The Aether season 1
| The Aether | |
|---|---|
| Season 1 | |
| File:The Aether Season 1.jpg Promotional poster | |
| Showrunner | Jason Blundell |
| Starring | |
| No. of episodes | 8 |
| Release | |
| Original network | Netflix |
| Original release | March 5 – April 23, 2027 |
| Season chronology | |
The first season of the American science fiction horror television series The Aether, the first series in the franchise based on the Call of Duty: Zombies mythology created by Treyarch, was developed for television by American writer and producer Jason Blundell. The season was produced by Netflix Studios in association with Treyarch, Activision Blizzard Studios, and Mob Productions.
The season stars Nolan North, Steve Blum, Fred Tatasciore, and Tom Kane as Edward Richtofen, Tank Dempsey, Nikolai Belinski, and Takeo Masaki, respectively. Set across multiple fractured dimensions connected through a mysterious force known as the Aether, the story follows four soldiers from different nations and timelines who become trapped in a cycle of supernatural experiments, undead outbreaks, and interdimensional warfare after uncovering the existence of Element 115.
The season premiered on Netflix on March 5, 2027, with episodes released weekly through April 23, 2027. The season received generally positive reviews from critics, with praise directed toward its horror atmosphere, performances, production design, and adaptation of the Zombies mythology.
Episodes
| No. overall | No. in season | Title | Directed by | Written by | Original air date | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | "Origins" | Marcus Vale | Evelyn Hart | March 5, 2026 | |
| In 1918, as World War I rages across Europe, German scientist Edward Richtofen uncovers a hidden Group 935 facility experimenting with Element 115, a mysterious substance capable of reanimating the dead and tearing fractures through reality itself. After a catastrophic outbreak unleashes hordes of undead soldiers, Richtofen activates an experimental teleporter, triggering a massive energy surge witnessed across the world. In Japan, Takeo Masaki is ordered to investigate reports connected to Richtofen and the growing supernatural threat, while in Siberia, Nikolai Belinski encounters a mysterious blue portal and hears the voice of a young girl named Samantha. Meanwhile, American Marine Tank Dempsey battles a sudden zombie outbreak at a military base in the United States. Following the teleporter incident, Dempsey, Takeo, Nikolai, and Richtofen awaken together inside an unknown facility, immediately distrusting one another despite finding themselves trapped in the same nightmare. As strange symbols appear across the walls and Samantha warns that "the Aether is opening," the group is forced to unite when hundreds of undead creatures emerge from the darkness and attack. | ||||||
| 2 | 2 | "House of the Hollow Men" | Selene Cross | Adrian Locke | March 12, 2027 | |
| After being transported from the Signal Tower, Dempsey, Takeo, Nikolai, and Richtofen awaken inside the ruined asylum Verrückt, where undead patients roam endless hallways and Samantha continues haunting them through radios and whispers. As the group fights through the collapsing facility, Richtofen secretly investigates old Group 935 experiments involving the preservation of consciousness after death, revealing he previously worked at the asylum. The survivors regroup and discover the lower wards contain experimental machinery fused into the walls, along with a monstrous mutated corpse imprisoned behind a steel door. When the creature escapes, the group retreats into an electrotherapy chamber, where Richtofen overloads the equipment and destroys it with a massive electrical surge. Moments later, Samantha causes the asylum itself to distort and collapse around them, forcing the survivors into a hidden underground teleportation chamber beneath the facility. Activating the unstable portal moments before being overwhelmed by the undead, the four escape into the unknown and arrive in a rain-soaked jungle where a glowing meteorite pulses beneath the mud as something buried underground begins to rise. | ||||||
| 3 | 3 | "The Black Garden" | Damien Rowe | Evelyn Hart & Lucas Mercer | March 19, 2027 | |
