When Denis Villeneuve made the first one Dune film without a guarantee of a second, he did not risk telling just part of the story. He risked telling the wrong person. In its entirety the Dune cycle is a story about a personality cult run amok, but at its end Dune: part onewe are left with Paul Atreides’ image of Timothée Chalamet as an emerging savior, with little indication of the totalitarian excesses to come. It’s like a movie about the rise of Nazi Germany in the mid-1930s was cut, portraying Hitler as a charismatic leader who brought pride and stability to an oppressed country—and if that seems like too extreme a comparison, it isn’t. for Paul Atreides. who, op Dune Messiahmakes it yourself.

In Dune: Prophecythe HBO series set a century after the end of humanity’s war against ‘thinking machines’, the birth of Paul Atreides is still several millennia away, but the sisterhood of the Bene Gesserit is already laying the foundation for his rise and gathering the genetic data and formulating the plans that will allow them to breed and control the future rulers of the universe. Considering the order is led by Valya Harkonnen (Emily Watson), whose family is a mortal enemy of House Atreides, the long-term results of the plan are likely not what she envisions. Still, 10,000 years is a long time for things to go wrong and intentions to be distorted beyond recognition.

But if the Dune films are about a nobly intended uprising that has gone wrong, without anyone taking action Prophecy starts with such high ideals. Valya and her sister Tula (Olivia Williams), who leads the sisterhood alongside her without quite being her equal, may talk about securing the future of their order, but it’s clear that the only real preservation they have in mind is their own salvation. In a flashback that opens the series, a young Valya, played by Jessica Barden, forces her rival for the role of mother superior of the order to slit her own throat, using the throaty, hypnotic voice that, in this point in the galaxy’s history, she is the only one in command. Self-aware technology may be outlawed, but the Bene Gesserit gene-mapping project is too valuable to ignore, and there is no rule Valya won’t break and no life she won’t sacrifice if it helps the disgraced Harkonnens to return to a position of power. .

Unfortunately for the universe, opposition to the quasi-religious extremism of the Bene Gesserit is merely a form of fanaticism. On the planet Salusa Secundus, Emperor Javicco Corrino (Mark Strong) prepares to marry his daughter Ynez (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina) to the nine-year-old son of a crucial military ally, Duke Ferdinand Richese (Brendan Cowell). ). But those plans, which will see the Emperor gain control of a fleet of warships needed to maintain power on the vital mining planet Arrakis, are thrown into disarray by the arrival of Desmond Hart (Travis Fimmel), a veteran soldier whose close encounter with of the giant sandworms of Arrakis has given him a mystical sense of purpose and the power to burn people alive with his thoughts. (It’s as terrifying and gross as you might imagine.) Desmond, transformed and traumatized by his brush with death, is as wild-eyed as Valya is stoic, but no less ruthless, both in his devotion to the Emperor and in his hatred. of ‘thinking machines’.

Dune: Prophecy hit numerous speed bumps on its way to the screen, including the loss of Diane Ademu-John, who wrote the series’ first episode, as co-showrunner (Alison Schapker is now in charge) and the tossing of the girl-coded subtitle The sisterhood. While it’s still largely a series about palace intrigue and space nuns, it seems clear that somewhere along the way orders were issued to make the series more like both. Game of Thrones (understandable) and Westworld (to a lesser extent), especially in a hilariously unnecessary scene where the princess’s combat instructor extracts information from Duke Richese’s daughter while the two lie around naked in what appears to be a hollow tree. At the same time, Prophecy was given a paltry six-episode run, which, based on the four made available upfront, is far too little room for the kind of extended ensemble drama the show seems to be aiming for. The first episode features several scenes that individualize the young women of the sisterhood as if they will become characters in their own right, only to essentially push them aside as the plot narrows around the conflict between Valya and Desmond. There are hints of a larger story, presumably spanning multiple seasons, most of which involve the mysterious visions that increasingly plague characters both major and minor, but they feel more like Lost‘s four-toed images are then pieces of a predetermined puzzle, designed to create a sense of mystery without evolving into a fixed revelation.

That enveloping feeling of stagnation Dune: Prophecy as a whole. By focusing solely on the competing centers of power, the show’s writers have neglected to even include the ordinary people whose lives could be affected by all this scheming and deception, which also makes its consequences seem far less important. If both sides covet power for its own sake, what difference does it make who wears a black habit and who a sniper? Does the fact that Valya and Tula deliver icy zingers in clipped English accents – that they are, as Watson puts it, “badass” – negate the fact that their plans ultimately lead to a genocide of truly galactic proportions? (One review of the show concluded with “Long may the Bene Gesserit reign.”) Maybe Dune: Prophecy will last enough seasons that the worm will eventually change, so to speak. But until that happens, no matter which side we choose, we will be on the wrong side to elect.