Omniscient (Onisciente) – Season 1 Review

Season 1

Episode Guide

Omniscient is the latest Brazilian sci-fi thriller on Netflix and scarily doesn’t feel like a million miles away from where our always-online lives are heading. With some really bold and interesting colour choices, a spunky protagonist and a good twist during the finale, Omniscient is another promising sci-fi prospect that feels like the beginning of a cult hit for the streaming service.

The story itself takes place in the heart of Brazil during an unspecified time in the future. Every inhabitant in the city is watched 24/7 by a mini-drone that buzzes nearby and records footage all day, every day, feeding it back into the ominous Main Computer. With crime virtually unheard of and everyone living in a utopian bubble, when our protagonist Nina returns home to find her Father has been murdered, what follows is a quest to figure out the truth and try to combat a system that’s very clearly failed in its core mission.

The set-up is very intriguing and after the opening episode, Omniscient deep dives into its investigation, peppering in Nina’s crusade with her progressing through the company’s exams to become a fully-fledged staff member. As the series reaches its climax, the truth is finally revealed while the pieces are aligned for a possible second season that promises some exciting action to come if this is renewed.

Alongside its engrossing story are several other key elements that make Omniscient such an unusual and compelling option. Aesthetically, the series uses a lot of bold colours, with red and yellow used predominantly throughout the series; red symbolizing danger and warnings while yellow symbolizing deceit and betrayals. It’s a really clever idea and toward the end some other primary colours crop up too, including blue and green but never to the same extent red and yellow are. It’s such a clever and deliberate design choice and something that’s also evident in a lot of Wes Anderson films too.

The soundtrack is something that will almost certainly make or break your experience with this. There’s an old school ambiance to a lot of the ideas here, with an almost jazz-noir feel to the investigation as brass instruments dominate a lot of the run-time. I mentioned in the episode recaps that there’s something very 70’s/80’s about the use of instruments here but for the most part, it works surprisingly well to sell the atmosphere of the entire series.

Omniscient is a well written, compelling and easy to binge show. It’s not the best sci-fi offering of the year, nor is it likely to stand out as particularly ground-breaking in its ideas, feeling like a natural extension to George Orwell’s 1984, but there’s a charm and personality here that’s evident and hard to deny. Much like fellow Brazilian offering 3%, there’s something very unique here and the potential for a compelling second season is a very promising prospect indeed.