Origin, YouTube Premium
Ahead of its web release last Wednesday, it was Origin’s own origins that were making the news – famously, its young Welsh creator, Mika Watkins, was working as an intern on Netflix drama The Crown when she was spotted by uber-producer Andy Harries and offered the Big Break of showbiz legend. Now, her 10-part sci-fi horror is arguably YouTube Premium’s most high-profile original series to date and at 29 she’s one of the youngest showrunners in TV-land – if the paid-for video-streaming platform counts as TV-land.
As for Origin itself, well on the basis of the first two episodes it’s a fairly unoriginal blend of everything Ridley Scott ever made that was set in outer space or the near future, with a few borrowings from Lost to add an extra dimension. Such as character back stories which are drip-fed to the viewer through the use of glossy flashbacks. It also has one of those uneven multinational casts which are a blatant attempt to appeal to viewers on every continent – episode one has lengthy passages in Japanese as well as exchanges in both Swahili and Arabic. It even makes a play for the Millennials. Starring roles are given to British actors Tom Felton and Natalia Tena, respectively Draco Malfoy and Nymphadora Tonks in the Harry Potter films.
Tena plays Lana, the second “passenger” on board the transport ship Origin to wake from deep sleep to discover that where she is supposed to be – on Thea, the first newly discovered planet to be able to support human life – is not where she actually is. First out of the deep sleep pod was Shun (Sen Mitsuji), a Yakuza hitman who, like Lana, has been seduced by the promise of a new life and a clean slate on the pioneer planet. (Prospective colonisers don 3D glasses and are treated to a sort of sales pitch delivered on a beach by Tara Fitzgerald). Shun’s back story in a Bladerunner-style near-future Tokyo plays out like a slick, neon-drenched gangster flick. Lana’s begins in a vast, glass house, home to the US senator it was her job to protect.
One by one the others wake to find the ship deserted and apparently stranded in space – or not quite deserted, as we realised when we shifted from Bladerunner/Lost into full-on Alien mode with the discovery of a foul-smelling room which had been sealed tight. For a very good reason. In space, no-one can hear you scream – but they can hear you deliver hokey lines like “Do you have any idea what’s going on?”. And whether they laugh out loud or go with the flow may determine how well Origin fares out there on the web.
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