Cassandra

Nolan Wagner

Pop culture might be more blasé towards AI in two years; but while fears can be milked, they will be. “Cassandra” is the German screenwriter Benjamin Gutsche’s take on things. The setup to the six-episode Netflix show is that a modern family moves into a ‘70s retro “smart” home controlled by an intelligent robot named Cassandra. She cooks dinner and mows the lawn, but she’s also evil and wants to replace the family’s mother, Samira. Cassandra has been dormant since the old family moved out decades ago under spoilery circumstances, and we switch back and forth between the stories of both families for most of the show. 

The plot takes a lot of twists and turns, but it makes the characters act somewhat oblivious or inconsistent; the husband believing Cassandra over his own wife is especially egregious. The series is shot and edited very safely, i.e. boringly: the frame always shows the person speaking or the relevant thing. Shot composition and cuts are textbook, even during the artsy sequences the camera has to do an ugly slow pan—I suppose because movement marginally increases viewer retention. Everything feels smoothed. We eventually realize the true message is about dysfunctional families, and not AI. Maybe humans are the real monsters! The series ends definitively enough to satisfy, but if it hits enough metrics, there are a few loose ends that could be tied into a second season. My recommendation: watch if you’re inclined towards sci-fi soft horror and want to binge something substantial but not too long.