by Mike Hilty, Contributing Writer
On an episode of The Simpsons, the cold open shows Bart going on a field trip to the police station. After going on a tour in the museum of crime, Bart sneaks into the equipment room and creates a huge sound wave with a lot of megaphones connected together. His punishment is to be sent to military school. His sister Lisa volunteers to go with him because she’s not feeling challenged enough. While Bart’s class is at the police station, Lisa’s class is watching film strips. One is about sand and the other is about the moon. In the filmstrip, they predict that the moon will have 12 colonies for vacationing and family entertainment by 1964.
Even as a nation, the United States only landed on the moon 53 years ago and have yet to do anything of note since then. So anytime a show does something with the moon, I’m usually a little curious to see what they have.
Moonhaven, created by Peter Ocko, follows Bella Sway (Emma McDonald) as she’s marooned after being accused of crimes on a utopian colony on the moon 100 years in the future. After a series of murders occurs within the colony, Bella teams with detectives Paul Sarno (Dominic Monaghan) and Arlo Noon (Kadeem Hardison) to figure out what is going on on Moonhaven while racing against the clock, as there will be people heading back to Earth for what they believe is a rescue mission to help with Earth’s problems. Moonhaven is six episodes and is currently streaming on AMC+.
Moonhaven offers a great mystery that is dense and complex. The central mystery has multiple layers, mainly involving the murders being investigated, in addition to the upcoming return of some Moonhaven inhabitants to Earth. There are a lot of spinning plates to balance, and I’m not too sure Moonhaven does a good enough job keeping them all going. Most parts of the mystery are fine generally, but some are tough to manage.
From a performance standpoint, the cast is generally fine with no true standout. The closest to standouts are the detectives. Monaghan and Hardison have great chemistry with one another, while also serving as great leads who are striving to uncover the mystery. McDonald does what she can with Bella, but she’s shrouded in mystery for most of the season. There are a few other characters that get a little more screen time. There’s the leader of Moonhaven, Maite (Ayelet Zurer), and the envoy from Earth, Indira (Amara Karan), along with her companion Tomm (Joe Manganiello). Maite and Indira have competing philosophies on how to lead, in addition to what will become of Moonhaven after the first group heads to Earth.
If you like philosophical talks about purpose and duty to a mission, this is a show you’ll like. There’s a lot of talk about purpose and what it means to be from the Moonhaven colony. These are deep talks happening among kids and adults, so the conversation sometimes gets a little tough to follow at times. In terms of purpose, everyone on Moonhaven’s purpose is to eventually end up on Earth to help it. Some people truly believe they are meant to save Earth, while there is a growing faction of people who are struggling with the gravity (see what i did there?) of the situation.
There’s a central metaphor of Moonhaven about how the evolution of religious beliefs begets a need for control. It all starts and ends with the moon’s artificial intelligence, IO. Originally meant for assistance, IO knows all on the moon, acting more like a deity rather than a science driven service module. The citizens of Moonhaven view IO as someone who is always watching them and knows the answers. With IO, there’s always going to be a group of people who want to find some way to control it in order to wield their power. It’s a great metaphor about how religion is weaponized by a number of people in order for them to make their own gains.
This is mainly a drama with a little action sprinkled in. There are long stretches of investigating and talking, but without a lot going on from an action standpoint, it does get a little boring at times. For a six episode series, there could have been more action to help with pacing which felt slow at times. There is one scene in particular where they play with gravity that I found very creative, but there aren’t enough scenes like this to keep people’s attention.
Moonhaven leaves a lot on the table. Earth is talked about a lot among the people on Moonhaven, but not enough is known about why Moonhaven was created and what is going on on Earth for the colony to be a viable solution moving forward. There’s not a lot revealed about Bella either, which makes her a little flat from a character standpoint. We know she’s a soldier and smuggler, but that’s about it. I’m hoping more is revealed about her in future seasons.
Overall, Moonhaven is trying to be creative and different, but it’s just not yet adding up to the sum of the parts. This is a slow, and at times boring, season that has a lot of philosophical talks with not a lot of payoff. Some characters are wasted and some characters are in need of more context. I’m hoping that season two will be a little more faster paced, but I’m not sure if I’ll stick around with this unless someone I trust says the season has gotten better. This is shooting for the moon, but it’s a miss for sure.
Score: 5/10
You can follow Mike Hilty on Twitter and Letterboxd