Maddie (Katie Chang) is an insecure teenage girl who’s been the victim of cyber bullying. She feels alone and that’s not helped by the fact that she’s still grieving over the loss of her father. She lives with her mother, Ellen (Rosemarie DeWitt) and like most mother/daughter relationships, they don’t always get along.

Then one day Maddie gets a message from a stranger online and the stranger helps her out and makes her feel a little better about herself. However, then Maddie starts to believe that the stranger online may actually be her father, David (Daniel Dae Kim).

As Maddie investigates further and gets her mother involved, they soon realise that it is indeed the man that they have both lost and have gone through immeasurable grief over. However, after finally coming to terms with what may actually be an uploaded intelligence, Maddie and Ellen reconnect with their lost loved one.

Pantheon is a new animated series coming to AMC, based on a series of short stories by Ken Liu. However, unusually for an animation and besides the science fiction setting, there really doesn’t seem to be anything that couldn’t have been done in live action. Recent times have caused productions to change and so having something animated which could have easily been done for real shows that perhaps there’s going to be a change in how things are done.

However, for some it may seem somewhat cynical as although the animation doesn’t really add anything to the production, it seems like an animated science fiction show could be aimed at a nerd- based audience who don’t mind their content being drawn. Things like Ghost in The Shell and Akira have proven popular, so why not?

Also, it does bring in a cast with names such as Paul Dano, William Hurt and Aaron Eckhart which couldn’t possibly have been afforded otherwise. Whether audiences will see this as a new way to enjoy what they always have, or see it as a way to cut corners remains to be seen.

The story behind Pantheon is still compelling though and even if the subplot about teenage boy, Caspian played by Paul Dano may be more interesting than the main plot, there’s enough to keep an audience engaged. It just may take a little adjustment on expectations for an audience to fully immerse themselves in Pantheon’s world.

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