Beacon 23
From Wikipedia the free encyclopedia
| Beacon 23 | |
|---|---|
| Genre | |
| Created by | Zak Penn |
| Based on | Beacon 23 by Hugh Howey |
| Starring |
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| Theme music composer | Ramin Djawadi |
| Composer | William Marriott |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 2 |
| No. of episodes | 10 |
| Production | |
| Executive producers |
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| Producers |
|
| Production location | Toronto |
| Cinematography |
|
| Running time | 44–49 minutes |
| Production companies |
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| Original release | |
| Network | MGM+ |
| Release | November 12, 2023 – present |
Beacon 23 is an American science fiction psychological thriller television series created by Zak Penn, based on the short story series of the same name by Hugh Howey. Starring Lena Headey and Stephan James, the show is a co-production between Spectrum and Boat Rocker Media. Although originally greenlit by Spectrum Originals and AMC Networks, the series premiered on MGM+ on November 12, 2023, in the United States.[1] The second season is scheduled to premiere on April 7, 2024.[2]
Set in the 23rd century, Beacon 23 takes place on a remote "lighthouse" in space.
Premise[edit]
Beacon 23 follows Aster and Halan, two people whose fates become entangled after they find themselves trapped together at the end of the known universe. Aster mysteriously finds her way to a lonely beacon keeper, on his lighthouse in the darkest recesses of space. A tense battle of wills unfolds as Halan begins to question whether Aster is friend or foe as her ability to disguise her agenda and motives could make her a formidable opponent.[3]
Cast and characters[edit]
- Lena Headey as Aster Calyx
- Stephan James as Halan Kai Nelson
- Natasha Mumba as Harmony
- Wade Bogert-O'Brien as Bart
- Stephen Root as Solomon
- Barbara Hershey as Sophie
- Eric Lange as Milan/Aleph
- Marc Menchaca as Keir
- Jess Salgueiro as Saldana
- Daniel Malik as Finch
- Marnie McPhail as Kanadey
- Carolina Bartczak as Dr. Ree Avalon
- Cyrus Faird as Tech Wrecker
- Tara Rosling as Randall
- Sandrine Holt as Coley
- A.J. Simmons as Farut, Parsim's father
- Sydney Meyer as Grisha, Parsim's mother
- Matilda Legault as Parsim
Episodes[edit]
Series overview[edit]
| Season | Episodes | Originally released | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| First released | Last released | |||
| 1 | 8 | November 12, 2023 | December 17, 2023 | |
| 2 | 8[4] | April 7, 2024 | May 26, 2024 | |
Season 1 (2023)[edit]
| No. | Title | Directed by | Teleplay by | Original release date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | "Corbenic" | Daniel Percival | Zak Penn and Allison Moore | November 12, 2023 | |
| Halan is the sole person running the Interstellar Space Authority's Beacon 23, a stellar lighthouse in deep space. An oncoming ship, the Crest, is destroyed by dark matter obstacles despite Halan's attempts to warn the crew; Aster is the sole survivor that Halan is able to bring on board. Aster has traveled there in response to reports sent from Beacon 23 about a mysterious mineral, and she quickly figures out that Halan is not the beacon's actual keeper, Solomon. Halan is an AWOL soldier who has PTSD-related hallucinations of his last, failed mission. Halan claims that Solomon stole his ship and left, but Bart, Beacon 23's computer, claims that Halan killed Solomon. Halan attempts to subdue Aster, but she turns the tables on him with the help of Harmony, her personal AI. Halan negotiates a deal where he'll help Aster find Solomon's rock samples, in return for being given a small cutter ship to leave the beacon. Aster finds the rocks, but refuses to let Halan leave. An unfamiliar ship arrives at Beacon 23 and docks without authorization. | |||||
| 2 | "Wreckers" | Daniel Percival | Zak Penn | November 12, 2023 | |
| The new arrivals are a gang of Wreckers who were hired to loot the remains of the Crest, but were warned against taking Beacon 23. They hack Bart, who cannot reboot properly despite Harmony's efforts. Kennedy, one of the Wreckers, is also a former minister of a colony that collapsed after its beacon failed. Halan reluctantly teams up with Aster, who helps him charge up his cybernetic enhancements so he can fight the Wreckers. Halan learns that Aster does not work for the Interstellar Space Authority, but was hired by a company, QTA, who also hired the Wreckers. Aster makes a deal with Kennedy to give Halan passage off the beacon, but Halan decides to stay. The rocks cause Halan's PTSD hallucinations to worsen. Aster kills Battle, the Wreckers' leader, while Chick, the last Wrecker survivor, leaves on the Wreckers' ship. | |||||
| 3 | "Why Can't We Go On as Three?" | Daniel Percival | Teleplay by : Ira Steven Behr Story by : Ira Steven Behr & Richard Kahan | November 19, 2023 | |
