Memory Ngulube joined Screen Rant in April 2024 as part of the Movies and TV team. Since then, she has written for the Perennials and Streaming team, covering a wide range of topics from new releases to old movies and TV shows. Memory is currently a Classic TV writer.
Before joining Screen Rant, Memory was a freelance copywriter who specialized in email marketing and social media management. While she enjoyed her job, her true passion was always movies and TV.
When she isn’t writing for Screen Rant, Memory can be found reading, baking (which is one of her passions), or watching her favorite K-drama.
Ridley Scott’s sprawling sci-fi saga, which echoes the themes in Prometheus and Westworld, is one of the most unique TV shows to grace the small screen in recent years. Scott, a visionary filmmaker whose work has left a mark on the genre, has been at the helm of the most iconic science fiction movies, including titles like Alien and Blade Runner.
During his long film-making career, Scott has rarely ventured into TV, so it makes sense that HBO’s Raised by Wolves, which he created, is a collision of themes he has spent decades perfecting. Although Westworld didn’t come from Scott’s brilliant mind, it bears a striking resemblance to the filmmaker’s TV brainchild. Like Raised by Wolves, Westworld explored the blurred line between humanity and artificial life, using android characters to question what it truly means to be human.
Both shows center on highly advanced AI; hosts in Westworld and the androids, Mother and Father in Raised by Wolves, who begin to develop emotions and autonomy. The prequel to Scott’s Alien franchise,* Prometheus*, is also thematically and tonally similar to the HBO Max series. The two TV shows share a philosophical and unsettling approach to sci-fi by focusing on creation and its consequences. In Raised by Wolves, for instance, Mother and Father are tasked with creating and raising the next generation of human beings.
Prometheus, on the other hand, features humans who seek out the alien Engineers who may have had a hand in designing life on Earth. Further, the two TV shows also lean heavily into themes of faith versus science, with characters who are driven by both religion and technology. When the themes in Raised by Wolves are taken apart, it doesn’t really seem like the series was treading new water. However, it still stands out in the overcrowded genre of philosophical sci-fi, not just because of Scott’s hand in it, but because it was HBO Max’s flagship sci-fi series.
HBO has gone through quite an evolution over the years. The network, which dominated prestige TV for decades, had to keep up with modern times. Home Box Office expanded its distribution through digital platforms like HBO Go and later HBO Max, adapting to the streaming revolution that reshaped the entire entertainment industry. With Netflix and Prime Video having Stranger Things and The Expanse, respectively, as part of their sci-fi offerings, HBO Max needed a flagship sci-fi TV show that could rival its competitors, and that’s where *Raised by Wolves *came in.
Even before *Raised by Wolves *debuted on the streaming platform, HBO Max heavily marketed the series to raise awareness of its existence, and it worked. The sci-fi TV show ended up becoming one of the platform’s best-performing series, leading to it being renewed for a sophomore season. Unfortunately, Raised by Wolves was canceled after two seasons due to cost-cutting measures that were implemented by Warner Bros. Discovery.
Raised by Wolves marked a major turning point in Ridley Scott’s career because it represented his transition from film to TV. Scott has served as executive producer for over 40 TV shows, but he has, surprisingly, only directed three through the course of his career. In 1966, the filmmaker directed one episode of* Adam Adamant Lives!* and helmed the pilot episode of Apple TV’s Dope Thief.
Raised by Wolves Rotten Tomatoes Score
While *Raised by Wolves *has Scott’s vision and touch throughout its run, he actually only directed the first two episodes of the first season of the series before taking a backseat and serving as executive producer for the remainder of the sci-fi show. Luke Scott, Sergio Mimica-Gezzan, Alex Gabassi, and James Hawes took over from the filmmaker.
The legendary director only has a few TV credits to his name, but he recognized that TV is the natural successor to film.*** Raised by Wolves ***gave Scott the chance to fully realize what he was trying to say in Prometheus, as TV offered him a larger canvas to bring his vision to life. Thankfully, HBO Max recognized that having such a great name attached to its flagship sci-fi series would put it on the map as a serious contender in the genre.
Raised by Wolves ](/db/tv-show/raised-by-wolves/)
Science Fiction
](/tag/sci-fi/)
](/tag/fantasy/)
2020 - 2022-00-00
Aaron Guzikowski
Alex Gabassi, Luke Scott, Ernest R. Dickerson, Lukas Ettlin, Ridley Scott, Sergio Mimica-Gezzan, Sunu Gonera
Aaron Guzikowski
Raised by Wolves is a science fiction series set in a post-apocalyptic future where two androids are tasked with raising human children on a remote planet. Their mission to establish a colony based on logic faces challenges as religious survivors from Earth arrive, reviving old conflicts and introducing new threats.