An imaginary planet that feels extremely real

Summary

Unexplainable Podcast Episode Summary
Title: An Imaginary Planet That Feels Extremely Real
Release Date: May 12, 2025
Host: Noam Hassenfeld
Guests:

• Joe Bennett – Co-creator of Scavenger's Reign
• Sean Buckalew – Writer and Co-Executive Producer of Scavenger's Reign

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Introduction to Scavenger's Reign

[01:09] Noam Hassenfeld kicks off the episode by describing a captivating and enigmatic scene from the sci-fi series Scavenger's Reign. He narrates the image of a middle-aged man interacting with a massive blue rhino-like creature on an alien planet, highlighting the show's ability to immerse viewers in an entirely new and believable world without the need for dialogue or exposition.

Notable Quote:
"It's one of the first scenes of Scavenger's Reign. This show about a group of people marooned on an alien planet... it immediately sucked me in just because of how alien the whole thing felt like alien in the truest sense of the word."
— Noam Hassenfeld [01:09]

Creating Planet Vesta: A Mirror to Earth

The discussion transitions to the creation of Planet Vesta, the setting of Scavenger's Reign.

Joe Bennett explains that Vesta is designed to be a "mirror to planet Earth," situated within the habitable Goldilocks zone. The goal was to craft the planet almost as a character itself, with intricate ecosystems and environmental details that feel real and grounded.

Notable Quote:
"I want people to really feel like they've been so immersed in it that you could smell the mud."
— Joe Bennett [06:49]

Balancing Alienness with Realism

Sean Buckalew delves into the rules and guidelines the team followed to ensure Planet Vesta felt both alien and believable. They focused on creating closed-loop ecological systems that operate on consistent rules, allowing viewers to perceive the planet as a fully formed and functional world.

Notable Quote:
"Think through what the entire kind of closed loop of any ecological thing you're seeing is... so that it's sort of a closed system."
— Sean Buckalew [06:59]

Inspirations Behind the Show

The creators cite inspirations ranging from Werner Herzog’s Burden of Dreams to the experimental film Koyaanisqatsi. These influences helped shape the portrayal of Vesta as a place where nature operates with indifferent, often harsh, logic, devoid of traditional notions of good and evil.

Notable Quote:
"There is no real harmony as we have conceived it. It is the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder."
— Joe Bennett [08:16]

Visual Storytelling and Minimal Exposition

A significant aspect of Scavenger's Reign is its reliance on visual storytelling over dialogue. Joe Bennett emphasizes the importance of allowing viewers to discover the planet's intricacies organically, much like the YouTube channel Primitive Technology, where the absence of narration invites viewers to engage more deeply with the content.

Notable Quote:
"A lot of exposition is kind of given through dialogue. And I thought as much as you can just have it just be more of a visual thing kind of watching a process, and you pick things up as you go."
— Joe Bennett [11:33]

Attention to Detail: Adding Life to Vesta

The team added numerous small details to make Vesta feel alive. Sean Buckalew mentions how artists incorporated unexpected creatures and interactions that weren’t scripted, enhancing the planet’s vibrancy and realism.

Notable Quote:
"That just is artists getting to flex their imaginative abilities. That makes, I think, it feel like there's just living things all over the place."
— Sean Buckalew [12:28]

Philosophical Themes: Humility in the Face of the Unknown

Noam connects the show’s themes to the broader concept of humility when confronting the unknown. Sean Buckalew reflects on how the characters' experiences on Vesta parallel human struggles with understanding and respecting nature's uncontrollable forces.

Notable Quote:
"Putting people into a context of everything is just this overwhelming unknown."
— Sean Buckalew [18:37]

Environmental Fragility and Resilience

Joe Bennett discusses the delicate balance of Planet Vesta’s ecosystems, drawing parallels to Earth's environmental challenges. He highlights the planet's inherent resilience juxtaposed with its fragility, mirroring real-world concerns about ecological balance and human impact.

Notable Quote:
"There's a harmony and there's a balance, like a homeostasis that existed before these characters got there."
— Joe Bennett [20:10]

Conclusion and Reflections

As the episode wraps up, Joe Bennett and Sean Buckalew express their appreciation for the thoughtful analysis provided by Noam. They reflect on the importance of viewer perspectives and the meaningful conversations that Scavenger's Reign inspires.

