Pluribus

Let me first set the scene. The frontier of the “First Contact” Hypothesis since the famous Fermi Paradox by University of Chicago Physicist Enrico Fermi’s “But Where Is Everybody?” has since proliferated to multiple fascinating frontiers. Most talked-about top-tier ones being- The Zoo Hypothesis, The Great Filter, Dark Forest, The Berserker Hypothesis, The Brief Window Hypothesis, Silurian Hypothesis, Aestivation Hypothesis, The Transcension Hypothesis, Panspermia, Rare Earth Hypothesis, Eschatological Silence Hypothesis, The BDO (Big Dumb Object) or Bracewell Probe, and countless others.

Vince Gilligan, although, distills and just brushes past the high-concept scaffoldings that may have created the fundamentals of a new frontier of yet another first-contact project, rather, he shines at demonstrating how to construct a philosophical treatise about the moral principles, characterization, the ineffable je ne sais quoi that is the Qualia which makes us humans what we are. When the eventual challenges hit us and put questions regarding those elements, how do we figure out the answers that might just be our way out of the labyrinth made out of gyri and sulci inside these thick skulls.

Gilligan appeals to the audience not just to put our thinking caps but also to feel deep stuff that’s been haunting philosophers for millennia. Pluribus, as the title itself suggests, profoundly questions free will, personal agency, collectivism vs individuality and above all the philosophies of consequentialism and moral imperative. It’s deeply personal as it is about effective altruism, hedonism, nihilism and our genetic coding of being a social and community-dependent species. It touches modern topics of pointed political critique, hivemind and divisiveness without being overtly one-sided. Basically all of these through the eyes of three major characters; one fiercely independent woman who in the face of a radical Armageddon-level upheaval, as a representative of the human race keeps her scientific temperament to get to the bottom of it going back and forth in terms of an Inquirer of knowledge and truth-seeker as well as a Sybarite, a man with intransigent determination as a soldier who stops at nothing to change the course of fate while being on a perilous journey and a mysterious creature that lives and breathes for a cause so far-reaching and beyond belief that most of the time one might not feel Pluribus was meant to be a Sci-Fi show.

It’s as closest to Childhood’s End as we might get, not mechanically speaking rather spiritually and the minimalist quiet theme of the entire nine episodes shouts so loudly inside my mind the deafening silence echoes in the grooves and ridges of the said labyrinth. Arthur Clarke would have loved this show which is a subtle nod to his trademark style of transcendent evolution and astrofuturism. Brilliantly

Astoundingly made, Pluribus doesn’t use the usual concepts of ungodly engineering or giant monolithic structures appearing out of nowhere nor does it use extraterrestrial horror elements yet it maintains its jarring uneasiness and unsettling quotients at the peak. Sixth episode onwards, the philosophical inquiry curve does flatten out a bit until peripeteia hits and before we know it, the cliffhanger approaches.

Without a doubt thought-provoking and genre-defying. I find myself in complete awe and all that without any CGI. Throughout all the nine episodes, nothing happens much, only discussions and flowing emotions. Andor Season 2 still is the Sci-Fi show of the year. But, come to think about it, that show was riding with a lot of stakes as a finale and works as a bridge between A New Hope and Rogue One. CGI-filled space opera, war, revolution, espionage, death star etc etc. Here, we have a first season with no stake no legacy, no heavy investment, no-CGI. Nothing. Yet, Vince will access the chambers inside your brain like nothing you have ever experienced and you aren’t even aware of those chambers existing inside your mind.

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