A world that’s slipped into chaos

Incredibly, writing on this now prophetic-seeming premise began a decade before the pandemic, with the adaptation from the comic ordered back in November 2018. A virus has ravaged the world and irrevocably changed society, but the dystopia described in this opener goes beyond our current experience. A glaring difference is the creation of ‘Hybrids’, the name given to the children born with animal attributes.

We’ve all lost someone or something in the last year, but Gus (a Hybrid with antlers and deer ears) has lost a life he never even knew, being born during the virus outbreak and spirited away into the ‘deep woods’ of the episode title by his grieving father. Raised in isolation to be fearful of any outsiders, Gus develops more resilience than your average 10 year old and is revealed to be a plucky, resourceful and self-sufficient young thing when he sadly loses his father too.

The exposition in the middle-section of this first episode is a little slow and, forgive the pun, saccharine, but it picks up when we meet the man who gives him his nickname ‘Sweet Tooth’, and saves him from poachers who have lured him with candy. Just as Gus starts to consider spreading his wings, they look to have been clipped, but in the kindness of strangers he finds hope and the courage to forge a new path. We all test boundaries as children but there’s a lovely line from the narrator that is wrapped in hope rather than fear or recklessness: “he broke his father’s rules slowly… then all at once”.

Cue a road-trip to Colorado across a post-apocalyptic America. I’m not sure if I want to go with them but I’ll wait and see.

Verdict: “Sometimes all a boy has is his imagination” in this slow but heart-warming opener. 7/10

Claire Smith