What I’m Watching: Raised by Wolves

Raised by Wolves: Season 1, Episode 7 “Faces” (C+)

I’m becoming less and less convinced that this show is headed somewhere interesting, which makes the prospect of a second season, which this show was renewed for today, not all that appealing. We knew that both Mother and Father had been reprogrammed so that they would function as parents, and now, after that, attempts are being made to once again change their prime directives. That worked immediately on Father, who Campion was devastated to see wasn’t the same ally he had always been able to rely on, while Mother was able to resist and even shared some damaging information about Marcus that should have completely outed him as an impostor. It’s hard to believe that Lucius, faithful servant that he might be, would be so blind to every clear sign that Marcus isn’t a true believer, and hearing explicitly from Mother that he is an atheist posing as the man he sees before him should have been the last straw that convinced him to take charge. Sue doesn’t even want to pretend anymore, and her love for Paul is likely to going to result in her sharing the truth with him, which I have a feeling won’t go well. Campion is not happy to conform and accept the religion that’s being pushed on him, and given Mother’s resilience even while she no longer had her eyes or anything resembling the upper hand, I think this temporary settlement is very much at risk of collapsing. It would be worthwhile to see Marcus consider using Mother to his advantage and reframing what remains of society on this planet in a way that aligns more closely to his actual worldview, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.

Round Two: Perception

Perception: Season 1, Episode 2 “Faces” (C+)

Though I’m still not convinced that there’s much to this show, I will concede that this hour does a much better job of showcasing prosopagnosia than last year’s Milla Jovovich starrer “Faces in the Crowd.” Daniel may be obnoxious, but it’s hard to argue with the effectiveness of the test he conducted in which he dressed Kate differently and introduced her to Frank as an entirely new person. This case was laden with incestuous complexity, since Frank, the initial suspect, was actually a culprit all along, even though he didn’t murder the person they thought because she wasn’t actually dead. Unfortunately, Daniel’s ability to recognize faces doesn’t also come with a clear grip on reality. Hallucinating a mole on the task force did assist him in solving the case but also made him seem crazy, and it’s unclear whether he was actually visited and threatened by a Ukrainian man who told him to stop helping the FBI. His therapist’s suggestion that there’s another kind of mole, one that burrows underground, suggests that this show will try to make its storylines as layered and full of subtext as possible, if only to seem more intellectual. I predicted the big reveal that Kelly Rowan’s Natalie wasn’t real midway through the hour, and I’m not sure it changes much other than to explain that Daniel really does have no one in whom to confide. I’m thrilled to see Jamie Bamber, of Apollo of “Battlestar Galactica” fame, as a new hire in Daniel’s department, and I’d love to hear his take on the workings of the brain and see him in action working with Daniel.