It makes you believe a whale can be a warship. Studio Orange's CG does the thing hand-drawn animation can't: the Leviathan reads as a breathing ecosystem, bats and bees and hydrogen sniffers all riding one enormous living hull, while Alek's Stormwalker stomps through the Alps like a furnace with legs. That Darwinist versus Clanker split isn't set dressing, it's the whole argument, and the show is smart enough to let the two kids figure out that neither side's engineering is the villain. Deryn strapping into a Huxley ascender while lying about her name to everyone who matters is the exact kind of tension this premise was built for, and Dr. Barlow's loris steals scenes it has no business stealing. Be warned: three novels crammed into twelve episodes means the back half sprints past character beats the first half earned. The opening arc is genuinely great, and Deryn Sharp deserved a longer runway.

In a war-torn reimagining of 1914, two young people meet on the eve of war. Alek is a fugitive prince of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Deryn Sharp is a bold girl who disguises herself as a boy so she can serve in the British Air Service. Chance brings them together aboard the HMS Leviathan, an enormous living airship made from genetically engineered creatures. Their meeting sets off an adventure that could change the course of history and that tests what each of them believes about war, loyalty and identity. The series is a twelve-episode sci-fi adventure with mecha elements.