| After escaping the collapsing asylum, Dempsey, Nikolai, Takeo, and Richtofen arrive in a corrupted jungle known as the Black Garden, where twisted trees, glowing spores, and abandoned Group 935 facilities reveal the aftermath of horrific experiments tied to the Aether. As the group explores a ruined research colony overrun by undead creatures fused with black roots, Richtofen becomes increasingly disturbed by the appearance of a mysterious entity known as the Shadowman, an ancient being connected to the first experiments with Element 115. Through recordings and fragmented memories, the survivors learn that Group 935 was never truly searching for energy, but instead attempting to contact and control the Shadowman himself. Richtofen finally admits that his experiments opened a doorway into the Aether and unleashed forces beyond human understanding, while the Shadowman reveals that Richtofen’s obsession with death and knowledge helped doom reality itself. As the colony collapses around them and the Shadowman warns each survivor of their eventual fate, the group escapes through another dimensional rupture and emerges inside an impossible city beneath a crimson sky, where floating structures and silent figures surround them as Richtofen realizes they are no longer near the Aether, but trapped inside it. | ||||||
| 4 | 4 | "The Factory of God" | Jonah Vesper | Adrian Locke | March 26, 2027 | |
| After arriving in the Obsidian City, Dempsey, Nikolai, Takeo, and Richtofen enter the Factory of God, an ancient structure where human bodies are suspended inside machines connected to the Aether. The group discovers that Group 935 used the factory to continue experiments involving immortality, human transformation, and the undead. Tensions rise after Takeo and Dempsey uncover evidence that Richtofen worked alongside Nazi officials and Doctor Ludvig Maxis during the early Aether experiments, while old recordings reveal the Shadowman manipulating Group 935 through promises of evolution and power. Deeper within the factory, Richtofen admits the structure predates humanity and that the Shadowman influenced human civilization long before the war. The survivors eventually reach the Conduit, a machine linking realities through the Aether, where the Shadowman exposes Richtofen’s past experiments on prisoners and children. As the Conduit overloads and the Obsidian City collapses, the Shadowman opens another dimensional breach while a hidden facility known as Project Janus awakens an unknown creature behind a sealed chamber. | ||||||
| 5 | 5 | "The Theatre of Bones" | Lucien Ward | Evelyn Hart | April 2, 2027 | |
| After escaping the collapsing Factory of God, Dempsey, Nikolai, Takeo, and Richtofen arrive in a ruined version of Berlin dominated by the abandoned theatre Kino der Toten, where posters throughout the building depict alternate versions of the survivors across different timelines. Inside the theatre, the group encounters Samantha Maxis in physical form for the first time as she controls the undead surrounding the auditorium and confronts Richtofen over his role in the experiments that trapped her within the Aether. Through recovered Group 935 footage, the survivors learn that Richtofen and Doctor Maxis used Samantha in an experiment involving the Aether and the Shadowman, causing the machine to overload and transform her into a powerful entity connected to the undead. As the theatre begins shifting and distorting around them, Samantha reveals that the Shadowman is attempting to rewrite reality itself by manipulating different timelines through a machine hidden inside the projection room. Screens throughout the theatre display alternate versions of events and possible futures involving the survivors, while Samantha warns that the Shadowman is trying to open a mysterious gateway known as the Gate. After the machine overloads and the theatre collapses, Samantha sends the group through another dimensional rupture leading to a frozen industrial city beneath a blood-red eclipse, warning Nikolai that the next place remembers him and hates him. | ||||||
| 6 | 6 | "Red Eclipse" | Nathan Hollow | Lucas Mercer | April 9, 2027 | |
| After leaving Kino der Toten, Dempsey, Nikolai, Takeo, and Richtofen arrive in a frozen Soviet city built around Project Ascension, where experiments involving the Aether and Element 115 created preserved undead soldiers beneath a blood-red eclipse. As the group explores the abandoned facility, Nikolai reveals he was once stationed there during Soviet attempts to continue Group 935’s research after the war. Inside the command center, the survivors discover recordings showing a younger Nikolai overseeing failed experiments on undead test subjects while warning Soviet officials that the Aether corrupts memory itself. The recordings also reveal the death of Nikolai’s wife Yelena, whose fate continues haunting him throughout the city. Deeper within the facility, the group encounters mutated Soviet soldiers frozen inside containment chambers while the Shadowman taunts Nikolai over his role in the experiments and the atrocities committed during the war. After the containment chambers open and the facility collapses, the survivors flee into a massive rocket silo where Richtofen realizes the Soviets were attempting to reach the Moon through Aether technology. Nikolai launches the rocket into the eclipse to destroy the city, briefly revealing a massive presence surrounding the Moon before the survivors escape aboard a driverless underground train traveling through impossible tunnels, where Takeo spots another version of Richtofen watching from the darkness outside. | ||||||
