The Witching Hour

It's hard to describe how much I love Denis Villeneuve's Dune films. I've written about them a few times already around these parts and this site hasn't even been around a year yet. When I go on the road, I have them downloaded to my iPad, just in case I want to travel back to Arrakis.

With that in mind, I was obviously excited about Dune: Prophecy, the prequel television series. I was even more excited when the product was "upgraded" from the 'Max' moniker to the 'HBO' one – presuming this meant that the powers-that-be felt it, like that other fantasy fiction before it, Game of Thrones, was worthy of such branding.¹

Spoiler alert: it was not worthy.

Dune: Prophecy, which wrapped its first season last week wasn't awful. But boy oh boy was it tedious to watch. If there was a single moment of fun or levity in the entire season, I missed it. It felt like watching a homework assignment. Only one in which there was no real knowledge pay-off in the end.

And yet I watched the entire season, which, thankfully, was only six episodes long. House of the Dragon, the prequel to the aforementioned Game of Thrones has the opposite problem – this most recent season was far too short. With Dune: Prophecy, the brevity is mercy. I honestly don't think I could have sat through another two episodes of that slog, let alone four!

And yet, we're getting another season of the show. So presumably it did decent enough in terms of ratings. But I'm honestly not sure why. Other than perhaps the notion that millions tuned in, like myself, thinking they'd get something at least akin to the Villeneuve films. I'm not asking for – nor would I want the show to be – the exact same as those movies. It's simply too tall an ask. But leveraging the unique attributes of a longer narrative arc (sorry, Denis) could have and should have benefitted the talent behind this show. Sadly, they squandered it.

Again, it's not that the show is absolutely awful, it's just so boring and bland and bleak that it lacks any sort of spark that would normally ignite interest in such a series. And that's why, again, I have to believe it's really just riding on the coattails of the recent films. But it also risks dragging those films down a bit because it bears the name but basically nothing else worth watching.

There are a few glimmers of promise in a handful of episodes, almost all of which involve Travis Fimmel's unstable Desmond Hart, and a few flashbacks that are interesting – namely the ones that involve murder, naturally. And yes, they do flesh out the troubled relationship with AI ("thinking machines") – obviously timely given our current age – that the films don't really get into due to a lack of time. But nothing, beyond a few shots of the sand worm, hearken back to Dune itself. And that's really the main issue, at least for me: it just doesn't feel like Dune.

Again, that's unfair given the standard Villeneuve set with his films. But it is what it is. You can't make a prequel with "Dune" in the title without the need to live up to such hype. This show feels more like a muted spin-off that couldn't get the rights to the main characters and so is making this tangential story with familiar family names. And rather than bolster the backstory of those powerful families, they make them seem decidedly common.

Villeneuve's Harkonnens are terrifying monsters – "they're not human, they're BRUTAL!" The show's version are sort of a common, weak family that feels slighted and betrayed.² Villeneuve's Atreides are charismatic badasses. The show's version are sort of vanilla almost non-players. Even the Corrino empire is made to look weak – on purpose here, yes, but not at all as interesting as the enigma that is that family in the second film (distracting casting aside in the form of Christopher Walken). They even manage to pretty much waste the usually excellent Mark Strong here.

I could go on, but Villeneuve's films feel grand whereas the show feels almost claustrophobic. Villeneuve's films were haunting, the show feels haunted. They just don't feel like the same universe. Hopefully that changes with season 2, but there's nothing we've seen to date which makes me think that will be the case.

One more thing: while the entire show is basically based around the Harkonnen sisters, I really didn't even find them worth mentioning above. And I normally like Emily Watson – and certainly Olivia Williams. They simply can't rise above the writing here. And I can't help but wonder if the whole angle wasn't a mistake.

Certainly the Bene Gesserit are one of the most interesting elements of the films (and to a lesser extent, the books), but in this show, they're really just downgraded into this sort of lame girls boarding school with some mild witch vibes.

Speaking of, it's strange how much content around the notion of witches came out all at once? This show, The Acolyte, Agatha All Along, and, of course, Wicked. Maybe we're just all a bit witched out? Must be the season of the witch.

¹ The other show "upgraded" in the move, The Penguin, absolutely was worthy.

² Perhaps neither the Harkonnens nor the Bene Gesserit need a backstory here (beyond the books). I'm reminded of the Han Solo situation.