Next week, Apple TV will debut the highly anticipated sci-fi series Pluribus from Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan. In advance of the premiere, The New York Times has published a preview that reveals a variety of fresh details for the mysterious series.
Pluribus is a ‘high-budget, high-concept’ swing for Apple TV
Pluribus premieres on Apple TV next Friday, November 7 with its first two episodes. The series was first announced over three years ago.
Austin Considine at The New York Times got to spend two days on the set of Pluribus during the show’s filming. Now, his in-depth report and preview of the series has been published.
The article covers a lot of ground and is well worth a read if you’re interested in the series. But here are some of the highlights.
Considine mentions the grandiose scale of the series overall, both in concept and budget.
He says it’s “in many ways as big as modern TV gets: high-budget, high-concept, a deep character study that combines science fiction, philosophy and sociopolitical allegory.”
The word pluribus means “many,” but Gilligan looks increasingly like one of the last of the TV auteurs standing. If ever there were a moment to take a big swing, this may be it, and “Pluribus,” which debuts on Nov. 7, bears all the markings of one. It is sprawling, meticulous and deeply personal, the vision of a man who has had many of his own wishes fulfilled but, by his own admission, struggled to find fulfillment.
The article highlights how series like Pluribus are becoming more rare in the TV landscape due to budget cuts and Hollywood’s drift toward safer bets.
Apple has given “Pluribus” two seasons, but nobody knows whether it will go beyond that — or whether viewers will stick with it even that long. This ersatz slice of upper-middle-class suburbia could amount to an expensive short-term investment without much return, but then, money didn’t appear to be in short supply, as became clear over a two-day visit — and even clearer after viewing several episodes. Need a helicopter? No problem. Need to commandeer a Lockheed C-130 and a portion of the tarmac at Albuquerque International? This, too, can be done. (Apple declined to share budget figures.)
Clearly, Apple was more than happy to go all-in on Breaking Bad’s creator Vince Gilligan—including ponying up financially.
Plot details and Rhea Seehorn’s lead character, Carol
Though Apple apparently has an extensive list of off-topic spoilers that the NYT piece had to avoid, it nonetheless does contain some fresh insights into what to expect from the plot and lead character.
Considine writes that the series is “about the mysterious arrival of peace on earth and the one woman who can’t stand it.”
At the far end of the cul-de-sac stood the home of the lead character, Carol, a successful author and chronic malcontent played by Rhea Seehorn. One day, Carol finds, for reasons hard to describe because of Apple’s extensive spoiler list, that almost everyone on Earth but her is happy. All conflict has vanished, self-loathing too. A mysterious signal from outer space has created a kind of utopia, fulfilling the wishes of countless dreamers since the dawn of humanity. This makes Carol, suddenly and literally, the unhappiest person on Earth.
And yet she prefers that to the alternative.
Creator Gilligan came up with the concept during the early seasons of Better Call Saul, inspired by his own lifelong struggle to find lasting happiness. He then wrote several scripts with Seehorn in mind for the lead role before ever talking to her.
“Vince said, and I quote, ‘Well, I wrote something for you if you’re interested,’” Seehorn recalled. “I was like, ‘If I’m interested?’ So I started bawling.”
When she finished crying, she agreed. But Gilligan was “a little reluctant,” he said, to then set a show in Albuquerque that stars the actress who played Kim. There was a fear it might taint viewers’ experiences. (And indeed Seehorn is in almost every scene; for significant stretches it is effectively a one-woman show.)
Gilligan made a point to never shoot somewhere that would have been identifiable from Better Call Saul or Breaking Bad. He also said, “it was important that Rhea Seehorn didn’t have a ponytail.”
Some other highlights from the article include:
- Close connections between Pluribus and the film Invasion of the Body Snatchers
- Seehorn personally highlighted the series’ relation to Brave New World and Farenheit 451
- The setting of Albuquerque, which was actually the second choice after Gilligan intended a Southern California setting
- Philosophical questions the series wrestles with
You can find the full article here.
Do you plan to watch Pluribus when it hits Apple TV? Let us know in the comments.
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