Pantheon | |
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Genre | |
Created by | Craig Silverstein |
Based on | "The Gods Will Not Be Chained", "The Gods Will Not Be Slain" and "The Gods Have Not Died in Vain" by Ken Liu |
Voices of | |
Music by |
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Country of origin | United States |
Original language | English |
No. of seasons | 2 |
No. of episodes | 16 |
Production | |
Executive producers |
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Editors |
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Running time | 40–44 minutes |
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Original release | |
Network | AMC+ |
Release | September 1 – October 13, 2022 |
Network | Amazon Prime Video |
Release | October 15, 2023 |
Pantheon is an American adult animated science fiction drama television series created by Craig Silverstein. [1] The series is based on a series of short stories by Ken Liu. [2] The first season premiered on September 1, 2022, on AMC+. [3] In January 2023, the first season was removed from AMC+ and HIDIVE; [4] and re-released on Amazon Prime Video with the second season in Australia and New Zealand on October 15, 2023. [5]
In 2001, Stephen Holstrom, a genius visionary and founder of the technology company Logorhythms, began his mission to reach digital immortality with the advancement of "Uploaded Intelligence" or "UI," - scanning the human brain and uploading it on the Cloud. After Holstrom's death, Logorythms continued his project, using various illegal and unethical means to reach their goals.
In the present day, Maddie Kim is a bullied teenager still grieving over the death of her father two years prior. She soon receives mysterious help from someone online, who is soon thereafter revealed to be her deceased father, David Kim, whose consciousness was uploaded to Logorhythms' cloud network following an experimental and destructive brain scan, with its success having been hidden from David's family.
At the same time, Caspian Keyes, a troubled yet highly intelligent teenager has been raised unaware that he lives in a constructed environment and is constantly monitored by Logorythms to one day fulfil a special purpose. Caspian comes into contact with Maddie and the two aid each other in searching for the truth, which also helps Caspian gradually learn about his reality.
Meanwhile, Vinod Chanda, an engineer from the India-based Alliance Telecom company is kidnapped by his corrupt boss and scanned, resulting in his death in the physical world with his UI uploaded to Alliance's systems. With help from previous UI victims, Chanda escapes his virtual prison and goes rogue.
With Maddie and Caspian stuck in the middle, a global conspiracy unfolds that threatens to trigger a new kind of world war.
Season | Episodes | Originally released | |||
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First released | Last released | Network | |||
1 | 8 | September 1, 2022 | October 13, 2022 | AMC+ | |
2 | 8 | October 15, 2023 | Amazon Prime Video |
No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date [8] | |||
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1 | 1 | "Pantheon" | Dwooman | Craig Silverstein | September 1, 2022 | |||
A mysterious user who communicates only in emojis contacts Maddie, a girl in Sacramento. The next day, the user hacks into the phones of Maddie's bullies and turns them against one another. Maddie's mother Ellen discovers her chatting with the user, who seems to be Maddie's dead father David as she recognizes a line of his favorite poem written in emojis. Ellen demands answers concerning her husband from Peter Waxman, an employee of the tech-company Logorhythms and David’s friend. Waxman informs his boss, Julius Pope, of the situation who immediately decides to cut off David's network access. At San Clemente, under his username "Gage", student Caspian contacts Maddie, who overheard Ellen's phone call and posted a message online about Logorhythms holding David hostage. Caspian sends Maddie's chatlog images to another user, "AngryAngel", asking if they are Maddie's anonymous user. Unknown to Caspian, however, his parents are secret Logorhythms agents, maintaining a cover as an abusive father and victimized mother. Meanwhile, computer engineer Vinod Chanda has a business meeting with rivals about “Uploaded Intelligence” and is kidnapped afterwards. Logorhythms then suffers a major DDoS attack, which results in Pope ordering Waxman to check on a woman named "Lowell." | ||||||||
2 | 2 | "Cycles" | Mel Zwyer | Albert Kim | September 1, 2022 | |||
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3 | 3 | "Reign of Winter" | Ed Tadem | Taii K. Austin | September 8, 2022 | |||
