‘Cleverman’ adds thoughtful premise to sci-fi miniseries
“Cleverman” is unlike any other TV miniseries you've seen before.
The gritty Australian production uses a sci-fi backdrop to test notions of racial identity and integration with a twist of supernatural terror.
It imagines a world in which “Hairypeople” have lived alongside humans for thousands of years.
The Hairies earned their nickname because of their distinguishing physical characteristic, thick, matted hair. They have enhanced strength, reflexes and a life span that stretches to 200 years.
They are also a besieged minority. Officially classified as “sub-human,” they are under attack on all fronts, subject to government quarantine, imprisonment, assaults and gruesome experimentation.
While some Hairies agree to the quarantine, others struggle to live on the outside as free people. Some try to assimilate by shaving their bodies.
Within this community, a “Cleverman” is a mystical leader, teacher and a conduit to the Dreaming, part of the Australian Aboriginal mythology that imagines a realm outside of time with powerful spirits.
Uncle Jimmy (Jack Charles) needs a successor in his clan, one who can wield the power, but his choice is not the obvious one. His actions also open a door to a monster who rips the hearts out of its victims.
Waruu (Rob Collins) seeks to act as an advocate for his people. His half-brother Koen (Hunter Page-Lochard) runs a bar and offers refuge to other Hairies, for a price. “People can be such animals,” he jokes to one desperate family. He is not to be trusted.
“Game of Thrones'” Iain Glen — Daenerys' devoted Jorah — is the most recognizable face here, playing a ruthless media mogul anxious to conceive a child with his physician wife, who works in a clinic serving Hairies.
The first episode is confusing, introducing a multitude of characters and agendas. Stay with it. The second episode brings several of the characters and the conflicts into focus.
You might have to suspend your disbelief a bit as a couple of the Hairies look like the Geico caveman. It's a shock when one is forcibly shaved in prison.
A Hairy teenager hides for a time with a kindly elderly woman. “You have to decide who it is you want to be,” she advises the girl.
But in “Cleverman,” claiming an identity is no easy decision, not when the world seems pitted against you.