origin
Mysteries and Menace in a new starship-based show
SEASON 1 US BROADCAST YouTube Premium, TBC UK BROADCAST YouTube Premium, TBC COUNTRy Of ORigiN US
yOUTUBE PREmiUm’S gETTiNg AmBiTiOUS with Origin, its high-end Sf story about a bunch of dodgy humans heading for a fresh start on a newly colonised planet. Halfway there, they wake up to find most of the ship (the Origin) evacuated and something attacking those left behind.
Created by Brit writer mika Watkins, the show plays like a mash-up of Lost and Dark matter, and features an international cast, from Tom felton to Natalia Tena to Sen mitsuji. As Watkins tells SfX, the idea of outer space is terrifying to her: “it’s the fear of the unknown and black space that’s just outside our Solar System. And i didn’t want to write something that was about space adventurers, or astronauts, or scientists. i wanted to write something that was about ordinary people that were lost in that kind of nightmare scenario. And because i approach everything from a character perspective, the core of the show is really, can you change who you are?”
Each episode will reveal a character on the Origin’s backstory via flashbacks, and Watkins says that in the first 10 episodes, each core cast member will get that focus… except one. “We wanted to leave one person as a mystery,” she teases. “if we do a second season, that’s quite exciting for us.”
Watkins also collaborated with Paul WS Anderson, who directed the first two episodes and established the dark aesthetic. “He gave it so much scale and so much ambition,” she enthuses. “And he enhanced the script, but he didn’t feed me lots of nitty gritty notes. it was more like, ‘This is gonna make the theatre presentation that we all want.’ The opening was also his idea, and i think he just really enhanced it to another level.”