Scavengers Reign is an animated show which came out in the last year. It follows a ground of astronauts that have crash landed on an unexplored planet and abandoned by the company that has sent them into the deep reaches of space. Separated and facing individual challenges of survival, the remaining crew members are trying to get back to the crashed mothership in hopes to find a way that that ship can take them back to Earth.

I had seen a teaser for this years ago but forgot about the series. In that time since Adult Swim produced the 7 minute short ‘Scavengers’ in 2016, they then green lit a 12 episode series but later pulled the plug on the series part way into production. A year or two later HBO picked up the series enabling work to be completed on the series and the first season to be released. Unfortunately, HBO has not renewed this for a 2nd season so it doesn’t look like we will learn the fate of the crew of the Demeter 227

This is one of the most creative American animated projects to come around in years. The plot and characters and their struggles with the dangers that the flora and fauna and the planet itself have in store for the crew makes this such a compelling and unique watches. The design of this show and the background paintings are hypnotic and completely immerse you into the lost astronauts daily struggles. If you haven’t heard of this and you are a fan of surreal space adventures akin to the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky or the stories of French comic artists and writer Möbius, this is definitely worth the time.

In 2016, The creative partners were commissioned by Adult Swim to make a short film. This is the product below. The animation isn’t a beautiful and the strange alien body horror is heaped on but you can see the foundation laid for the eventual world building and the struggles that the crew of the Demeter 227 were put through.