Notable Quote:
"It means a lot because it's so what we wanted people to pick up from it."
— Sean Buckalew [21:30]

Noam concludes by recommending Scavenger's Reign to listeners who haven’t yet experienced the series, noting the depth and richness it offers.

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Produced By: Noam Hassenfeld
Editing: Jorge Just and Meredith Hodinot
Sound Design: Christian Ayala
Production Support: Thomas Liu
Music: Noam Hassenfeld
Fact-Checking: Melissa Hirsch

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For more insights and in-depth discussions, listen to the full episode of Unexplainable on your preferred podcast platform.

Transcript

[Joe Bennett]

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[Noam Hassenfeld]

I want you to try and picture something. It's pretty weird, but just stay with me for a minute. A middle aged man is on this strange, lush, faraway exoplanet. He walks up to this enormous blue kind of rhino sized animal, slices it open and he crawls inside. The blue rhino thing is still alive and fine, by the way, and its skin closes up behind him. Now the guy's inside the animal and he grabs something that looks like a sort of tendon which releases a sack and, and then he reaches in and pulls something that looks like almost a lever made out of animal tissue, which then ends up releasing these two orbs. The whole thing is like a living Rube Goldberg machine. But it's not over. The guy presses down with his foot on one of the animal's organs and it spits him out along with the orbs all covered in spittle. These little critters show up and they love that. So they start eating up as much of the spittle as they can. And then finally the guy smacks the two orbs together almost like cracking a glow stick. They light up and he uses them as flashlights as he and his friend walk off into the forest in the dark. Okay, if you're listening to this and just going, what in the world? You're not alone. That's exactly how I felt when I first saw this. It's one of the first scenes of Scavenger's Reign. This show about a group of people marooned on an alien planet. And when I first saw it, I kind of lost my mind, or I guess I didn't really know what to think. The scene had no dialogue and no explanation. You're just thrown into this blue alien rhino Rube Goldberg machine along with this guy you don't know. But the whole thing immediately sucked me in just because of how alien the whole thing felt like alien in the truest sense of the word. Planets. In sci fi shows or movies, they're usually places like Tatooine in Star wars or Arrakis and Dune. You know, it's just like, oh, here's a desert planet, or here's a big animal with a weird name or an extra I or something. But the planet in Scavenger's reign actually feels like something new, something I couldn't have dreamed of, which I think is what an alien planet should feel like. And what makes all of this even weirder for my broken brain is is that at the same time, this planet almost feels real. Like it has its own evolutionary history, like it's got legitimate ecosystems that are built on consistent rules. It feels like I'm getting a small glimpse of an actual, fully formed world out there somewhere. I've watched Scavenger's Reign twice now, and it already feels like one of those things I'm going to keep returning to. I'm probably talking about forever. I'm sure you've had that feeling before when something hits your brain in exactly the right way. When a movie or a song or a book or an idea seems like it was created just to make you happy, you try to tell your friends. Maybe some of them get it, but not the way you do, not the way they should. And it leaves you with a personal unexplainable. What makes this thing so good? And why can't I stop thinking about it? So today on the show, we're going to try something a little new. Every once in a while, one of us is going to pick something we can't get enough of, and we're just going to ask why? Why does this thing hit me like nothing else does? So I'm Noam Hassenfeld, and my unexplainable is Scavenger's Reign. I want to know how it's possible to create something this alien that still somehow feels real. All right, let's just. Let's jump right in. Why don't we introduce both of you your names, and the best way to introduce you on the show.

[Joe Bennett]

I'm Joe Bennett. I'm one of the co creators of.

[Sean Buckalew]

Scavenger's Reign, and I'M Sean Buckalew. I'm one of the writers and a co executive producer.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

So tell me about the planet these people are marooned on in Scavenger's reign. Planet Vesta.

[Joe Bennett]

So, yeah, Planet Vesta is like a mirror to planet Earth. Like, this is a planet that just happens to fit in that little Goldilocks window. It's got the right habitable zone. And so I think as far as storytelling, we wanted to make the planet almost feel like a character in and of itself. You know, like, as we're making up these ecosystems and everything, really trying to make that feel as real and grounded as possible. And as much as we could try to find, I guess, significance and utility out of everything that you see, that it's not just eye candy. I want people to really feel like they've been so immersed in it that you could smell the mud. You know what I mean? Like, that was a really important thing.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Yeah. How did you do that? How did you make this place feel super alien and also like it had its own set of rules or something?

