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The show’s budget can also get in the way: the visual effects and production design give off the feeling of a show doing wonders with not a lot of money, impressing even as it falls short of some of its slicker sci-fi contemporaries.
There are some startling images here, from the grey moon with a blue-green oasis studded against the darkness to closeups of the show’s elegant, organic props. (The production design emulates the smooth, handcrafted feel of HBO’s gone-too-soon “Raised by Wolves,” though the latter show feels far more expensive.) But starships in flight, and some clunky computer interfaces, hardly meet the feature-quality effects of other shows of its ilk, and the forested setting can feel the product of economy as much as theme.
Yet through that chintziness and some painfully earnest world-building, there’s a lot to like about “Moonhaven”’s mission. I always prefer science fiction that takes big risks, committing to preposterous ideas (they really build a Galt’s Gulch on the Moon to figure out that, I dunno, we should probably stop polluting and end capitalism? I figured that out years ago!) and extrapolating from there.
What’s more, it allows its character to be more than mouthpieces for those ideas, fleshing them out into human beings searching for their own kind of perfection—whether or not it lay in an idyllic society of know-it-alls and “dance alphabets.”
There’s a bit of a TV sci-fi head-scratcher renaissance happening of late, with shows like “The Expanse,” “For All Mankind,” and Apple TV+’s incredibly ambitious “Foundation.” “Moonhaven” occasionally feels like the cheap, basic-cable version of those ambitious, elegantly-rendered series. But its ideas are interesting enough to make it worth the watch—you’ll just have to get past some dreadfeel dialogue filled with shadow and cringe, and discover the Truelune within yourself.
Five episodes were screened for review. The first two episodes of “Moonhaven” premiere today, July 7, with additional episodes premiering each Thursday.
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