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.
There are TV shows you watch once, enjoy, and move on from, and then there are the rare few that quietly demand your attention long after the credits roll. HBO Max’s 12-part sci-fi series firmly belongs in the latter category. The streaming platform isn't particularly known for its science fiction offerings, with bigger shows like Game of Thrones, The Sopranos, and Succession being what most audiences are familiar with, but it does have some prestige sci-fi series.
The critically acclaimed adult animated show Scavengers Reign is undoubtedly one of the best TV shows that HBO has to offer. Set on Vesta, a mysterious and unforgiving planet teeming with bizarre ecosystems and even stranger lifeforms, Scavengers Reign simply demands a second watch. At first viewing, the series can often feel disorienting, especially because it takes a while to explain its world and what is truly going on. In the first few episodes, all audiences have to go on is a weird planet, strange characters, and a robot undergoing evolution.
Scavenger Reign is beautifully animated, and even the strange creatures on Vesta are intriguing. While it isn't the most straightforward series out there, given that it doesn’t primarily focus on technology, spaceships, or alien invasions, it does something that is far more impressive than what viewers are used to in the genre, with the series building a completely unfamiliar ecosystem that is as much a part of the show as the characters themselves.
Scavengers Reign is a truly strange series, and it doesn’t try to hide it. That doesn’t mean that it's confusing, though that could be part of the initial viewing experience; it's more that it takes a minute or two for its meaning to sink in. One of the most confusing parts about Scavengers Reign is Kamen and the bizarre relationship he has with Hollow. At first, it's difficult to grasp what's really going on, but a second watch explains that they have a toxic co-dependent relationship that exists because of Kamen’s grief and guilt and Hollow’s need to exploit it.
The planet Vesta itself isn’t ordinary, but a first watch makes it seem like it's just a place that the protagonists have to endure and survive. However, a second watch shows that the planet is a living thing that isn’t random, but a functioning ecological machine. There is cause and effect between species, symbiosis, and environmental rules that may be difficult to notice the first time around. Simply put, Scavengers Reign is better on a second watch, not because the story changes, but because you finally learn how to see it properly.
Scavengers Reign premiered with little fanfare on HBO Max in 2023, so unsurprisingly, not many people were aware of its existence. With a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score, the animated sci-fi series should have been up there with the most talked-about shows on HBO. What happened, however, was the opposite. In the wild world of streaming, shows don’t survive just because they’re good; they survive because they’re watched a lot.
Unfortunately, Scavengers Reign never found much of an audience. As a result, HBO had to cancel the series a few months after it premiered. To fans' delight, however, Netflix then acquired the series, but even they didn’t renew it for a sophomore season, as Scavengers Reign didn’t get enough viewership numbers to justify more episodes. At the end of the day, streaming platforms don’t just care about quality; they care about how many people watch, cost vs return, and social media buzz.
Scavengers Reign, though a great show, did not deliver what was expected from a viewership standpoint. There is some light at the end of the tunnel, though, more so because the series’ creators, co-creators Joe Bennett and Charles Huettner, haven’t given up on finding it a new home that would be interested in picking it up for a second installment. In fact, they even released a teaser trailer for Scavengers Reign season 2 that details how the series would have progressed.
Scavengers Reign follows the crew of a deep space freighter, stranded on a beautiful yet perilous planet after their ship is damaged by a solar flare. As they navigate the planet's threats, they strive to secure their survival and seek escape or rescue.
