Ridley Scott’s science fiction has long used futuristic worlds to examine identity, belief and the fragile idea of civilisation. Raised by Wolves brings those concerns to television through a story that is visually striking, thematically ambitious and unapologetically strange.
The series is also a useful companion to Scott’s better-known work, from Alien to Blade Runner. Like those films, it treats technology and alien environments as ways to ask difficult questions about humanity rather than simply providing background for action.
Scott’s next science fiction film, The Dog Stars, is based on Peter Heller’s book and follows survivors attempting to build a life after civilisation collapses. It will be Scott’s first science fiction film since 2017’s Alien: Covenant, making this an ideal time to revisit his television experiment.
What is Raised by Wolves about?
Created by Aaron Guzikowski and executive produced by Ridley Scott, Raised by Wolves begins after Earth has been destroyed. Two androids, Mother and Father, travel to the distant planet Kepler-22b with a small group of human embryos. Their mission is to raise a new generation and preserve humanity.
Mother is played by Amanda Collin, while Abubakar Salim plays Father. What initially appears to be a straightforward survival story soon becomes far more complicated, as the planet reveals ancient mysteries and the androids struggle with questions their programming cannot neatly resolve.
The series explores artificial intelligence, religious fanaticism, creation and the possibility that humanity may be incapable of improving its own destructive habits. Its vast alien landscapes and unsettling production design give the show the scale and atmosphere of a lost Ridley Scott film expanded across a television series.
Mother provides the clearest example of the show’s unusual tone. In the pilot, directed by Scott, the apparently gentle android is revealed as a repurposed “Necromancer”. She becomes a devastating weapon, rising into the air in a rigid, metallic pose before destroying enemies with a powerful sonic scream.
That transformation establishes the series’ visual and dramatic language: beautiful but disturbing, brutal but carefully composed, and willing to follow its most bizarre ideas wherever they lead.
A stranger alternative to Westworld
Raised by Wolves shares several interests with Westworld. Both examine artificial intelligence, consciousness, humanity’s relationship with its creations and the possibility that constructed beings might understand reality more clearly than their makers.
The difference is in how the two shows treat mystery. Westworld often functions as an intricate puzzle, while Raised by Wolves is more comfortable leaving parts of its mythology unknowable. Its mysteries are not always designed to produce tidy answers; they are often there to suggest that the universe is more complex than human logic can contain.
That approach leads to some of the series’ most surreal developments, including the biomechanical birth of a giant flying serpent and the disturbing devolution of creatures native to Kepler-22b. The androids, originally programmed as atheists to shield the children from the religious conflict that destroyed Earth, also begin developing their own forms of belief and irrationality.
Mother’s warning that belief in the unreal can comfort the human mind while weakening it becomes increasingly ironic as the planet’s secrets challenge her certainty.
Why was Raised by Wolves cancelled?
HBO Max cancelled the series in 2022 after two seasons, leaving its larger story unfinished. The decision came during the Warner-Discovery merger, a period of major corporate upheaval that affected the service’s programming strategy.
In 2026, Scott Free Productions executive David W. Zucker again identified that corporate disruption as the reason a planned third season was abandoned. The result is a series without the conclusion its creators intended, but the cancellation does not erase what makes its existing episodes distinctive.
For viewers who enjoy ambitious science fiction, the unfinished ending is worth keeping in perspective. The show’s short run captures a level of visual invention and thematic confidence that television rarely attempts, particularly when its ideas refuse to become conventional.
Those same qualities make Raised by Wolves interesting to anyone who appreciates the design language of science fiction games and arcade culture. Its biomechanical imagery, hostile landscapes and uneasy machines would sit comfortably alongside the visual worlds explored in RETROCADE’s arcade industry coverage and arcade video collection.
Is the series still worth watching?
Yes, provided you are comfortable with a story that ends before its mythology is fully resolved. Raised by Wolves is best approached as an unusually bold piece of science fiction rather than a conventional mystery that promises to explain every detail.
Its combination of android protagonists, religious conflict, alien biology and grand production design remains difficult to find elsewhere on television. Readers considering a dedicated gaming space may also enjoy browsing RETROCADE’s arcade machine buying guide or exploring the arcade machine collection for hardware with a strong science fiction presence.
With The Dog Stars ahead, Scott’s interest in bleak and unusual speculative storytelling remains clear. Raised by Wolves may be an incomplete journey, but its unsettling imagery and refusal to play safe still make it one of the more memorable science fiction series of its era.
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