Raised by Wolves (American TV series)

Cast and characters

The android Mother, played by Amanda Collin, is a powerful war machine called a Necromancer that was reprogrammed to raise human children on Kepler-22b and start an atheist colony. Father, portrayed by Abubakar Salim, is a standard service android whose programming was changed to protect and support those children. The youngest of six children born from embryos Mother and Father brought to the planet is Campion, played by Winta McGrath; Munro Lennon-Ritchie plays Campion at age eight. Travis Fimmel plays Marcus, who is actually an atheist soldier named Caleb and the partner of Mary; Jack Hawkins appears as Caleb with his real face. Niamh Algar plays Sue, who is actually Mary, an atheist soldier and medic and Caleb’s partner. On Earth, Mary and Caleb killed a Mithraic couple named Sue and Marcus, then changed their looks to match them so they could get onto the Ark. Sienna Guillory plays Mary with her true face. Tempest, played by Jordan Loughran, is a child from the Ark who hates the Mithraic because a religious leader raped her. Paul, played by Felix Jamieson, is the biological son of the real Marcus and Sue, raised by Caleb and Mary as their own. Other surviving Ark children include Hunter (Ethan Hazzard), Holly (Aasiya Shah), and Vita (Ivy Wong). Matias Varela plays Lucius, a loyal Mithraic soldier who survived the Ark crash. Season two adds Peter Christoffersen as Cleaver, Selina Jones as Grandmother, Morgan Santo as Vrille, James Harkness as Tamerlane, Kim Engelbrecht as Decima, and Jennifer Saayeng as Nerva. Cosmo Jarvis plays Campion Sturges, a former Mithraic scientist who gave up his faith, fought for atheists, and built Mother; one of the colony children is named after him. Michael Pennington voices the Trust, a quantum computer Campion Sturges programmed to run the atheist collective on Kepler-22b. Joseph May voices the Holo-Sphere, and Steve Wall plays Ambrose.

Production

The series was greenlit by TNT on October 8, 2018. Ridley Scott, Aaron Guzikowski, David W. Zucker, Jordan Sheehan, Adam Kolbrenner, and Robyn Meisinger were set as executive producers, with Scott directing the first two episodes from Guzikowski’s scripts. Scott Free Productions, Studio T, and Madhouse Entertainment served as production companies. On September 17, 2020, HBO Max ordered a second season, which would also be filmed in South Africa. The show was shot in the Western Cape, including Springfontein Film Location Estate, Somerset West, Stellenbosch, and Cape Town. Abubakar Salim, who played Father, announced on March 8, 2021, that filming for season two was underway, and Jennifer Saayeng confirmed via Instagram that production wrapped on August 15, 2021. On June 3, 2022, Salim revealed the series had been canceled after two seasons, attributing the decision to the merger of WarnerMedia and Discovery, Inc. into Warner Bros. Discovery. He added that Scott Free Productions would seek a new home for the show and urged fans to support the effort. Actors Niamh Algar and Winta McGrath also called for fan backing, sparking the ongoing social media campaign “Save Raised by Wolves.” Salim later noted that the campaign motivated the creative team to explore alternative ways to continue and conclude the story, stating, “We will get answers … Just not in the same way we hoped.” The initial cast, announced in January 2019, included Travis Fimmel, Amanda Collin, Abubakar Salim, Winta McGrath, Niamh Algar, Felix Jamieson, Ethan Hazzard, Jordan Loughran, Aasiya Shah, and Ivy Wong. Matias Varela joined in March 2019. For the second season, Peter Christoffersen, Selina Jones, Morgan Santo, James Harkness, Kim Engelbrecht, and Jennifer Saayeng were added as starring cast members on May 20, 2021.

Release

The series moved to WarnerMedia's HBO Max streaming service, as announced on October 29, 2019, and debuted on September 3, 2020. In Canada, it launched on September 3, 2020, via CraveTV and CTV Sci-Fi Channel, with a French-language version following on January 14, 2021, on Super Écran. Australian viewers saw it on Fox Showcase starting September 3, 2020. In the UK, Sky Atlantic aired the first three episodes on December 5, 2020. France got the series on Warner TV from December 7, 2020, while Italy began airing it on Sky Atlantic on February 8, 2021. On January 31, 2023, it was announced the show would become available on The Roku Channel and Tubi. An official companion podcast, produced by iHeartRadio, was announced on August 26, 2020; its first episode premiered on September 3, 2020, alongside the series launch. The podcast features creator Aaron Guzikowski and invites science and technology innovators to explore questions raised by the show.

Reception

Critics were somewhat divided on the first season of Raised by Wolves. On Rotten Tomatoes, 74% of 58 reviews were positive, giving an average score of 7.1 out of 10. The site’s summary called it a visually imaginative and bloody look at artificial intelligence and religion that engages the eyes and mind but not the heart. Metacritic calculated a score of 64 out of 100 from 19 reviews, which it classified as generally favorable. Darren Franich of Entertainment Weekly gave it a B-minus, noting that after six episodes he worried the show’s momentum lagged, with two sides fighting and then preparing to fight again, though he found the eccentric performances intriguing. John Anderson of The Wall Street Journal praised the involved storyline for keeping viewers off-balance in a good way, the visuals, and the character Mother, calling her the most memorable female or female-like space entity since Ripley in Alien. Nick Allen of RogerEbert.com gave a mixed review, saying the intellectual exploration felt incredibly cold and comparing it to Ridley Scott’s Prometheus.

The second season fared better with critics. Rotten Tomatoes reported an 86% approval rating from 14 reviews, with an average score of 7.9 out of 10. The consensus described the season as doubling down on everything that made the first season beguiling and off-putting, a gamble that paid off with a science fiction vision that felt wholly its own. Metacritic assigned a score of 84 out of 100 based on 6 reviews, indicating universal acclaim.