The Big Picture
- Beacon 23, starring Lena Headey and Stephan James, falls short of its potential with an awkwardly forced narrative and an overall lack of depth.
- The series introduces intriguing mysteries but fails to explore them fully, leaving little to get invested in about what it is all building towards over its eight episodes.
- Despite strong performances from Headey and James, Beacon 23 loses focus by introducing less compelling supporting characters and diverting from the core storyline.
Beacon 23, the new MGM+ series starringLena Headey andStephan James, is not the first work this year to trap its talented leading actors in an otherwise empty sci-fi mystery. However, it is one of the more potentially interesting projects, even as it isn’t quite successful in what it sets out to do. Specifically, there is a photo of a man at a lighthouse that feels like a particularly apt metaphor for what is happening in the series. The figure is small and seems like he may be about to be swallowed up by the waves that surround him. Like the characters in this series, he may be fighting a losing battle against narrative waters that will soon sweep him and any memory we could have of him away. Even as it presents a striking image, there is an emptiness at its core.
Beacon 23
A man living in the 23rd Century works at a remote "lighthouse" in space that serves as a beacon to help passing ships.
- Release Date
- November 12, 2023
- Cast
- Lena Headey
- Main Genre
- Science Fiction
- Genres
- Thriller
- Seasons
- 1
- Streaming Service
- MGM+
It is this element that comes to define the experience of watching Beacon 23: continual glimpses of a more alluring mystery that gets lost in many narrative twists and turns. The longer it goes on, the more awkwardly forced it is — as opposed to the confidence with which it navigates the confined setting. We are left largely wondering who the man in the lighthouse is just as we do with the series' central characters who are left treading these superficial narrative waters from start to finish. Although there can be spectacular sci-fi that reaches new heights while remaining grounded, Beacon 23 is stuck on the surface of what should be a rich portrait of its characters. The adrift space lighthouse of its setting is never all that illuminating.
What Is 'Beacon 23' About?
Beacon 23 begins with an unexpected meeting between two strangers who we will spend the remainder of the series with. Aster (Headey) is a government agent of some kind whose ship has crashed; now, she has ended up with veteran Halan (James) on the beacon he oversees, with only the structure's artificial intelligence for company. It seems to be an accident, but neither of the duo is particularly forthcoming about anything. Is their reticence to open up a sign that they’re concerned about each other, or are they actually hiding something? That question grows both equally pressing and frequently irrelevant in a rather odd fashion over the course of the season’s eight episodes. Even for those whose interests are being catered to when it comes to a sci-fi thriller like this, the execution becomes the issue. It ends up feeling more like the misfire of the film Passengers than it does the stellar recent show Silo. Though both shows are based on the writings of Hugh Howey, this one proves to be ultimately lacking in all the areas that count while expanding into others that just plain don’t work.
Though both Headey and James are a strong duo around which to build a series, Beacon 23 continually pulls away from their characters to others that are far less interesting. It seems as though each episode brings in a new supporting face that exists to fill time rather than add anything to the experience. At the particular low points of the season, there are episodes without Aster and Halan at all. Instead of introducing other layers to the unfolding story, they rob the show of any surrounding tension by having the two of them together. There is a version of this series all about their back-and-forth as they try to ascertain what is going on. Such a stripped-down story would allow each of them to tease out more of the emotions and deceptions at hand in a way that would get us invested in the stakes of their lives. Instead, each time we pull away via extended flashbacks or diversions, it feels like we can see the strings hovering over the whole thing.
Rather than reveling in the simplicity of two people trying to figure out what is going on while in the company of someone they may not trust, there is a repeated sense that narrative filler is being forced into the season to pad it out into eight episodes. It doesn’t let us get that much more invested in the interior, just as the familiar exteriors of the beacon they are trapped in remain static. Though a confined setting could become more thrilling if the characters in it were given more to work with, like with the other strong MGM+ series From, both Headey and James are saddled with a story that consistently drags them down until there is little to hold it together in the final stretch. Even the moments they leap off the screen, both in the dialogue scenes or a sudden burst of action early on, all fade away by the time the season starts to draw to a close.
Headey and James Can’t Fully Salvage 'Beacon 23'
Turning back to the photo of the man and the lighthouse, there is one moment where the characters specifically discuss it. While feeling isolated, Halan remarks about how he himself is like the man he has been staring at over and over again. It is blunt in a way that ultimately undercuts the series, as this already rather obvious connective thematic tissue was more effective when left unspoken. As we then get increasingly bombarded by flashbacks and visions in the latter half of the season, everything is spelled out to the point that it leaves little intrigue in its wake. Ultimately, Beacon 23 is unmoored in a way that is scattered as opposed to truly mysterious, a series without a shining beacon of its own to head toward.
Rating: C
Beacon 23 makes its two-episode premiere on November 12 on MGM+ in the U.S., with the remaining six episodes releasing weekly.
WATCH ON MGM+
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