Vince Gilligan’s new Apple TV series Pluribus gives viewers a big taste of sci-fi intrigue as it releases its first four suspenseful minutes.
EW shares this first look at Pluribus, showing off Breaking Bad creator Gilligan’s deft command of TV storytelling. In the clip, scientists receive what seems to be a signal from extra terrestrials, the exact nature of which is tough to decipher. See the video on EW.
The clip begins with a shot of dark clouds at night. A countdown graphic appears, saying “439 D, 19 H, 56 M, 09 S.” The camera tilts down to show a giant radio telescope antenna pointed upward, then several shots of an entire array of such telescopes.
A long-shot shows three giant dishes in the distance. Headlights appear before them, along with the sound of a vehicle. Then a cut to a shot following a pick-up truck as it speeds toward the telescope array along a dirt road, its taillights shining bright red.
We then cut to a shot from near one of the giant dishes. In the foreground stands a figure, very out of focus, rocking back and forth. The sound of breathing conveys expectancy. In the distance there’s a dust cloud, which becomes lit up by the approaching pick-up.
We then see our first glimpse of a character, a man in a sweater and glasses, looking excited. The truck pulls to a stop in front of the man. The driver exits the truck and walks quickly toward the man in the sweater, who stands in the center of the road near a small hut.
“Bullshit,” the driver says. “It is this frigging wide,” the sweater man replies, holding his fingers slightly apart to indicate size. “It’s periodic.” The driver says, “Bull…shit. Show me.” The two men rush out of shot toward the hut.
We cut now to a laptop inside a darkened room. The screen shows something that looks mundane, but is of great interest to the two men. They discuss what is happening on the display. “Every 78 seconds,” the man in the sweater says of the signal they’ve apparently received.
We then cut to a time-lapse shot of the sun rising behind the radio dishes. Inside the hut, more people have assembled to stare in amazement at whatever is happening on the laptop screen. They speculate about the nature of the mysterious signal, proposing it could be a terrestrial broadcast bouncing off the moon, or chatty forest rangers.
A woman sitting at the laptop notices that the signal bears a resemblance to Morse code. More conversation ensues, during which the excited man in the sweater reveals that the signal is coming from 600 light years away. It’s then revealed that the signal is split across four different frequencies, eliciting an apprehensive, “This is going to be tough to crack.”
We then cut to later in the day. Multiple vehicles are parked on the dirt road by the hut. Even more people are jammed into the hut, chattering about the mysterious signal. Outside, the man in the sweater and the pick-up truck driver are playing catch, speculating playfully about the nature of what they’ve discovered.
“Antenna the size of Africa,” one of them says, guessing about the size of the instrument needed to send such a powerful signal across the vastness of space. The man in the sweater wonders aloud about the purpose of the signal, realization dawning in his face. “I think I know what it is,” he says, ending the clip on a cliffhanger.
Pluribus premieres on Apple TV on November 7.
