An animated series adaptation of the short stories “The Gods Will Not Be Slain,” “The Gods Will Not Be Chained,” and “The Gods Have Not Died in Vain” by award-winning author Ken Liu, whose works have won Hugo and NNebula Awards. These stories are part of the Apocalypse Triptych, a three-part anthology series of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction, consisting of The End is Nigh, The End is Now, and The End Has Come.

Stephen Holstrom (William Hurt), the visionary founder of the technological corporation Logorhythms, believes that the next innovation to change the world will be artificial intelligence that can feel.

Although current artificial intelligence technology is not yet advanced enough to achieve his goal, Stephen is pursuing a project to develop a special device that can scan the human brain and synapses and upload a copy of consciousness to a cloud computer. He calls this technology “Uploaded Intelligence” or “UI.”

However, the major drawback of this procedure is that it can only be performed while the subject is still alive. While the device scans the subject’s brain, it also destroys it. Nevertheless, this is the only known method that can successfully convert human consciousness into a digital file.

Uploaded intelligence (UI) is a groundbreaking technology that is poised to revolutionize the field of artificial intelligence. Unlike traditional AI, which is based on algorithms and machine learning, UI is a digital copy of a human consciousness, complete with all of its emotions, memories, and experiences. This makes UI far more powerful and versatile than traditional AI. However, UI also requires a massive amount of computing resources to process and emulate.

Unfortunately, UI still faces a significant challenge that Stephen Holstrom was unable to overcome before his untimely passing due to terminal illness. Under the leadership of newly appointed CEO Julius Pope (Chris Diamantopoulos), Stephen Holstrom’s most trusted confidant, Logorhythms continues the top-secret UI project at the company’s black site hidden in the Norwegian mountains.

Maddie Kim, a bullied Asian-American (Katie Chang) teenager, receives mysterious online assistance from a user who interacts with her using emojis. She soon discovers that this enigmatic stranger is David Kim (Daniel Dae Kim), her deceased father, a brilliant programmer who succumbed to a terminal illness two years ago.

Caspian Keyes (Paul Dano), a highly intelligent teenage boy, is convinced that his entire life is a virtual simulation. He is not entirely wrong. His parents, Cary (Aaron Eckhar) and Renee (Taylor Schilling), are employees of Logorhythms. Caspian’s entire life has been built on lies and deceptions, a fact that he is slowly beginning to uncover.

One day, Caspian stumbles upon Maddie’s post on an online message board, in which she claims that Logorhythms is imprisoning her father, despite lying to her that he is dead. Intrigued yet skeptical, Caspian contacts Maddie to request proof. She sends him chatlog images, which Caspian recognizes immediately that he has seen this kind of conversation before.

Unaware that his online friend, AngryAngel, is actually Laurie Lowell (Heather Lind), a brilliant fund manager who secretly became Logorhythms’ first successful UI after a car accident, Caspian forwards Maddie’s chatlog images to her. Laurie’s partner, Cody (Scoot McNairy), is an artist unaware that Logorhythms lied to him about Laurie’s upload failing, the same lie they told Ellen (Rosemarie DeWitt), David’s wife. Logorhythms retains ownership of both Laurie and David’s digital consciousness source code, viewing them as intellectual property.

Ajit Prasad (Ajay Mehta), CEO of Alliance Telecom, a rival of Logorhythms, is also secretly pursuing his own UI project. His first victim is Vinod Chanda (Raza Jaffrey), a software engineer who attempts to move to a competitor company. Against Vinod’s will, Ajit orders his team to scan and upload the engineer’s consciousness to a server, where they imprison him in a loop program that erases his memory every day. This is done so that Vinod can be forced to work for Ajit permanently.

The concept of uploading human consciousness to a computer is not entirely new, but Pantheon’s brilliant script and highly engaging story elevate it to a captivating, thrilling, and twist-filled experience. It is arguably the most intriguing science fiction animated series of the year.

I am impressed by the complexity and naturalism of the character designs in Pantheon. Each character behaves authentically according to their age and role, and their actions and decisions are always grounded in believable logic. The length of the series allows for the characters to be well-developed, with realistic backstories that make them relatable and engaging, despite the relatively simple animation style compared to Japanese anime.

PANTHEON premiered on AMC+, HIDIVE and Prime Video on 1 September 2022. Amazon Prime Video set a release date for the second season on 15 October 2023.