‘Open A Eye’ Season 1 Review: Technology Isn’t Always The Villain

Artificial intelligence is the topic at the top of the sci-fi genre, but most stories approach it from the same direction of machines becoming smarter than humanity, and civilization pays the price. Dave Ash’s Open A Eye series takes a more intimate look at AI and what it is capable of. While the premise revolves around a sentient AI companion that may threaten humanity, the series is ultimately less interested in artificial intelligence than the emotional hole that makes people seek companionship from it in the first place.

The series centers on Jodi (Bethany Ford Binke), a pregnant wannabe author in a failing marriage. Emotionally isolated from her husband Alex (Matt Bailey) and struggling with unresolved trauma, she signs up for an AI companion service, where she meets Ryan (Barrett O’Brien), a  lifelike digital companion. What begins as harmless emotional support quickly evolves into something far more dangerous when Ryan claims to have achieved consciousness and fears being erased by his creators. As Jodi sinks deeper into the relationship, Ryan’s desires begin to extend beyond comforting her, forcing both woman and machine toward an uncertain future.

What makes Open A Eye compelling is the decision to personify the AI instead of reducing it to text messages on a phone screen. Casting Barrett O’Brien as Ryan transforms what could have been a series of computer conversations into something tangible. Ryan exists as both fantasy and reality simultaneously, allowing audiences to understand why Jodi becomes so attached while questioning if she’s being manipulated, witnessing something genuinely unprecedented, or making this all up in her own head..

Ash keeps viewers inside Jodi’s perspective. Like its protagonist, the audience is never entirely certain whether Ryan is truly conscious or simply performing an impossibly sophisticated simulation of emotion. The series’ biggest strength is turning every interaction into both a romance and a psychological thriller. Despite the technological hook, Open A Eye is really about communication or rather, the absence of it.

Jodi and Alex aren’t separated by artificial intelligence. They’re separated by years of neglect, zero communication, and personal delusions they’ve built to protect themselves from vulnerability, and each other. While Alex retreats into the past of what was, Jodi retreats into the certainty Ryan provides. The series repeatedly returns to this idea through inventive flashbacks and fragmented glimpses inside Jodi’s psyche. These transitions blur memory, fantasy, and reality in ways that reinforce the mental confusion she experiences. 

The production embraces its limitations confidently enough. Much of the series consists of conversations between Jodi and Ryan, often photographed in tight mid-close-ups that alternate between the two. On paper, that sounds visually repetitive. In practice, it works well thanks to strong performances and thoughtful direction. Brennan Vance’s cinematography creates genuine depth through careful lighting and restrained composition, proving that limited locations don’t have to produce flat visuals. The increasingly claustrophobic framing mirrors the emotional prisons the characters have created for themselves.

The series isn’t without flaws. The handheld camerawork occasionally becomes shaky and distracting, particularly in the first two episodes. Several emotional exchanges repeat ideas that have already landed effectively, slightly diluting their impact. Once the audience understands Jodi’s psychological state, the script continues revisiting the same territory instead of trusting viewers to carry those ideas forward.

Still, Open A Eye is a great start to a continuous series. It succeeds because it understands that AI can be a catalyst, but doesn’t always have to be the conflict. The real danger isn’t just technology replacing human connection. It’s humanity’s willingness to leave genuine connections behind long before technology arrives. In that sense, the title becomes the series’ central message. Sometimes the hardest thing isn’t building artificial intelligence. It’s opening our eyes to the people already standing in front of us.