Its been a long time since I have said much so I wanted to quickly post that I am watching the new Apple TV sci fi show, Pluribus, created by Vince Gilligan (of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul fame).

The basic idea, without giving away too much, is that a signal is received from a planet, later determined to be Kepler 22b (SB note: a relatively recently discovered exoplanet that may be in its star’s habitable zone. Its been discussed as a planet that has some potential for life to exist). The signal is not a message as such. Again, without giving away too much, when its decoded, all hell breaks loose.

Regardless of the set up, its NOT “hard sci fi.” We don’t see aliens, just evidence of alien tech. Its hard to say whether we ever will see the aliens. My bet its on “no” or perhaps at the very end of the series. No ventures into space (and I don’t think there will be, at least not any time soon), Its really more about how the survivors of this post-signal disaster deal with what is left.

So, is it good? Like “Saul” especially (and a bit like Breaking Bad), its slow going. We get into the disaster quickly enough. But we are slow to get out character development . Though this is frustrating, its done so expertly by Gilligan that we end up not minding. The cinematography is literally breath taking at times. The script is fairly light for such a dark subject (for instance one of the main character’s has a partner die fairly early on in this mess). Its never loses its serious attempts at dealing with the philosophical or loses its humor when its characters do absurd things (which everyone eventually does).

Is the science accurate? To the extent that it bows to science, much of it is accurate (though I don’t know as much about the biological stuff that happens here). That is, they have astronomers (and some of the people in the room that are filmed are actual observatory staff) receiving a signal at the VLA in New Mexico (and hats off to Gilligan for *not* having them “listen” to the signal as in Contact). Since the VLA is near the setting of the show (Albuquerque), this makes sense for some of chain of events in the opening of the show. They later reveal some facts about Kepler 22b, and they are mostly accurate (though, hey Rod Serling and Irwin Allen didn’t have Google). Although I know less about the biomed stuff, it does seem odd that a woman handling a potentially infected lab rat takes off her protective gloves to more closely examine the rat. Bad idea, and I don’t think a real lab technician would ever do such a thing, knowing the potential consequences.

Anyway, I’m interested. I won’t do a weekly posting on the show, but if we get more science by the end of the season in a few days, I’ll post again.

I am also interested in some other sci fi on Apple, so look out for some comments on For All Man Kind, perhaps Severance, and some others.

And if you like discussions of this sort of stuff, buy my book Physics and Astronomy of Science Fiction (or if you must, borrow it from a library, many of which have electronic copies).

I am hoping to get out a second sci fi oriented book one of these centuries.