[Sean Buckalew]

Well, I felt like we had a rule in writing it. Like, think through what the entire kind of closed loop of any ecological thing you're seeing is. Like, for example, you see these creatures that will fall from the trees and then splat on the ground, and their bones become this, like, smelly fruit. And our characters kind of get in the middle of it. But then I think for us, it was thinking through, like, what is this cycle? How would it work? So that it's sort of a closed system.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Right.

[Joe Bennett]

I mean, that was sort of a closed loop that isn't really even explained in the episode. In fact, you find out later on that there are these little holes in the canopy. And the idea is that, like, these birds that exist up here, sometimes they fall through and that's how they die. And this is what kind of creates the cycle. Their bodies decompose and create the fruit. And then you have the sort of, like, slug creatures that eat it. Right. And another thing, too, another kind of, like, rules or just way of thinking about the nature was that, like, it's totally neutral. There's no evil villains. It's a very merciless, neutral place.

[Sean Buckalew]

Yeah. It's like these things would happen without any people there, and it would be fine and it would be nature. And then what if you plop a person right in the center of it? What happens? They get scooped up, they get killed. They get. You know. But you're like, it's only strange and crazy sort of to the eyes of a human perceiver, who would find this all inexplicable and exotic and blah, blah, blah. But for the planet, it's just. This is the same as getting pricked by a little thorn or other weird stuff that happens on Earth.

[Joe Bennett]

Yeah. And a big source of inspiration was Werner Herzog. This was in Burden of Dreams. And he's standing in front of just thick vegetation and there's birds and he's talking about, like, this sounds pleasant, but this is a violent place. The trees here are in misery and the birds are in misery. I don't think they sing. They just screech in pain. There's predators, there's prey, but they all are kind of, like, dependent on each other. This is all part of the whole circle of life, and this is all a necessary thing that has to happen. There is no real harmony as we have conceived it. It is the harmony of overwhelming and collective murder. And it's funny you brought up Tatooine earlier. I felt like that kind of came up a lot, too, where it was like, you know, you never really see this, but, like, how great would it be if, like, Luke goes on tattooing and we spend just a little moment on this incredible planet? Like, what if he just, like, decided to go for a hike?

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Yeah.

[Joe Bennett]

I mean, I don't even remember the name of the planet, but where, like, Yoda lived and Luke was Dagobah. What is it? What is it? Daga Da. Jeez, dorks.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

These nerds over here.

[Joe Bennett]

But, like, that was. As a kid, it was exciting to see that where it felt like you were the deepest in that kind of nature than you usually are in these movies.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Found someone you have, I would say.

[Joe Bennett]

Because, I don't know, there was something so uninteresting about being in these kind of big, sterile ships, but, you know, getting into the dirt and the bark and the mycelium and all of the stuff that's part of this planet. I mean, there was a big kind of, like, ASMR element to this, too, that we wanted to do. There's a scene where it's like one of the people that got marooned on the planet is rubbing his hand against the bark of a tree. And I was like, I really want to hear that. I want to know what that texture is. So it's like, let's build this out, but then not explain it. We wanted to be very careful about not using a lot of exposition.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Yeah. There was no dialogue in that entire opening Blue Rhino scene.

[Joe Bennett]

Yeah. I mean, I think a big Thing in sci fi stuff that turns me off is like, everything has names and it doesn't feel totally real. If you were walking in nature on another planet. I mean, there's just going to be so many things that are hitting you that are just totally new. And I think that especially in the world of, like, TV animation, a lot of exposition is kind of given through dialogue. And I thought as much as you can just have it just be more of a visual thing kind of watching a process, and you pick things up as you go. I mean, I was really into this YouTube channel called Primitive Technology.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Oh, I love that channel.

[Joe Bennett]

It's such a great channel. And, yeah, so it's this guy that sort of. He lives out in New Zealand and he doesn't talk, he doesn't say anything the whole time, but he's just sort of building a thatched hut or a kiln or a bow and arrow, whatever. And you watch him go through those stages. But the nice thing about it is that you're really kind of watching him figure it out. And by the time he finishes making it, it's so satisfying. You feel like you've, like, made it with them.

