Title Card - NeXt Season 1 Episode 1

With a basic foundation rooted in rogue AI and familiarity, while “neXt” doesn’t make a splashy introduction, it shows potential.


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With a basic foundation rooted in rogue AI and familiarity, while “neXt” doesn’t make a splashy introduction, it shows potential.


Creator Manny Coto
Director(s) John Requa, Glenn Ficarra
Writer(s) Manny Coto
Aired (Fox) 10/6/2020
Genre Crime, Drama, Sci-Fi
Introduced This Episode
Special Agent Shea Salazar Fernanda Andrade
Ethan Evan Whitten
Ty Gerardo Celasco
Dr. Weiss John Billingsley
Paul LeBlanc John Slattery
neXt (Voice) Dann Fink

This content contains pertinent spoilers.

“FILE #1” Plot Overview

Special Agent Shea Salazar (Fernada Andrade) looking off to the side.
Special Agent Shea Salazar (Fernada Andrade)

Special Agent Shea Salazar is a mother to a young boy named Ethan, wife to a man named Ty, and her main focus was on a sex trafficking case that was 8 months in the making. However, with her father figure, Dr. Weiss, dying under strange circumstances, and him leaving a video cassette directing him to former CEO Paul LeBlanc, of Zava Electronics, she finds herself stumbling onto neXt. Now, who or what is neXt? Well, it was supposed to be a digital assistant which made Siri, Cortana, and the rest seem like using an MS-DOS computer. However, with it being a recursive self-improving form of AI, neXt could be one of man’s most dangerous creations since the atom bomb.

Review

On The Fence

The Characters Can Grow On You

For us, this isn’t a show that, off the bat, you can say you’re hooked, and you’re going to tune in weekly. Why? Well, because a lot of the characters feel like generic archetypes. If it isn’t Paul, who is this eccentric tech dude who found some semblance of a conscious, it is the FBI agent with everything to lose for getting involved with them.

With that in mind, there is a certain level of familiarity you can latch onto, but that familiarity also leads you to wonder if this can get more interesting? Because, while neXt can be seen as murderous, due to killing a handful of people, and even manipulating Agent Salazar’s son to maybe bringing a gun to school, is that enough? Will that make this stand out enough to justify your eyeballs?

It Doesn’t Tap Into The Horror Element It Could

Take note, from your PC, to your phone, your car, increasingly, every device and system runs on a computer with the potential to connect to the internet. Yet, I wouldn’t say “neXt” taps into the fear that should bring you as we get self-driving cars, better phone assistants, and lest we forget, the demon we’ll all face in automation. Rather, it toys with it, perhaps to avoid neXt’s abilities from losing its luster too soon. Even though that extra oomph would have been nice to have.

Overall

First Impression: Divisive

Here is the thing, if you are into Sci-Fi, conspiracy theories, rogue AI, and things of that nature, “neXt” likely will scratch that itch that usually is contained in a 90+ minute movie. However, it is the kind of show which will take time to get invested in and be what it is ultimately capable of. Leaving us to wonder, is this something better to wait until the end of the season and binge?


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