The sci-fi genre is the go-to for scathing commentaries on politics, culture, and society. Hirak Rajar Deshe, a movie produced by the Government of West Bengal, is ironically about fascism, book-burning, and the brainwashing of the youth of the state as much as it is about two goofy guys using music to stun their opponents and high-fiving each other to teleport. Star Wars: A New Hope is an allegory for the United States of America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, and it is also about lightsabers, the Jedi, the Sith, and cool spaceships that travel through hyperspace. Invasion of the Body Snatchers is seen as a critique of McCarthyism as well as an endorsement of anti-communist sentiments, while its creators say it’s just an alien invasion movie. Starship Troopers, till this day, is sometimes celebrated for its parody of the United States military-industrial complex and lambasted for apparently promoting genocide as well, but what everyone agrees on is that it’s damn entertaining. The Eternaut wants to fall in this subgenre of sci-fi, and, given its rich source material, it should. So, where does it falter?
Bruno Stagnaro’s The Eternaut, based on Hector German Oesterheld and Francisco Solano Lopez’s comic book of the same name, opens with three girls—Clara, Tati, and Loli—having a quiet little party on a sailboat in the middle of the ocean. As all the lights in the city go out, and the aurora borealis shows up in the night sky, Clara rushes into the cockpit to make their way back to the shore. But that’s when it starts to snow, and Tati and Loli drop dead. Before we can make head or tail of this incident, the focus of the show shifts to Juan, who arrives at Ana and Favalli’s house for a game of cards, along with Lucas, Polsky, and Polsky’s recently separated brother-in-law, Omar. As they settle in, the snowfall catches up to them, thereby plunging the city into absolute silence; well, because everyone outside dies. Polsky freaks out as he is unable to reach his family due to a total electrical blackout and tries to leave the building and dies. Juan realizes that they’re in the middle of some kind of chemical warfare scenario, and he needs to save his ex-wife, Elena, and his daughter, Clara, while the rest work together to turn Favalli’s home into a safe haven for survivors as well as a fortress that can take on whatever threat is out there.
Oesterheld created The Eternaut when Argentina was in the clutches of brutal fascism. He used sci-fi to comment on the times he was living in while criticizing politicians and the armed forces for their merciless crackdown on rebels and even people who didn’t want to pick sides. And after his alleged custodial death, Oesterheld and the protagonist of his comic, Juan, became symbols of the anti-fascist movement in the country. If you read about Oesterheld’s life, the Dirty War, and the Falklands War—because these things (and more) have been incorporated into the show by Stagnaro and co-writer Ariel Staltari—and then watch the show, you’ll definitely feel inspired to rebel against the forces that render us voiceless, while also gaining a deep understanding of the relationship between art, history, and fascism in South America. But if you go into it blind, the writing is probably going to inspire you to close the video player. I am sure most of South America will be privy to the historical allegories that the writers are referring to in the vaguest of terms, but for those who aren’t history nerds, the whole thing will feel like any other generic alien invasion show (or movie).
The primary criterion that any socio-political satire masquerading as a sci-fi survival adventure has to fulfill is that it has to be engaging, or else it won’t compel anybody to look beyond what’s being presented on the surface. Hirak Rajar Deshe, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, A New Hope, Starship Troopers, and even Edge of Tomorrow (I’m bringing it up because, much like the Netflix show, it has aliens and a time loop) are first and foremost incredibly entertaining. They have relatable characters. The stakes are palpable. There’s a thrill to the ride. The visual storytelling, sound design, production design, art direction, VFX, CGI, SFX, and all the other technical aspects come together in an aesthetically pleasing way. It’s only after these stories have managed to sink in their hooks with their “gimmicks” that they begin reeling you into their allegories and metaphors. The Eternaut certainly has great visuals that look like they’ve been ripped out of Simon Stalenhag’s The Electric State, which makes me think that maybe Stagnaro was better suited to adapt that instead of Oesterhald’s work. However, everything from the characters to the commentary is too boring to get the narrative to register on an emotional level. Props to the team for creating the post-apocalyptic world the show is set in, but I am going to forget everything about it until the potential second season pops up on my Netflix recommendations.
The performances from the cast of The Eternaut are just fine. Ricardo Darin is the star of the show, and he does get to do a lot of stuff, but hardly any of it is memorable. Cesar Troncoso is far more impressionable than Darin, as he channels the energies of every control-freak uncle that you have come across in your life. The best out of the lot, though, is Ariel Staltari. Since he isn’t the main attraction and his character is so unlikable, I think viewers will undermine his work. But the fact that Staltari got me to dislike Omar without even saying a word shows that he has done a great job of getting into the skin of the character. Marcelo Subiotto is alright. Mora Fisz, Andrea Pietra, Oriana Cardenas, and Carla Peterson are woefully underwritten. There are long stretches in the show where you might even forget that they are a part of the narrative. But the actresses make do with what they have. The series has a massive supporting cast, and I am sure that all of them are really talented. However, none of them are given so much as half a moment to shine. They don’t get a line that will stick in your mind. They don’t do anything creative during the action-heavy scenes. They just exist to move the plot forward and then become an afterthought in the mind of the viewer. If this show was written by the alien beetles, I would’ve understood this tactic. Since it has been written by humans, I don’t really get the reasoning behind this approach to character-building and world-building.
The experience of watching The Eternaut was exhausting, and not in a fun way. I was genuinely bored out of my mind going from one tediously paced episode to another. As mentioned before, some of the visuals impressed me, but only in a way where I’d screenshot it and turn it into a wallpaper or something. I won’t look at those screenshots and think about the events leading up to that particular frame or the deeper meaning of the elements in the composition. As a sci-fi fan, I have seen this same thing done so many times, and done better, that I can’t help but find the whole affair to be derivative, which is a shame because its source material is completely original and brimming with substance and style. It’s a good thing that, after all the complicated copyright issues and political turmoil, this story has been adapted and has come out when right-wing politics is engulfing not just Argentina, but also the world. However, I don’t know how accessible it’s going to be if viewers aren’t aware of Hector German Oesterheld and Francisco Solano Lopez’s comics. So, I’ll suggest people who are interested in watching The Eternaut to either read the comic or at the very least read the New Yorker profile on Oesterheld to understand what you are getting into. If that sounds like too much work, just go and watch Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Edge of Tomorrow.
