Beacon 23 review: An enjoyable, if wildly uneven, sci-fi series

In the world Beacon 23 imagines, humankind has reached the farthest corners of the universe. Beacons—intergalactic lighthouses designed to help spaceships navigate treacherous terrain in outer space—have been erected all over. It’s in one of those that this adaptation of Hugh Howey’s same-titled novel is set. The arrival of a strange visitor disturbs what appears to be the lonely and alienating life of the beacon’s sole keeper, who’s only had his AI to keep him company for perhaps way too long. With an intriguing premise that splinters into a rather fragmented first season made up of plenty of self-contained episodes, this MGM+ series, which premieres November 12, is an enjoyable if wildly uneven ride.

When a ship crashes near Beacon 23 (due to what appears to be a system malfunction), its keeper has no choice but to retrieve the one person who survived the improbable wreckage. But when Aster (Lena Headey) awakes aboard this sleek-looking outer-space post, she’s immediately wary of the man (Stephan James) who introduces himself as the beacon keeper. We soon learn, though, that the two are not who they appear to be. Moreover, their arrival at Beacon 23 unearths hidden agendas that pit them against one another—and against the beacon’s AI, BART (voiced by Wade Bogert-O’Brien), who’s intent on getting justice for some bloodshed that predated Aster’s arrival.

The mystery surrounding why Aster has wormed her way into this beacon and why this keeper (who may not be who he says he is) has found himself stranded right alongside her makes for an intriguing proposition. Their mutual mistrust lets Headey and James color in much of the wounded solitude that’s kept these two figures alive amid a world run by a craven corporation that, with the help of AI all over the universe, has let many a planet (like Aster’s own) starve and die in the process. By the time the two are forced to work together to fend off increasing threats from the outside world (from wreckers, former allies, powerful AI, and, curiously, an “Artifact” that may prove there is alien life out there after all), this unlikely pair come to anchor a provocative new entry in 21st century TV sci-fi fare.

Beacon 23 is at its best when its laser focus stays on its two protagonists as they try to figure out if they’re friends or foes—and while, in the process, they interact not just with BART but with Aster’s personal AI, Harmony (Natasha Mumba), both of whom feel like prescient characters amid ongoing conversations about the role artificial intelligence can play in our day-to-day lives. Indeed, all four actors here are truly engaging. Headey rightly captures the wearied frustrations of a woman who can only depend on herself to survive, while James (in a bit of a Homecoming echo) imbues his character with wounded frustration that makes him equally irascible and vulnerable. And Bogert-O’Brien (using only his voice) and Mumba (appearing as a hologram throughout) carefully color in their respective AI with enough personality to make them welcome heirs to HAL. At times, you almost forget they’re facsimiles of people and thus perhaps not as trustworthy as they appear.