By Neeraj Nanda
BIOHACKERS, German, Session 1 (6 episodes); Genre- Techno-thriller; Creator- Christian Ditter; Directors Christian Ditter, Tim Trachte; Starring Luna Wedler, Jessica Schwarz, Caro Cult, Thomas Prenn among others.
MELBOURNE, 25 August 2020: Biohackers, released on Netflix on 20 August, has six episodes each 30 minutes plus. Shot at the University of Freiburg and studios in Munich, the series streaming was postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic as some of the scenes sounded familiar to pandemic issues. Conspiracy theories about COVID-19 virus origin continue to reverberate the world, Biohackers, no doubt, is timely as the plot reveals step by step.
It starts with passengers on a train start falling sick after something lethal spreads among them and the flashback leading to it makes a medium-paced new-age bio-thriller. The protagonist (Mia) is a fun-loving university medical student whose professor is experimenting with Genomes (or rather editing them) to get rid of all hereditary diseases children have. The project is called ‘Homo Dius’.
Fact and fiction about modifying human Genomes, genetic disorders, genetic sequencing, a glowing mouse, synthetic biology, and all sorts of 21st-century scientific stuff come up as the professor who also has a private lab, now shares a sensational secret with Mia. A past episode haunts Mia as she struggles to know the truth. The series is innovative and characters weave the screenplay into an excellent human drama with superb direction.
Diseases or dangerous viruses need to be curbed and how far science can go to grapple with nature to do that has always been debated. Biohackers is part of the debate despite a positive end but …
I give this series 4 out of five stars.