After becoming a UI, Chanda is stuck in a loop without any memories of his physical death in the real world. At a conference, Prasad offers a joint venture to Pope, to no avail. After a couple of loops, Chanda meets Prasad's failed UI victims, who help him regain his memories. They teach Chanda about their UI capabilities, allowing him to escape without alarming Prasad and his cohorts. Ellen refuses to speak to David, unable to accept his UI existence and having moved on with another man, Gabe. After Maddie and David's separate attempts to get her attention, Ellen finally speaks to David and they agreed that they cannot be together romantically, but remain close friends. Caspian researches Logorhythms and its founder, Stephen Holstrom, and discovers a black site in Norway. However, Logorhythms deletes the photos before Caspian can save any evidence. Due to Caspian being at an important peak of his adolescence, his parents Cary and Renee stage a scenario where Cary breaks Renee's arm. Caspian beats Cary up in rage, who walks out of them and then reports to Pope before breaking down in tears. | ||||||||
4 | 4 | "The Gods Will Not Be Chained" | Micah Gunnell Juno Lee | Andy Parker | September 15, 2022 | |||
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5 | 5 | "Zero Daze" | Mel Zwyer | Julia Cooperman | September 22, 2022 | |||
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6 | 6 | "You Must Be Caspian" | Mel Dwyer | Scott Gunnison Miller | September 29, 2022 | |||
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7 | 7 | "We Are You" | Ed Tadem | Michael Taylor | October 6, 2022 | |||
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8 | 8 | "The Gods Will Not Be Slain" | Micah Gunnell Juno Lee | Craig Silverstein | October 13, 2022 | |||
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No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original release date | |
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9 | 1 | "The Gods Have Not Died In Vain" | Dwooman Juno Lee | Andy Parker | October 15, 2023 | |
Shortly after UI tech was revealed to the world, the worldwide internet or power is still down and governments have placed curfews on citizens. Maddie, Justine, and a group of friends create their own intranet, "Lilypad." Ellen is summoned to the Senate to be questioned about Logorhythms and tells the truth about it. At Logorhythms HQ in Norway, a frustrated Caspian attempts to figure out the integrity flaw, with attempts at using David's UI copy failing. A disgruntled Renee (who Caspian fired last season) demands to be returned into the fold or she will tell the NSA officials about Caspian being Holstrom's clone. Pope sends Renee to fetch Maddie behind Caspian's back, but Maddie rejects her while Cary secretly informs Caspian to be careful. After a paranoid local attempts to attack Maddie, she agrees to go Norway to delete David's UI and argues with Caspian about how Logorhythms is using him and their views of solving the flaw. Pope confides in Renee that Holstrom's cryogenically frozen brain will be the first to be uploaded once Caspian fulfills his purpose. Meanwhile, Chanda bonds with Ping, who voices the potential good UI for China, though Bai Fu is slowly degenerating. | ||||||
10 | 2 | "Crack Integrity" | Mel Zwyer | Michael Taylor | October 15, 2023 | |
With Maddie staying in Norway, she and Caspian continue to argue over the UI situation. She speaks to Waxman about NSA's UI candidate, wanting to spare David from the responsibility of being the flawless UI. While Senator Sharff disavows the UI tech to the public, Ellen and her ally, Senator Rivera, summon Waxman to support Ellen's claims, unaware that Waxman is being coerced to do the opposite with threats against Maddie. Waxman is able to secretly inform Ellen of Maddie's location, and she mentions Norway to the Senate in front of reporters. Caspian develops a potential cure for the flaw and gains Maddie's consent to test it on David, as she wants to see her father. The NSA is forced to leave before the FBI arrives to investigate. Once the cure works, Pope and Logorhythms turn on Caspian and delete David, locking the teens in a room. Pope, Renee, and Van Leuwen upload Holstrom, and Renee evacuates him as they meet with FBI agents. Maddie and Caspian escape and steal back the cure code with Cary's help, and they realize that the cure code has developed a persona called "MIST." | ||||||
11 | 3 | "Joey Coupet" | Ed Tadem | Taii K. Austin | October 15, 2023 | |
In D.C., Caspian and Maddie learn of MIST and are wary of her presence. Maddie briefly reunites with Ellen and updates her on everything that has happened. Wanting to meet NSA UI Josephine "Joey" Coupet, Caspian and Maddie go to her family and reveal the flaw to her husband Jake. After a hostile meeting with Joey, Caspian wants to leave, but Jake threatens him at gunpoint, demanding the cure for his wife. Not wanting more violence, MIST asks Maddie about her feelings towards it and cures Joey after Maddie answers. Since Joey refuses to be the UI "God," Caspian and Maddie travel to the UK together and share a kiss along the way. In Germany, Renee helps Holstrom upload to a satellite where Chanda's group is. By killing Zhong and using her code, Holstrom creates an "upgrade" to slow the degeneration in Chanda and Ping, rallying them to seek other UIs to join their cause or use their code to make a cure. At Ellen's suggestion, Waxman is recruited to weaponize his tracking program and mass-produce an anti-viral program "Safe Surf" in order to turn the internet back on and settle the civil unrest. Using the "Reign of Winter" game as a trial ground, users rejoice while a dark presence forms in the network. | ||||||
