Raised by Wolves

From Alien to Blade Runner to The Martian, director Ridley Scott has often presented bleak tales of human survival, frequently occurring in desolate science fiction environments where artificial intelligence (A.I.) is on the rise.

That makes his latest, the HBO Max series Raised by Wolves, a kind of ur-text for the director: Set on a harsh far-flung planet, it follows a half-dozen children as they're raised by a pair of humanoid A.I.s, one with unusual abilities, after escaping a religious war on earth. The A.I.s and their children were sent by atheists, but soon a massive colony ship of sun-worshippers arrives. Conflict ensues.

It's a portrait of a divided society, one torn between the soft comforts of faith and the ugly rigors of science, and a story about how easily one can become the other.