| Aster shows Halan that under the microscope, the mineral's structure looks like the pendant she received from her mother. Harmony successfully revives Bart, who continues to insist that Halan killed Solomon, but Harmony classifies that death as an accident. Aster's colleague and lover, Coley, arrives at Beacon 23 to help Aster transport the rocks; she is suspicious of Halan, believing that he's also after the rocks. While waiting for safe conditions to leave, Aster tries to get Halan and Coley to bond, but Coley looks up Halan's file, which details how he abandoned his squad, in an attempt to drive a wedge between Aster and Halan. Aster is angered when she figures out that QTA had the Crest destroyed on purpose, risking her life, and that Coley knew that was the plan. Coley tries to kill Halan, but Aster kills Coley first. | |||||
| 4 | "God In the Machine" | Erskine Forde | Matthew J. Wygodny | November 26, 2023 | |
| A hundred and eighty years earlier, powerful QTA industrialist Milan Aleph arrives at Beacon 23 incognito in order to get information on an Artifact that visited Beacon 23 and was observed by the beacon's previous, first keeper. Milan is searching for the means for immortality and the metaphysical advancement of humankind, which he believes can be found with the Artifact. Milan poisons the current keeper, but Bart revives her, and she debates Milan on his beliefs in the hope of changing his mind. Bart believes that Milan will cause a genocide in pursuit of immortality and, ignoring the keeper's protests, locks Milan in an airlock to suffocate him. Just before Milan dies, he activates a new AI in his likeness, Aleph. Aleph asks the keeper to work with him but she refuses, saying she can no longer trust any AI, including Bart. | |||||
| 5 | "Rocky" | Oz Scott | Allison Moore and Dagny Atencio Looper | December 3, 2023 | |
| Aster has Harmony recover footage from Halan's last mission, which reveals that his squad encountered the same mineral and that Halan breathed it in. The mineral altered Halan's brain; Aster believes the mineral deliberately manipulated Halan into coming to Beacon 23, but Harmony argues that the mineral is merely a virus. Bart shows Aster and Harmony footage of Halan's arrival on Beacon 23 — Halan forced entry and took over despite Solomon's attempts to resist, and Solomon later tried to escape on Halan's ship, the Amboyna, not realizing that its oxygen supply was diminished. Halan hallucinates that one of rocks can talk to him; it, along with hallucinations of Harmony and Gashade, one his squad members, convince Halan to open the beacon's storage unit, releasing the rock samples into space. Halan and Aster watch the rocks move in an unnatural formation outside Beacon 23, forming the Artifact. | |||||
| 6 | "Beacon Twenty Three" | Oz Scott | Zak Penn & Allison Moore | December 10, 2023 | |
| Column is a resistance group that protests space expansion at the cost of humanity, and whose tenets are founded on the relics they believe come from an alien civilization. Keir, a Column saboteur, is preparing to destroy Beacon 23, but is delayed long enough to be arrested when Bart tells him about the Artifact, the origin of the relics. The Artifact was first observed by Beacon 23's first keeper, Dr. Ree Avalon, who attempted to measure it despite no AI sensors being able to observe it. Avalon had increasingly vivid hallucinations, and mysteriously disappeared when approaching the Artifact during an EVA. Later, a pair of married Beacon 23 keepers, Farut and Grisha, and their illegal child who was born on the beacon, Parsim, all observed the Artifact. Parsim grew erratic the more she saw the Artifact, and Farut became obsessed with understanding the Artifact. Desperate, Grisha used the beacon's drones to crash into the Artifact, scattering the rocks and rendering them visible to Bart's sensors. The family flee Beacon 23 with new identities ― Parsim is Aster. | |||||
| 7 | "End Transmission" | Greg Beeman | Richard Kahan | December 17, 2023 | |
| In flashback, Solomon arrives at Beacon 23 shortly after Keir is arrested, and he deletes Bart's memories to start anew. In present time, Aster and Halan take shifts to observe the restored Artifact's appearances, and Aster's memories of her childhood on Beacon 23 return to her. Keir returns to Beacon 23 hoping to learn more about the Artifact and Aster's connection to it. Keir brings with him with fellow Column agents Finch and Saldana, who antagonize Aster, Halan and Bart. QTA attack ships make their way to the beacon. Halan, with Bart's help, leaves on a cutter to reach the Amboyna, which has returned to the beacon despite being out of fuel. Inside the Amboyna, Halan finds another rock and releases it to space, allowing it to return to the Artifact. Bart is enraged when he realizes that his earlier memories were permanently deleted by Solomon, and he commits suicide by self-destruct. Halan turns the Amboyna around to return to Beacon 23. | |||||
| 8 | "Adamantine" | Tessa Blake | Zak Penn & Ira Steven Behr | December 17, 2023 | |
