It’s hard to think of many modern works that had an impact comparable to Frank Herbert’s Dune, and traces of this tale are woven into everything from Star Wars and its desert planets full of sand worms to Warhammer 40K and its god emperors. But if you’ve read the original book, it’s honestly a tad surprising that enough patient readers got through its infamously dense opening barrage of proper nouns and space feudal jargon for it to go on and become so influential—listen, I love that stuff, but it doesn’t make for the friendliest introduction. By contrast, Villeneuve’s recent Dune adaptation and its big-name actors, grandiose imagery, and slightly more straightforward storytelling have made the series dramatically more accessible in a way that’s fully opened the floodgates, transporting more than ever to the wastelands of Arrakis.
Piggybacking off that surge, Dune: Prophecy is a TV prequel from HBO and showrunner Alison Schapker that adapts Sisterhood of Dune, one of the many spin-off novels, in an attempt to bring more of this impossibly vast mythos to the screen. Overall, while this series doesn’t have nearly the same humming otherworldliness of the film adaptations, it places us in a complicated time and place defined by Machiavellian maneuvering and a familiar obsession with a certain ochre psychedelic. It may start off slow and remain somewhat inconsistent, but at least through the first four episodes, there’s just enough here for both the Dune diehards who know too much about how the Spacing Guild works and those who recently glided in on a Chalamet-lead rebellion and the ethereal vibrations of Zimmer’s score.
As for where this iteration takes place in the series’ several millennia-spanning timeline, it’s set roughly 10,000 years before Paul Atreides mucked things up royally. Specifically, events center around the Bene Gesserit, a then-nascent sisterhood seeking to influence Imperium politics. Valya Harkonnen (Emily Watson) is the main character, a Reverend Mother who has taken over the order to prevent a prophesized calamity. The Imperium is also freshly formed, a dynasty established within living memory following a war against the “thinking machines,” AI overlords that almost ensnared humanity before the Great Houses stopped them.
As for how all this information lands, much like its source material, the beginning of the show is a bit too dense and a bit too cold. While existing fans will likely perk up with each reference to the greater mythos, the premiere struggles to make us care much about its sizable cast—there’s enough time to partially introduce their motivations, but that’s about it. Thankfully, though, as it sets the table, the series eventually moves into some compelling bureaucratic jousting as factions vie for power; the Imperium is fairly brittle, and so the Great Houses, Bene Gesserit, and others engage in some good old-fashioned backstabbing to try to seize control of Arrakis and the spice that comes with it. There’s a solid sense of build-up and payoff when it comes to these ploys, specifically in the fourth episode, where machinations are dramatically laid bare.
This politicking takes on more weight as we eventually gain context for the conflicting motivations at play. In particular, we gain insight into what’s driving Valya Harkonnen in her quest for power and prestige. Unlike the bald, murderous freakazoids who bathe in black goo that we see in the flicks, during Valya’s time, her family is made up of disgraced whalers ostensibly living out a blue-collar existence on a forgotten planet. Emily Watson deftly captures the glint of ambition in Valya’s eye as she carries out well-calculated ploys to avoid a terrible foretold future. There’s a compelling, tragic irony at work around her storyline, but probably only if you’re familiar with where the story goes in the original books. Meanwhile, Olivia Williams delivers a similarly excellent performance as Valya’s literal and figurative sister, Tula, her closest ally in the sisterhood. She is much more morally conflicted about their dubious methods, which leads to agonizing conflicts over whether she wants to help her blood relative or her found family. Together, these Harkonnen sisters are the show’s bedrock, and flashbacks to their shared past result leads to some of the series’ most emotionally rich material.