See

It’s compelling and immersive, promising a sci-fi/fantasy epic that will span a generational tale, filled with impressive battle scenes and a dystopian future world that’s rendered with a visually spectacular cinematic production value that gives the whole world a massive sense of scope. It’s also downright weird and goofy at times, deliciously so, sometimes bordering on campy and giddily dipping a toe right over the line in the midst of the high-concept drama.

Unfortunately, the story hasn’t caught up to the ambition of the production design in the first few episodes.

Dull, predictable, scuzzy drama set centuries in the future after everyone on the planet has lost their sight.

This mix of influences and eras is ultimately more confusing than it is cohesive. The verdant background offers a compelling counterpoint to most dystopias, which often imagine either a sterile, skyscraper-filled world or a desolate wasteland. But there are so many other standard dystopian ideas at play here as to rob that decision of its novelty.

See (Apple TV+) is undeniably ravishing. It is also dreary, hysterical and often simply inept. A song of cripes and dire, if you will.

“See” is a gorgeously filmed series, and props are due to director Francis Lawrence for making the most its British Columbia settings. There’s also just enough fodder for thought in its exploration of how the massive scale elimination of a sense humans take for granted might, indeed, change the world. However – and yes, go ahead and call me a sensitive snowflake for this – there’s something profoundly ableist in the proposal that blind people would, in the span of a few generations, somehow forget that the sun is a big ball of flaming gas and start talking like Lothar of the Hill People.

As the show leans heavily on gore and predictable plot points, it proves that, at the very least, Apple has figured out the dirty truth of making TV: Even the strongest story pitches can blindly wander into a puddle of mediocrity.

This Jason Momoa vehicle takes itself so seriously that it suffocates. After a reasonably interesting premiere, the subsequent episodes suffer under a tone that can’t push through the world-building to give us characters or a story to care about. And it eventually becomes a slog, which is the last thing anybody wants from a streaming service offering.