“The Eternaut” (in Spanish, with subtitles, or dubbed) has been updated to the cellphone age, and the core cast of characters has been expanded, but it follows the rough outlines of Oesterheld’s story. Toxic snow falls, though now with the aural accompaniment of constant wind, a different kind of ghostliness than the silence of reading. Keeping every inch of the body covered, in coats or ponchos or plastic sheets, is crucial. Giant bugs make an appearance.
This fidelity is easier to maintain than it would be if the season were longer; the six episodes end at about the point where the book turns a corner into full-fledged, eyebrow-raising pulp with a particular flavor of anti-Cold War, a-pox-on-both-your-houses idealism. A second season of the series might have to work a little harder to keep contemporary viewers from tuning out.
Stagnaro, who created and directed the series and was one of five writers, has done a very creditable job. He and his director of photography, Gastón Girod, give the snowy cityscapes full of dead bodies and dead vehicles a hushed beauty. The action is legible, though the face and body coverings can sometimes cause momentary confusion. (Sometimes that’s a dramatic device.)
Stagnaro has made one major concession to contemporary preferences, and while you can’t blame him — he’s just doing what every streaming adaptation does — it’s a choice that makes the series more ordinary than it needs to be.
He has taken a story about a small band of people with a few simple personality quirks each and added layer upon layer of melodramatic detail and mystery — “humanizing” the characters, which means turning a slightly kitschy action-horror story with philosophical underpinnings into something that’s at least 50 percent tasteful soap opera. Less “War of the Worlds,” more “The Last of Us.” This is the predominant strategy of television drama today, and it’s harder to do well than people want to admit, which is a big reason that so many drama series feel the same.
I have not said much about the concrete details of the plot of “The Eternaut,” largely in deference to Netflix, which provided a do-not-spoil list of such sweeping comprehensiveness that it sapped my spirit. (You didn’t hear anything about bugs from me.) It was suggested that only one actor should be identified with a character, the Argentine star Ricardo Darín, who plays Juan Salvo, a leader of the survivors. So there he is. He’s good.
The first question you might have about the show is one that I’m definitely not allowed to answer: What, or who, is an eternaut? The book, with its semi-Victorian structure, gives you the answer right away. (I wasn’t supposed to tell you that, either.) The series doesn’t, so you’ll just have to wait. Or spend the $350.