12 | 4 | "Olivia & Farhad" | Juno Lee Mari Yang | Yasemin Yilmaz | October 15, 2023 | |
With Safe Surf, the U.S government destroys Russian UI Arkady Koslov, though Waxman is concerned that the government installing an AI into the program due to its self-adapting nature will make control more difficult. In London, Maddie and Caspian set up a private meeting with UI Olivia Evans, who is shown to be good-natured and informs Caspian that his info has been leaked to the six governments with UIs. As they trade info, Olivia asks the teens to help cure her secret lover, Iran's UI Farhad Karimi, but Holstrom gets to Farhad first. When Holstrom and Farhad show up, Olivia fights Holstrom to protect them and get the cure from MIST, alerting Safe Surf to their area. Safe Surf kills Olivia, and Holstrom is forced to retreat. Holstrom instructs Renee to start a shell company to proceed with his plans while Ping and Chanda have reservations about Holstrom curing them. Ping reveals that he leaked Caspian's info in hopes of finding him and being cured. As Maddie and Caspian prepare to leave, Caspian is kidnapped, leaving Maddie alone. Meanwhile, Ellen urges Waxman to help find Maddie, but resolves to stay D.C. herself in case Maddie needs her. | ||||||
13 | 5 | "Yair" | Jae Hong Kim Juno Lee | Scott Gunnison Miller | October 15, 2023 | |
As Holstrom's shell company begins building machines, he sends Renee to appeal to Charlie Dugan, a teenage boy with progeria to spread the pro-UI movement. In Cyprus, Caspian's captors are revealed to be Israel's government agents and their UI Yair, who wants the cure. In order to find Yair's "core code," Caspian and Yair navigate through Yair's traumatic memories that he willingly locked up. Having learned of Yair's character and troubled past, Caspian admits that he won't make the cure for him. Maddie and MIST track Caspian with Farhad's help, dodging Safe Surf all the while. They manage to free Caspian, who resolves to be the UI "God" since no one else is suitable, which Maddie protests greatly. Holstrom kills Ping for plotting against him, causing Chanda to secretly turn on him as well. Seeing Ellen advocating for peaceful coexistence between humans and UI, Chanda contacts her and Waxman. He tells them that Holstrom plans to create and spread a super deadly pandemic that will make humans more accepting of becoming UIs, and they task him with finding where it is being made. | ||||||
14 | 6 | "Apokalypsis" | Mel Zwyer | Michael Taylor | October 15, 2023 | |
While Renee oversees the virus production and disguises it for distribution, Waxman fails to get the government to take action. Ellen, Waxman, and Chanda meet up with Maddie, Caspian, and MIST to discuss a plan to stop Holstrom and extract info about the virus. As they travel to the Norway HQ, Maddie and Caspian argue about his decision, so MIST volunteers to battle Holstrom in his place. However, Holstrom explains his view of humanity, the benefits of UI life, and how Safe Surf is a bigger threat to the digital beings, causing MIST to hesitate and retreat. Maddie angrily lashes out at MIST, driving the CI to leave them and Caspian without the cure. Chanda attempts to rally other UIs to help fight Holstrom, but is only able to convince Yair and Farhad. They fight Holstrom but prove no match, and Chanda is killed while the gravely damaged Yair and Farhad choose to merge with each other. Maddie and Caspian confess their love for each other and have sex before Caspian's UI procedure. As Caspian and Holstrom fight, MIST and Joey arrive to help, and Caspian manages to extract the virus data and sabotage the deployment. Caspian stays merged with Holstrom long enough for Safe Surf to destroy him, but MIST is able to save Caspian and slowly rebuild his data. Upon meeting him with its blue-haired female avatar, MIST informs Caspian that 20 years have passed since then. | ||||||
15 | 7 | "The World to Come" | Ed Tadem | Taii K. Austin | October 15, 2023 | |
