# Strange Angel (2018)

> A brilliant rocket scientist in 1940s Los Angeles pursues cutting edge science by day and esoteric sexual rituals by night.

Canonical page: https://ember.film/tv/66214

## Facts

- Seasons: 2
- Episodes: 17
- Episode runtime: 50 min
- Status: Ended
- Genres: drama, history, science fiction
- Created by: Mark Heyman
- Network: CBS All Access
- Cast: Jack Reynor, Rupert Friend, Bella Heathcote, Peter Mark Kendall, Michael Gaston, Greg Wise, Rade Šerbedžija, Zack Pearlman
- TMDB rating: 7.0/10
- IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt7210448/

## Ember's analysis

- Pacing: measured
- Intensity: strong
- Complexity: dense
- Violence: mild
- Tone: seductive, unsettling, intellectually restless, sensual, melancholic

## What critics say

Mixed reception: audiences found the period recreation and Jack Reynor's performance compelling, but the second season's drift and the occult material drew criticism.

## Synopsis

Strange Angel (2018-2019) is an American historical drama series created by Mark Heyman for CBS All Access. Loosely based on the life of rocket pioneer Jack Parsons, played by Jack Reynor, the show follows a brilliant and mysterious man who helps birth American rocketry at a California lab while secretly performing sex magick rituals as a disciple of occultist Aleister Crowley. Rupert Friend plays Ernest Donovan, a figure drawn into the tangle of science, secrecy and ritual, while Bella Heathcote plays Susan Parsons, whose life is pulled along with her husband's ambitions. The engine of the series is the tension between Parsons' hunger for knowledge and transcendence and the rigid world of wartime and postwar military research that surrounds him. Each season is a serialized run of ten and seven episodes, with a 50 minute runtime, that layers secret societies, sexual experimentation and Cold War style paranoia. Set in 1940s Los Angeles, the show has a period drama texture of smoky interiors, sunlit desert testing grounds and lush occult ceremonies. Its tone is seductive, unsettling and intellectually restless. Fans of Mindhunter, Babylon Berlin and Oppenheimer will find resonance in its portrait of a flawed genius and the cost of his obsessions.

## Shows like Strange Angel

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- [Masters of Sex (2013)](https://ember.film/tv/52716)
- [Penny Dreadful: City of Angels (2020)](https://ember.film/tv/71368)
- [The Man in the High Castle (2015)](https://ember.film/tv/55215)
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- [Project Blue Book (2019)](https://ember.film/tv/68484)

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