel as one of the few Mithraic survivors, are excellent.

Verdict: It looks and moves like nothing else on TV right now. But, much like the tension between the Mithraics and the androids, it’s too soon to say whether or not that’s a good thing, or a recipe for disaster. 8/10

Alasdair Stuart