[Sean Buckalew]

I think also just. I mean, this is a testament to that. There were, you know, scripted natural phenomena in the world. But then I think we had such an amazing team of artists that I think, like, when you gave people scenes, it was like they would do such a good job of just adding little guys everywhere. Of, like, there are these big things, there are these predators, there are these whatever. But then it's just like there's just a hundred little insects that do little funny.

[Joe Bennett]

Right, right.

[Sean Buckalew]

There's a scene in one episode where one of the characters leans up against a tree and there's just a little thing that vibrates and then, like, flies away. And it wasn't in the script. It was just added by the storyboarders. And I think the point was, like, you just need to get a character's attention to the sky. How do you do that? A little dude who, you know, like Spider Man's around and he's a little shelled creature and whoops, you just accidentally leaned into him because he, like, camouflages against the tree. Stuff like that. That just is artists getting to flex their imaginative abilities. That makes, I think, it feel like there's just living things all over the place.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

There's a sense in which, just listening to you talk about this, it feels like this show was almost like a documentary on Planet Vesta, that there happened to be some people involved.

[Sean Buckalew]

I Mean, another reference point too, for us was that movie Koyaanisqatsi Koayanisqazi, where there's sort of moments where it feels like you're seeing human systems being depicted as nature. And I think that was also really interesting to us of, like, this question of unknowable versus knowable. And it feels like at some level, everything is kind of understandable as movement patterns.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

I mean, Koyaanisqatsi. I love that you bring that up. That's one of my all time favorite movies. Because it looked at Earth and somehow made it feel alien.

[Sean Buckalew]

Yeah. I mean, I feel like we had a feeling like everything that you think is crazy on Vesta is sort of derived from a real thing that happens on Earth. Even if it's just like. I mean, Joe had this interesting image back when we were working on the pilot that was sort of like, if you take microphotography, like microscopic images of, like, fingernails and, like, dead hair cells or skin cells, but then you put too little people into that and make it a landscape, it sort of reorients your sense of scale and your sense of whatever. So I think there was a lot of, like, here's an observation of something that happens in real life. But what if you just manipulate the scale? That alone can make it feel like, whoa, this is now this totally alien experience, right?

[Joe Bennett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

It makes me think of. My dad used to say, like, a star looks brighter when you look just to the side of it. Like, if you look right at the star, it's kind of dim. If you look just to the side of it, the star looks a little bit brighter. And there's a way in which you can get at a question better if you look just to the side of it or you use something a little different as the comparison.

[Joe Bennett]

That's great.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

It sort of feels like maybe that's what you're doing with Vesta. It's like Earth. It's just to the side of it and it actually becomes completely alien. And it makes us realize how alien Earth is.

[Sean Buckalew]

Yeah, you can't outdo Mother Earth in terms of strangeness. Like, I think if you landed and you saw an anglerfish on another planet, you'd just be like, right, I'm in hell. This is the scariest thing I've ever seen.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

So what does it mean to live in the scariest place with the scariest things you've ever seen? That's next.

[Sean Buckalew]

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[Noam Hassenfeld]

Okay, so we've been talking about how you guys made Planet Vesta seem real but also alien, but also somehow familiar. Did you have any rules or guidelines when it came to the people that got marooned on the planet?

[Sean Buckalew]

Well, I would say that there are rules about character sets having different relationships to nature. And I think there's a feeling of like, do you want to conquer nature? Do you want to live in harmony with nature? I mean, to the people who want to control nature, you will be sort of punished in X, Y, and Z way. And to the people who want to harmonize with nature, that doesn't work so well either, because nature doesn't necessarily want to form your kind of version of harmony, so it puts you through the wringer in that way.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

It's fascinating to me that you say that, because that's kind of one of the biggest reasons I wanted to talk to you, because I feel like our show unexplainable. When we relate to science, we're trying to look at the things that are really, really hard to explain, that are maybe fully unknown, that are slippery and and one of the things we like to talk about a lot is humility in the face of the unknown and just sort of look at things that we can't fully understand with clear eyes. And I wonder, were you thinking about similar themes in your show about humility in the face of the unknown?