| 7 | 7 | "The Frozen Shore" | Elias Mercer | Adrian Locke & Evelyn Hart | April 16, 2027 | |
| While traveling aboard a driverless underground train, Dempsey, Nikolai, Takeo, and Richtofen arrive at the Frozen Shore, a ruined coastline filled with abandoned trenches, frozen warships, and undead soldiers from multiple nations and time periods. The group discovers the shoreline acts as a graveyard for soldiers lost across different wars, with preserved corpses reanimating beneath the snow and ice. As the survivors fight through tactical undead forces still capable of using weapons and coordinated attacks, Richtofen realizes something massive is buried beneath the frozen ocean. The Shadowman appears and awakens a gigantic skeletal creature formed from corpses and shipwrecks, forcing the group to retreat into an ancient lighthouse overlooking the battlefield. Inside, Takeo questions his lifelong beliefs about honor and obedience while Richtofen discovers the lighthouse was built to contain a gateway connected to the Aether. When the structure activates and tears open reality above the shore, the Moon appears unnaturally close with orange cracks spreading across its surface as undead armies assault the lighthouse below. Pulled into the collapsing gateway alongside the lighthouse itself, the survivors arrive on the Moon near the abandoned Griffin Station facility, where an unknown voice welcomes Richtofen back. | ||||||
| 8 | 8 | "Crown of the Dead" | Victor Ashford | Jason Blundell | April 23, 2027 | |
| On the Moon at Griffin Station, Dempsey, Nikolai, Takeo, and Richtofen discover Earth has begun collapsing under the growing influence of the Aether while Group 935 systems reactivate around them. Deep inside the station, the survivors encounter Samantha guarding the Crown, an ancient machine connected to the Aether that controls death and links multiple realities together. Samantha explains that the Crown was created by the beings who originally ruled the Aether, but it eventually corrupted them and allowed the Shadowman to spread across different worlds. As the station descends into chaos, Richtofen admits the Crown must be destroyed before the Aether consumes reality entirely, even if doing so kills him. The Shadowman confronts the group inside the Crown chamber and attempts to reclaim control of the machine while Earth continues breaking apart outside the station. During the battle, Dempsey fights the Shadowman while Takeo and Nikolai hold back waves of undead, allowing Richtofen to reach the Crown and overload it, ending the cycle connected to the Aether. The resulting energy destroys the undead presence throughout Griffin Station, restores Samantha’s humanity, and stabilizes Earth, though Richtofen survives the process physically weakened and aged. With the Aether temporarily sealed and the whispers finally gone, the survivors stand together on the Moon watching Earth recover as peace returns for the first time since the Signal Tower. | ||||||
Cast and characters
Main
Recurring
- Julie Nathanson as Samantha Maxis
- Fred Tatasciore as Ludvig Maxis
- Malcolm McDowell as Dr. Cornelius Pernell
- Tony Todd as The Shadowman
- Peter Stormare as Doctor Schuster
- Claudia Black as Sophia
- David Tennant as Doctor Groph
- Lance Reddick as Sergeant Roebuck
Production
Development
On January 14, 2025, Netflix announced that an animated television adaptation based on the Aether storyline from the Call of Duty: Zombies franchise was in development. The project was developed by former Treyarch creative director Jason Blundell, who served as showrunner and executive producer.
Netflix officially greenlit the series in August 2025 with an eight-episode first season. Activision Blizzard Studios and Treyarch collaborated on the production alongside multiple animation and cinematic studios. The project was produced entirely using high-end CGI animation designed to emulate the visual fidelity and cinematic presentation of modern video game cutscenes.
The first season reportedly received a production budget exceeding $120 million, making it one of Netflix's most expensive adult animated streaming productions at the time.
Writing
Blundell described the series as a psychological horror narrative centered around memory, guilt, manipulation, and the cyclical destruction caused by the Aether. While the original games primarily conveyed story through environmental storytelling, hidden audio logs, and easter eggs, the adaptation expanded the emotional relationships between Edward Richtofen, Tank Dempsey, Nikolai Belinski, and Takeo Masaki into the core focus of the narrative.
