Network: HBO
Season Year: 2024
Watch: Max
I’m starting to think I’m not a hard sci-fi guy. This Dune shit is almost too nerdy for me. Too filled with weird family names and stupid witches. I don’t like witches. Something I mentioned with some amount of venom in my reviews of meh series Ahsoka and The Acolyte. And, frankly, this show felt at times like those super-mid ones. But with just a little bit of oddly cheeseball sexiness between good-looking model types. Seriously, it almost felt like Banhsee at times where a hot actor or actress walked into frame and we just had to assume we’d be watching them having sex in the episode. Yes, Banshee was truly that bonkers. But, the thing is, this show isn’t. It’s a slow-moving sci-fi slog that is part palace intrigue, part political chess match and maybe some eugenics? This thing had to be incredibly expensive to make, but it still couldn’t help exposing exactly where they cut some corners to save a dollar or two. It’s no Raised By Wolves — few things are — but when you chose to have your show star the incredibly polarizing Travis Fimmel, you gotta expect that people are gonna make that connection. Of course, Ms. Hipster remembers this model-turned-“actor” from his amazing line readings in Vikings. Needless to say, he remains polarizing.
So, this is HBO. Not Max. HBO. I mean, yes, you can stream it on Max, but it’s an HBO original. Which used to mean something. In this case, it means you can land two great actresses, Emily Watson and Olivia Williams. But it seems that between their day rates and some CGI for a fuzzy flashback of a sandworm they failed to land anyone else with an acting degree. Or whatever it takes to become a professional actor. Even Mark Strong — aka fake Stanley Tucci — just goes for it way too hard. Or way too soft. The mushy acting mixed with the incredibly convoluted storytelling — most of which is people talking at tables or in labyrinths or bedrooms — was mind-numbing at times. Lots of flashbacks that took several times to figure out who was who. Until, after a while, I just had to try hard to care. I understand that Dune is almost built to be confusing in its intrigue, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be dull. And this, most of the time, is just that. And when it isn’t dull, it’s often bordering on cheesy or silly.
Look, I get that people like this stuff. They like all the lore and the goofy names and the underlying warning about the creeping dangers of AI. Which, frankly, feel a bit too Terminator for my taste here, without any of the proof or obvious consequences of letting the computers become too powerful. The thinking machines! To the point where everyone freaks out and almost come apart because some kid has what amounts to a cool Transformer toy. Yet somehow don’t realize that those damned witches have a giant server room filled with tech to map the entirety of genetic living things. Or whatever they’re doing. I guess it’s like AI eugenics? Or maybe just a super-powered OkCupid? The thing is, what is tech when you have magic? When you have the aforementioned (yes, again) witches who can command people to kill themselves and shapeshifters and whatever the hell is going on with Travis Fimmel’s character, who was apparently swallowed by a worm and can now magically burn people from the inside. This all seems a lot scarier and worse than some cleaner bots or a child’s toy. Just sayin’.
It feels a bit like the show’s creators got some pretty pointed notes. The first one went, “Okay, nerds, we get that you love magic and costumes, but this is season one of an HBO show, we need to, uh, HBO it up a bit. Throw some models in there and have them maybe have explicit sex with each other and then you can go back to the blah blah about Fremen and shit.” So, yes, I know HBO does this, and by seasons two and three they’ll have dialed this back. But it felt really bolted on to this otherwise talk-y show that gets a geek stamp of approval from the Star Trek crowd. Honestly that may have been the only note they gave because the rest of the series just kind of rolls on. At only six episodes, it does feel like perhaps they ran out of money, or maybe Fimmel had to jump to ruin another series about General Custer or something. Whatever the case, it felt unfinished and like someone somewhere thought better of pushing this season forward without a think that perhaps it would be better to split this write off into a three-season arc in order to maximize the ROI.
I can’t quite put my finger on what rubbed me the wrong way about this thing. Perhaps some of it is the cheapening of the Villeneuve films. The almost uncanny valley of it all where it kind of feels like a Dune property, but the Potemkin village version of it. Like you can almost see the edges of the sets and the scripts rolling in the eyeballs of some of the show’s less astute actors. Or the struggles of the writer’s room to get their head around a cadence and momentum in their storytelling that didn’t feel at once stuck in the mud and just a little too breezy for the heaviness of the goings on. Ultimately, it’s just somewhat off. Like a gentle shove might send the whole thing tumbling to the ground. Only to be swallowed by a sandworm and shat out like so many Fimmels.
