This is as high profile a release as some other shows, but it’s great example of how much innovation and experimentation is going on in television these days. It’s an anthology series of science-fiction shorts, each unrelated, of varying lengths and made by various animation studios. It’s also very much adults only as it has plenty of nudity and violence. This would have been pretty much impossible to pull off before the era of streaming video as broadcast television would have required consistent episodes lengths and likely more censorship.

Between the wide variety of art styles, studios and genres, the various shorts have little in common save that almost all are fantastically animated. A couple in fact come very close to being photorealistic, making use of known actors to capture their likenesses and expressions. Even those that aren’t have very artsy, stylized looks that make them very unique. If nothing else, these make for very impressive demonstrations of how far animation technology has come and the startling diversity of studios who make a living working on them.

Unfortunately a case could also be made that this series mostly exists as a technological showcase for these studios. Too many of the stories are merely average, being basically action sequences. Shape Shifters about werewolves in Iraq serving under the U.S. military is one example. Another is A Secret War about a platoon of Red Army soldiers hunting monsters in Siberia. Both shorts share the characteristic video game look and that’s not surprising as they were made by studios specializing in video game cinematics. Though their technology is good, their cinematography is awful and only serves to reinforce the CGI nature of the films. An example of how to do it right is Sonnie’s Edge about bioengineered monsters fighting in an arena. It has good tech, a stylized art direction, a decent plot and is directed for dramatic effect rather than to make it look like a video game.

My favorites ones however are the ones that don’t emphasize action and are actually good science-fiction. Zima Blue about an obsessive artist in the far future stands out particularly. Beyond the Aquila Rift about a ship that wanders off course is also decent and looks absolutely amazing. I also liked Good Hunting that fuses fantasy and science-fiction in a sort of steampunk China and Hong Kong setting. This last one deserves to be made into its own television series.

Many of the shorts were adapted from stories by established science-fiction writers. It’s no surprise that Good Hunting was adapted from a story by Ken Liu. I enjoyed recognizing familiar names like John Scalzi, Alastair Reynolds, Michael Swanwick etc. Overall however the quality is merely decent, brought down by too many action-focused films and some that are actively horrible such as Sucker as Souls, a trite horror story about excavating an ancient monster, and Blindspot, a boring story about robots pulling off a heist. I’d watch a second season, but more actual science-fiction please.