GENLOCK: THE FIRST SEASON (2018-19)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *marvelous*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *cosmological, psychological*

The first eight episodes of this series (and four short teasers) are organized on this DVD as one continuous feature, as opposed to episodes separated by opening theme song and end credits. After the animation company that produced the show went under, HBO completed a second season, which I've not seen.

I'm not a big fan of mecha-shows, but this American effort rates with most of the Japanese programs I've seen in terms of characterization. As in many other shows, a futuristic Earth lies in peril from a menace that's mostly unseen except for antagonistic mecha and a handful of enemy soldiers. In this case, the Earth-government known as The Polity is coming close to destruction at the hands of The Union, whose origins are never discussed. Only a new breed of mecha, "Holons," stands a chance to beat back the superior forces of the Union. But only a handful of individuals can successfully mind-merge with the Holon-mecha, allowing GENLOCK to focus on a small ensemble of five defenders.

Of the five, four are given various character schticks but don't particularly come alive as characters: Japanese Kazu (who unlike the others never speaks anything but his native language, always helpfully subtitled), Russian Val (the "gender-fluid" one), Iranian Yaz (who, despite having defected from the Union, never says much about the goals or nature of her former allies), and Scottish Cammie (who supplies most of the comedy relief). The scripters put much more effort into the group's leader, American Julian Chase (voiced by Michael B. Jordan). Chase loses both his body and his family in a Union attack, but the genius of GenLock's creator Doctor Weller (David Tennant) preserves a portion of Chase's body in a tank and manages to translate his mind into an entity capable of merging with a Holon. For the remainder of the first season, Chase can only interact with others by projecting a holograph of his normal body. When his survival is made public, his former girlfriend Miranda, who's believed Chase to be dead for the past four years, is more than a little ticked off.

Though the four newbies to the Holon program have to be shepherded into doing the right thing for the sake of their world, the scripts don't create much interpersonal conflict, probably because that sort of thing would have distracted from numerous training-scenes with the giant robots. The CGI animation for all the mecha-action is lively if a bit (heh) mechanical, but the various speedbumps encountered by the trainees doesn't make up for the amorphousness of the opponents they're training to fight.

In the latter half of the series, though, the Union steals a march on the Polity. They manage to steal a Holon and make a copy of Chase's mental pattern, and through a process of brainwashing they make the rogue Holon's pilot into a deranged spirit called Nemesis. This attack-mecha not only can counter the five defending robots of the Polity, it can also track them thanks to being on Chase's mental wavelength. Nemesis's status as a dark reflection of Chase gives this villain much more heft than any of the anonymous Union minions. The scripts raise the question-- without answering it-- as to what sort of identity Chase actually has as a mental construct, given that he's said not even to be the first copy of Chase's brain-patterns, but "a copy of a copy."

All the business about the necessity of merging minds with mecha also creates a dynamic that requires the five combatants to share mentalities in order to up their game against Nemesis. This is accomplished a little too easily and introduced pretty late in the game, so that the GenLockers' success isn't very compelling.

The first season has a tidy conclusion but includes a teaser for the second and probably last season.