It’s not like there aren’t any good series anymore. Everyone could probably name two or three right away. “Dying For Sex.” “The Studio”, to name just two from this year. Also the reawakening of “Dexter”. And besides “Adolescence” there were several other strong mini-series. But what has been missing for several years is a really big series; one that doesn’t fall apart after a few episodes, repeats itself with themes and emotions, or, like “The Last Of Us”, has to combat the pitfalls of its original.
Actually, this has been the case since the last episode of “Better Call Saul”. The time of quality TV series seems to be over. Sure, “Succession” still had that subtle flicker – a perfect opening scene, a fascinating final scene and perhaps one of the best series episodes of all time.
But the tycoon story was already shaped by the streaming logic of the last few years. For a media satire, there was actually very little about the real everyday life of the media (because it’s more exciting to watch rich assholes mooching around) and the script follows the well-oiled quirks of its characters rather than revealing a large social panorama.
Like a cross between “The Twilight Zone” and “The Leftovers”
Things are completely different with “Pluribus” (runs on AppleTV+). The new series from “Breaking Bad” creator Vince Gilligan finally feels like big series television again. Why is that? She gives the highly talented Rhea Seehorn the leading role she deserves. In Better Call Saul, she basically stole every scene with her almost sinister presence. Every twitch of her mouth is a reflection of a Shakespearean drama.
Here she has to carry a wild story all by herself, which in the pilot film still looks like lingering B-movie references and a mixture of “Twilight Zone” and “The Leftovers”.
The basic idea of the series is so ingenious that it could be dismissed as a simple brainwave: researchers find an alien signal, decode it as a kind of chemical compound, and use it to infect all of humanity at an incredible speed after being put together in the laboratory.
What a punch line: The alien beings from space don’t even have to come to us to meet us. They trigger a pandemic, which, however, does not turn people into aggressive zombies, but rather into almost mindless lucky people who are all connected to each other like a network of roots.
Doesn’t sound like something that could fill more than 90 minutes? That’s exactly what “Pluribus” is all about. The title of the series refers to the American motto “E pluribus unum”. It is the Latin expression for “out of many, one”. It’s just unfortunate that hundreds of millions of lives are lost trying to “join” (as it’s called).
But after the first episode it is clear that not everyone has become stupid fools. 12 people could not be synchronized, including Carol Stark, who was portrayed by Seehorn as sullen and aloof. Before everyone started having a good mood, she wrote horrible fantasy novels for love-starved women in a bad mood. The first episode shows what that means with a rapid succession of moments of shame. In “Pluribus,” humor is a weapon.
The horror of synchronized happiness
“The saddest woman in the world has to save the world from a happiness virus,” Gilligan is said to have told the producer as a shorthand for his story. It turns out pretty quickly that the few immune people don’t mind being surrounded by ever-helpful, cheerful people. Carol, meanwhile, not only suffers from the death of her partner, who was also something like her manager, but also has to witness that every attack of cynicism and anger kills millions of (intrinsically connected) people worldwide who cannot deal with it and collapse, trembling.
And once again the question: How is this all supposed to last more than a few episodes? This is the art of “Pluribus”. The horror panorama slowly unfolds. With each episode, more details about the absurd situation in which Carol finds herself are added. A hand grenade also plays a role, which she initially thinks is a joke. And the inability of the befuddled, conformist people to lie gives the resourceful author some ideas. For example, a conversation in which she elicits from a grinning person that every answer she gets is aimed at helping her, but is always linked to the idea of satisfying her. Their literary output is then unceremoniously compared with Balzac and Tolstoy in order to lure them out of their reserve. This is very reminiscent of ChatGPT and the like, which obediently execute our commands.
After three to four episodes you get the sense that this isn’t just a more brilliantly staged “The X-Files” fantasy. Instead, “Pluribus” shows us the image of a world in which the mechanisms of the social media world, the omnipresence of artificial intelligence and the wellness cult that erases everything melancholic and psychologically ambivalent, bend our thoughts. None of this is addressed. It’s not about a simple message. Especially not about moral pointers or the skilful referencing of genre role models (“The body eaters are coming”!). “Pluribus” is a great social satire in the form of a sci-fi parody, told as idiosyncratically as it is boldly staged.
Like Gilligan’s twin series “Breaking Bad” and “Better Call Saul”, it does not rely on the viewer’s need to be tickled with cliffhangers and flattered by emotional triggers. The two epics mentioned happily defied the expectations of critics; they used similar means to describe the influence of violence, greed and megalomania on two different types of people in a society that cannot counteract the flow of money and drugs. “Breaking Bad” contrasted this with police work and insights into the gangster underworld, while “Better Call Saul” was also, to a large extent, a successful in-depth description of the legal profession.
And the philosophically conceived “Pluribus”? Shows us an author who knows a lot about satisfying other people’s desires and one day wakes up in a brave new world in which that is no longer necessary. Where there is constant satisfaction, spirit and pleasure are no longer necessary. So does it make us human to strive for something that we cannot actually achieve?
In addition to all the things that seem like a clever diagnosis of the present, what is most worrying is that this scenario also reflects a pop culture – from need-fulfillment literature to event TV – that only wants to satisfy its “customers” with its many different methods, but no longer wants to provide any incentive for reflection. Unlike the many doomsday programs of recent years, “Pluribus” is exactly the dystopia we need. And finally real quality TV again!
“Pluribus” runs on AppleTV+. There is a new episode every week. The first episode is currently available to watch for free on Prime Video.