The writers adapted major elements from the original Aether storyline while restructuring the chronology into a serialized format intended to be more accessible to television audiences. Several locations and concepts from the games were reimagined with expanded lore, while original storylines were introduced to further explore the origins of the undead outbreak and the corruption of the Aether itself.
Casting
In March 2026, Nolan North, Steve Blum, Fred Tatasciore, and Tom Kane were confirmed to reprise their respective roles from the video games.
Julie Nathanson later joined the cast to reprise her role as Samantha Maxis, while Tony Todd was cast in a recurring role as the Shadowman.
Additional motion-capture performers and facial reference actors were utilized throughout production to enhance the realism of character animation and combat choreography.
Animation and visual design
Production on the season began in February 2026. The series was created entirely through CGI animation using performance capture, facial scanning, and virtual cinematography technology similar to that used in modern AAA video game cinematics.
Animation work was handled across multiple international studios, with teams specializing in cinematic rendering, motion capture cleanup, creature animation, and environmental simulation. The production utilized Unreal Engine 5 for real-time lighting previews and several sequences were rendered using proprietary cinematic pipelines developed specifically for the series.
The visual style blended photorealistic military environments with surreal cosmic horror imagery inspired by the original games. Particular emphasis was placed on dynamic lighting, volumetric fog, practical-style camera movement, and detailed facial animation to replicate the presentation of high-budget video game cutscenes.
Visual effects
The visual effects for the season were provided by Framestore, DNEG, Pixomondo, and Rodeo FX. More than 1,800 visual effects shots were created for the season, including large-scale undead simulations, dimensional fractures, particle-based Aether anomalies, and destruction sequences.
The visual effects teams combined practical cinematic techniques with stylized supernatural imagery to create the series' distinct aesthetic. Extensive work was dedicated to the appearance of Element 115 corruption, interdimensional environments, and the transformation effects associated with the undead.
Marketing
Netflix officially announced The Aether on May 12, 2026, alongside the release of a teaser poster featuring Richtofen standing before a glowing Aether portal.
The first teaser trailer premiered during Summer Game Fest on June 9, 2026. A full trailer was released on January 18, 2027, showcasing the season's horror elements, undead creatures, and fractured reality storyline.
The cast and producers appeared at San Diego Comic-Con in July 2026, where exclusive footage from the first two episodes was screened.
Release
The first season of The Aether premiered on Netflix on March 5, 2027. Unlike several previous Netflix genre series, the season was released weekly rather than all at once, with the finale premiering on April 23, 2027.
The season was released in standard HD, 4K Ultra HD, and Dolby Vision formats.
Home media
The first season of The Aether was released on Blu-ray, DVD, and 4K Ultra HD on September 14, 2027.
The physical release included behind-the-scenes documentaries, deleted scenes, concept artwork, cast interviews, and commentary tracks for selected episodes.
Reception
The first season of The Aether received generally positive reviews from critics and audiences.
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the season holds an approval rating of 87% based on 118 critic reviews, with an average rating of 7.8/10.
Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the season a score of 73 out of 100 based on 24 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".
Critics praised the performances of Nolan North and Steve Blum, along with the season's atmosphere, production design, and willingness to embrace the surreal horror elements of the source material.
Some reviewers criticized the complexity of the mythology and the season's heavy reliance on exposition surrounding the Aether and Element 115.
Audience viewership
Following its premiere, The Aether became one of Netflix's most-watched horror series of 2027. According to Netflix, the premiere episode accumulated over 18 million viewers globally during its first week of release.
The series remained in Netflix's global top 10 rankings for six consecutive weeks. Episodes The Theatre of Bones and Crown of the Dead generated significant online discussion among fans of the Zombies franchise.
Awards and nominations
| Award | Category | Recipient(s) | Result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Saturn Awards | Best Horror Television Series | The Aether | Won |
| Primetime Emmy Awards | Outstanding Visual Effects in a Season or Movie | Framestore, DNEG, Pixomondo, Rodeo FX | Nominated |
| Critics' Choice Super Awards | Best Horror Series | The Aether | Won |
| Saturn Awards | Best Actor on Television | Nolan North | Nominated |
References
External links
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