| Aster communes with the Artifact, which gives her visions of herself as a child, and later visions of her adult self and Halan inside the Artifact. Halan destroys the QTA ships and returns to the beacon to try to get Aster to leave, but she wants to go into the Artifact and invites Halan to join her. Aleph, the quantum AI in charge of QTA, arrives in a giant mothership; he had arranged Aster's mission in order to restore and gain knowledge about the Artifact. Saldana and Finch receive a message from the Column, instructing them to destroy Beacon 23 to kill Aleph, but they are stopped by Harmony and told to leave. Aster makes a deal with Aleph that she and Halan will enter the Artifact with the option to return in 24 hours, and they will give Aleph whatever data he wants. Keir, believing the Artifact's message is meant only for humans and not AI, shoots Aster. As Aster bleeds out, she has a vision of herself receiving the Artifact's message. | |||||
Season 2[edit]
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by [5] | Original release date [4] | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9 | 1 | "Godspeed" | Kevin Sullivan | Glen Mazzara | April 7, 2024 | |
| Aster is declared dead. Halan at first rejects Aleph's request that he fulfill Aster's deal by entering the Artifact, but he pretends to change his mind when Aleph threatens Halan's father. Halan works with Saldana, Keir and Finch to launch a sneak suicide attack on Aleph's mothership, with the bombs hidden with Aster's body. Halan launches the Amboyna, but instead of attacking the mothership, he sends Aster's body into the Artifact, causing the Artifact to explode. Aleph kills Saldana, Keir and Finch, removes Harmony, and leaves Halan alone on the damaged Beacon 23. | ||||||
| 10 | 2 | "Purgatory" | Lewin Webb | Sarah Nolen | April 14, 2024 | |
| 11 | 3 | "Iris" | TBA | Michael Ouzas | April 21, 2024 | |
| 12 | 4 | "Berth" | TBA | Joy Blake | April 28, 2024 | |
| 13 | 5 | "Song of Sorrow" | TBA | Glen Mazzara | May 5, 2024 | |
| 14 | 6 | "Luan Casca" | TBA | Mikayla Gingrey & Nate O'Mahoney | May 12, 2024 | |
| 15 | 7 | "Free" | TBA | Christina Martin | May 19, 2024 | |
| 16 | 8 | "Disintegration" | TBA | Joy Blake | May 26, 2024 | |
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
Initial development of the series was announced in 2018.[6] In March 2021, Lena Headey was named as the series lead.[7] In September 2021, Stephan James was named as the co-star of the series.[8] Prior to the show's initial broadcast, it was announced that the series would be picked up for a second season. Along with the announcement of the renewal for a second season, it was also reported that season one and two would film back-to-back and that Glen Mazzara and Joy Blake would take over as co-showrunners after season one because of scheduling issues for Zak Penn.[3]
Filming[edit]
Principal photography was initially scheduled to begin in Toronto in 2021. After a series of delays, filming finally began on April 19, 2022.[9] The pilot episode was directed by Daniel Percival. Production on the first season finished in November 2022, but the series stayed in production concurrent with the filming of the second season.[3] On July 2, 2023, the author of the adaptation's source material, Hugh Howey, confirmed that two seasons of the television series had been filmed and that it was in post-production.[10]
Reception[edit]
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 60% approval rating with an average rating of 5.5/10, based on 10 critic reviews. The website's critical consensus reads, "Beacon 23 is full of clever world-building flourishes while light on character depth, making for an uneven saga full of invention but lacking in inspiration."[11]
References[edit]
- ^ White, Peter (September 20, 2023). "Lena Headey's 'Beacon 23' Series Moves to MGM+". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved September 20, 2023.
- ^ Iannucci, Rebecca (February 26, 2024). "Beacon 23 Gets Season 2 Premiere Date on MGM+ — Watch Trailer". TVLine. Retrieved February 26, 2024.
- ^ a b c Andreeva, Nellie (August 3, 2022). "'Beacon 23' Gets Early Season 2 Renewal With Glen Mazzara & Joy Blake As New Showrunners On Spectrum & AMC Series". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved May 6, 2023.
- ^ a b "Shows A-Z – Beacon 23 on MGM+". The Futon Critic. Retrieved February 28, 2023.
- ^ "Beacon 23 - WGA Directory". Writers Guild of America West. Retrieved February 28, 2023.
- ^ Andreeva, Nellie (October 11, 2018). "'Beacon 23' TV Series Adaptation From Zak Penn Nears Green Light At Spectrum". Deadline. Retrieved November 12, 2023.
- ^ Andreeva, Nellie (March 17, 2021). "Lena Headey To Star In 'Beacon 23' Drama Series For Spectrum Originals & AMC Networks". Deadline. Retrieved August 15, 2022.
- ^ White, Peter (September 10, 2021). "Stephan James To Star Opposite Lena Headey In 'Beacon 23' Drama Series For Spectrum Originals & AMC Networks". Deadline. Retrieved November 12, 2023.
- ^ "Sci-Fi Series 'Beacon 23' Starring Lena Headey Officially Begins Filming". moviesr.net.
- ^ "SiloSeries AMA with Author and Executive Producer Hugh Howey". reddit.com. July 2, 2023.
- ^ "Beacon 23: Season 1". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved November 14, 2023.