[Sean Buckalew]

Definitely, I think. Well, in the writer's room, I remember we had that Casper David Friedrich picture that's like the guy standing at the edge of the cliff, this kind of, like, staring out into the void. And the idea of, like, the sublime, that it's sort of like people looking at a tidal wave that's gonna destroy your entire world. And it's, I think, putting people into a context of everything is just this overwhelming unknown, you know? And I think we talked a lot about, like, is this a prison or is it this pastoral paradise, or is it this other thing? And how do you relate to that? If you were told, okay, you have to live the rest of your life on this planet, could you form meaning in that? Or would that just be hell? And I think that nature is a big part of that, that your understanding of Earth is a lot of how you form meaning. And I think that, you know, this might be more personal than the theme of the show. But to your question, how do you explain the unknowable? Do you understand it as. There is a rational, scientific principle behind this, and we will eventually know it if you observe it well enough, or there are unknowable elements of human experience and whatever you want to call that, you have to just live in not knowing. And, you know, I think that this is, in some ways the basis of religion, is how do you find meaning and explain the unknowable? And, I don't know. I think for our characters, they're on these sort of, like, spiritual quests within that of formulating meaning around consciousness, around being alive, dying, you know, how they live in the environment, I don't know. So that, to me, is part of it.

[Joe Bennett]

Well, also, in regards to the planet, I think it was, like, really thinking about the. Like, the fragility of this planet. And, you know, there's moments where it kind of feels like it's getting sort of untethered, and you start to realize how delicate it all is. But then there's also this kind of resilience, this, like, heartbeat to the planet that feels so incredibly strong. I do think that, like, we're especially now dealing with things that, like, the ocean we have. We don't know how this ocean works, and we're destroying it. And there are so many different kinds of aspects to this that I feel like we have no idea what we're doing. But we're utilizing these things for our benefit and now we're obviously seeing the repercussions to that. And I think it was just kind of like thinking about Planet Vesta as sort of a similar thing. There's a harmony and there's a balance, like a homeostasis that existed before these characters got there. And just like, how quickly does it take for like six characters to just completely unravel that?

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Sean, Joe, this was such a pleasure.

[Joe Bennett]

Oh, amazing. Thank you.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

Thanks so much for coming on the show.

[Sean Buckalew]

Thank you.

[Joe Bennett]

Thank you for having us.

[Sean Buckalew]

And just to say, I mean, it means a lot that your perspective on the show, I think, is, you know, for some people, I think it's sort of an action sci fi show. So it's so nice to. Even if we're inarticulate with our answers, it's so refreshing to just be able to have this kind of conversation about.

[Joe Bennett]

The show because it's so what we.

[Sean Buckalew]

Wanted people to pick up from it. And, you know, it means a lot, just your perspective and questions.

[Joe Bennett]

100%.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

I kind of have a sense that a lot of our listeners will have seen this show, knowing our listeners, but if they haven't, highly recommend it.

[Joe Bennett]

Cool. Thank you so much.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

That was Joe Bennett and Sean Buckalew. Their show is called Scavenger's Reign and you can find it on Netflix. Season one is finished and as of now, season two has frustratingly not been picked up yet. But they made a teaser, which they put out and they've got tons of ideas for whenever it finally happens.

[Joe Bennett]

Yeah, we do. We have a ton of stuff and.

[Sean Buckalew]

Let'S just say it's really tight.

[Noam Hassenfeld]

This episode was produced by me, Noam Hassenfeld. We had editing from Jorge Just and Meredith Hodinot, who runs the show, mixing and sound design from Christian Ayala, production support from Thomas Liu, music from me, and fact checking from Melissa Hirsch. Julia Longoria is feeling a little delirious. And Bird Pinkerton stepped outside the ruins of the Octopus Hospital away from the torn cables and shattered glass, when suddenly she heard something. A pigeon wearing a fedora dropped another note at her feet. It cooed ominously and flew off into the distance. Thanks as always to Brian Resnik for co creating the show. And if you have thoughts about the show, send us an email. We'd love to read it. We're@ unexplainableox.com, and you can also leave us a review or a rating wherever you listen. We love hearing everything you think about the show. You can also support this show and all of Vox's journalism by joining our membership program today. You can go to vox.commembers to sign up and you'll get all sorts of things like unlimited access to Vox's journalism. You'll get exclusive newsletters and you'll even get our podcasts ad free. Unexplainable is part of the Vox Media Podcast Network and we'll be back on Wednesday.

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