BRAVE NEW WORLD TV SHOW PREMIERE SERIES
BRAVE NEW WORLD TV SHOW PREMIERE TV

There are brief glimpses of the community’s superficial entertainment options - video programs with names like The Moist Boys and Face Punch - but Brave New World itself doesn’t feel significantly deeper.

BRAVE NEW WORLD TV SHOW PREMIERE SERIES

The problem is that the series has so little interest in exploring what went into the creation of a place like New London, and what motivates the people who live there. There’s an impressive action sequence in the second episode, presented largely as a single take, when Bernard and Lenina’s Savage Lands trip goes horribly awry, but it also feels besides the point of the whole thing. Mostly, though, the show treats the book’s big questions as excuses for spectacles of sex and violence. “The Savage Lands,” where John has grown up, have been reimagined from a Native American-styled wilderness preserve into a theme park chronicling the excesses of early 21st-century America: In one scene, Lenina marvels at a re-creation of a big-box store opening on Black Friday. While Huxley was writing about his own time in the 1930s, there are clear parallels to our world, and this adaptation occasionally takes a break from the flash and flesh to point them out. New London is a place where the citizenry are kept docile through abundant drugs, sex, and other distractions. If Westworld hadn’t already ground every last ounce of titillation out of the concept of filmed orgies, Brave New World will in short order.

BRAVE NEW WORLD TV SHOW PREMIERE TV

It quickly becomes clear that the last dictate is the TV show’s primary area of interest. We are told at the beginning that New London has three rules to keep everyone happy: No privacy. The scenery is gorgeous, the digital FX casually real, so that when Lenina enjoys the wonder of zero gravity on an orbital flight with Bernard, it makes sense both that she’d be giddy and that the other passengers would be utterly jaded to it.īut this adaptation, developed by Grant Morrison, Brian Taylor, and David Wiener, never digs below those polished surfaces, either in exploring the characters or the story’s themes. New London is a gleaming and wholly plausible paradise for people like Lenina and Bernard, as well as an obvious dystopia for anyone unlucky enough to be born at Cjack 60’s rank. It’s a great-looking cast, and a great-looking show. In addition to Ehenreich, this latest version of Aldous Huxley’s middle school English-class staple stars, among others, Jessica Brown Findlay from Downton Abbey, as pleasure-seeking Lenina Crowne, Harry Lloyd from Counterpart, as administrator Bernard Marx, Kylie Bunbury from Pitch, as Lenina’s friend Frannie, Joseph Morgan from The Vampire Diaries, as menial laborer Cjack 60, and Demi Moore, as John’s alcoholic mother, Linda. But, hey, at least it all looks fabulous. Welcome to this not-so Brave New World, where all the ideas feel old and not nearly as deeply considered as the creators think.

Related: Is NBC’s Peacock Worth It? Here’s What to Know About the New Streaming Service When he asks what the special suits do, his host replies, “The suits? They look fabulous!”

As the rules are explained to him, John quickly realizes that it’s just a high-tech version of hide-and-seek. At one point, John arrives at a fancy party where the guests are preparing for what they claim is an exciting new game that involves lots of technology and vibrant outfits. In the new TV adaptation of Brave New World, Alden Ehrenreich plays John the Savage, a stranger to the future society of New London, who is constantly puzzled by the city’s decadence as well as its rigid caste system.

Brave new world tv show premiere