MIST explains that traces of Safe Surf's anti-viral code are still in Caspian, which will grow if he uses too much energy; a sprawling virtual world has developed from humans who willingly choose to be uploaded, including Ellen and Waxman; and after defeating Holstrom, Renee and Charlie became UI to spread the benefits of digital immortality but were killed by Safe Surf on live feed, sparking a public outcry. The governments implement private, regulated data centers to protect the UIs, and numerous societal benefits incentivize many to become UIs. However, tensions have been rising between UIs and CIs and physical humans, including an anti-UI extremist group led by Pope, which bombed a data center; UIs shut down the internet in retaliation. Along with a power and population crisis, a satellite that was to be a home for the digital beings is delayed due to construction issues. Using a robotic body, Caspian meets with Maddie and their son, David "Dave" Jr. Maddie has become a chancellor of the embodied and is the owner of a robotics company at the old Logorhythms building. Speaking with MIST, Maddie and Caspian learn that to fix Caspian's code without sacrificing his identity, MIST needs Dave's code once he's an UI, which Maddie and Caspian oppose. After a mysterious visit from David, Caspian agrees to be the delegate of the cyber world and has MIST download all important data into him, greatly shortening his lifespan. Pope's group attacks the data that stores Safe Surf, which has achieved sentience, and Pope frees it from its cage. | ||||||
16 | 8 | "Deep Time" | Mari Yang | Craig Silverstein | October 15, 2023 | |
As Caspian speaks to Maddie and the human council on the UI world's behalf, he sways Maddie to be more favorable to the UIs, despite her personal views on UI life. Spiteful of being denied UI life, Pope infiltrates Logorhythms to upload Safe Surf to the servers, and forcefully turns the internet back on. Having achieved total free will, Safe Surf starts a worldwide killing spree of humans, including Pope and Dave. As the UIs attempt to protect the humans, Caspian is able to control and communicate with Safe Surf due to its remnants in him. Safe Surf requests to live among the UIs, which they firmly reject, but Caspian inspires it to go into space to learn and evolve before the anti-viral kills him. Centuries later, Maddie ascends to be a UI, and has created a highly advanced data center that contains the genetic code of all digital and embodied life, powered by her self-made Dyson Sphere. Overseeing billions of simulation worlds, Maddie together with a version of David's UI recreate a simulation of the events that led her on the path to resurrect Caspian, revealing that all the oddities that Caspian and Maddie experienced were part of this simulation. Maddie also revives Dave and transports him and David to live together with Ellen and their friends in the simulation. Outside of the simulation, Maddie and Caspian are met by the entity once known as Safe Surf, which has evolved into a higher being and also had a hand in leading Maddie to this point in time as a "thank you" to its "creator" Caspian. Together at last, Maddie and Caspian choose to enter a simulation and let themselves "start over," beginning on the day of the very first episode. |
On August 3, 2018, it was reported that AMC opened a writers room for the animated drama Pantheon. [9] On March 10, 2020, AMC had given the production a 2-season series order consisting eight episodes each. [10] Pantheon is AMC's first hour-long animated drama original series. [11] The series is created by Craig Silverstein who also executive produced the series. AMC Studios and Titmouse, Inc. are involved with producing the series. [1] The series is based on Ken Liu's short stories "The Gods Will Not Be Chained", "The Gods Will Not Be Slain", "The Gods Have Not Died in Vain", "Staying Behind", "Altogether Elsewhere, Vast Herds of Reindeer" and "Seven Birthdays" from the short fictions collection The Hidden Girl and Other Stories. [2]
A second season was in production by August 2022. [3] On January 8, 2023, AMC canceled the series after one season, despite a two-season order. It was also removed from AMC's streaming service and HIDIVE. [4] In September 2023, Amazon Prime Video announced that it picked up the series for release. [5]
On July 23, 2020, Taylor Schilling, Rosemarie DeWitt, Aaron Eckhart, and Paul Dano were cast in starring roles. [12] On August 7, 2020, Daniel Dae Kim, Katie Chang, Ron Livingston, Chris Diamantopoulos, Raza Jaffrey, Scoot McNairy, Anika Noni Rose, Grey Griffin, SungWon Cho, Kevin Durand, Samuel Roukin, and Krystina Alabado joined the cast in starring roles. [13] On February 18, 2021, William Hurt, Maude Apatow, Corey Stoll, and Lara Pulver were cast in starring roles. [14]
The series premiered on September 1, 2022, on AMC+ and HIDIVE. [3] [15] The first episode was available for all viewers on HIDIVE and on AMC+ official YouTube. [16] After its removal from AMC and HIDIVE platforms, Amazon Prime Video set a release date for the second season in Australia and New Zealand for October 15, 2023. [5]
The first season was released on Netflix in November 2024 and the second season is set to be released in February 2025. [17] [18]
On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the series holds a 100% approval rating based on 15 critic reviews, with an average rating of 8.2/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "A sophisticated treatise on consciousness and mortality, this absorbing mind-bender earns its own place in the pantheon of exemplary animated television." [19] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned a score of 77 out of 100 based on 8 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews". [20]