The Dark Herald Recommends: Dune Prophecy
I’ll start by saying it’s not for everyone. If you didn’t like the Villeneuve Dune movies you’re out and there isn’t any point in you reading further. The same goes if you’re simply not a fan of Dune in general. There’s nothing here for you.
This show was definitely a slow burn but it did finally catch fire in the last two episodes.
The series’ biggest problem was viewer expectations. After the movies, they were hoping for something a bit more exciting than a space opera political thriller. Again, you have to remember Ann Sarnoff was running the studio into the ground at the time this was greenlit. While doubtless the Butlerian Jihad, the century-long genocidal war against the thinking machines with living minds would have been pretty darned exciting. A universe-spanning war of annihilation that left billions dead and a thousand worlds burning was viewed as, in a word, expensive.
That was a legitimate point. It’s a TV show and not a Disney TV show which means the budgets had to be kept within the bounds of sanity.
Dune Prophecy is a political thriller with murder and horror mixed in. Honestly, that is kind of my jam.
Dune Prophecy starts out with a brief overview of the (admittedly) much more exciting Butlerian and its immediate aftermath. The rise of the Corrino family, the cause of the feud between the Atreides and Harkkonens, and of course the creation of the Bene Gesserit.
It opens with the death of the founding Reverend Mother, Raquella. The first conflict is between her daughter Dorortea, and the Harkonnen sisters, Valya and Tula. Dorotea wants to strangle the Bene Gesserit breeding program in its cradle. Valya is determined to pursue it. Dorotea made the huge mistake of getting into it with the Harkonnens and then turning her back on them. Normally being killed would be a significant limiter on your further actions but not when ancestral memory is readily accessible and Dorotea did have a daughter.
The story then leapfrogs up about two decades. Javicco Corrino is the current emperor. I got a little curious about that because the name didn’t ring a bell. It turned out that Javicco isn’t a pre-existing character. That in theory, left you open to several possibilities concerning the character’s future. However, Javicco is being played by Mark Strong. Strong turned in his usual stellar performance, but I knew there was no way in hell that he was going to be willing to be on this show long-term. Especially since the show’s studio, Warner Brothers (the Dark Herald reliably informed), is heavily courting Mark Strong for part of Dumbledoor in the much more high profile and high budget Harry Potter TV series. Which meant Javicco’s episodes were numbered from the start.
Javicco’s only legitimate heir is his daughter Princess Ynez. When the show opens, Ynez, as part of an agreement with her father is going to marry Duke Richesse’s eleven-year-old son.
Before going off to the Bene Gesserit School on Wallach IX, (Valya is delighted by the idea of having a Bene Gesseret on the throne). Ynez is wild about learning science-witchcraft from the Sisterhood but is less cool about marrying a prepubescent husband. It is understood that the marriage won’t be consummated until she gets back from school.
Javicco isn’t really happy about the marriage either but his position is profoundly precarious. The Corrinos were military leaders during the Jihad but that army was provided by the other Great Houses. The Corrinos don’t have an army to call their own, the Sardukar don’t exist yet. So it’s all a balancing act for the royal house.
The Empress Natalya has been gradually stripped of her once formidable power by the Sisterhood. She’s lost her daughter and husband to them. Javicco has a bastard son, Constantine, by one of them and the emperor is completely dependent on the advice of his Truthsayer. Natalya is mad about this but there is little she can do until Desmond Hart enters the picture.
Everything is going Valya Harkonnen’s way when a mysterious soldier from Dune ends up in the royal palace. Since Desmond Hart is a hero (for unspecified heroic acts), the emperor makes him a court favorite. It turns out Desmond has both a superpower (spontaneous human combustion in others) and an ax to grind with the Sisterhood. Empress Natalya sees in him a natural ally and for the moment she ain’t wrong.
It is not stated explicitly but it is strongly implied that Bashar Desmond Hart is in the process of creating the Emperor’s Sardaukar. This brings us to the topic of Salusa Secondus, which is something of a paradise in this series. Since the Sardaukar homeworld is a notorious shithole in Paul’s day, it is fairly obvious that something is going to happen to it.
Valya is not at all cool with Desmond’s ability to fry people at will since he can use it on the Sisterhood. She needs to get information about this weapon, the best source of information on it would be the Late Reverend Mother Raquella. Since she is the Late Raquella, her knowledge will have to be extracted from her granddaughter who has not been trained to withstand the trial of the Water of Life yet. Once ancestral memories are awakened, game pieces once removed are back on the board and with their own agendas and vendettas.
Lastly, it turns out that in spite of all appearances, Valya’s first loyalty remains with House Harkonen.
Getting this fairly extensive setup in place is what the first three episodes of the series had to accomplish; explaining their rather tedious nature. This also delays the building of dramatic tension until the third episode.
Once the players are in place things began to move very quickly and I was hooked… Then. That being the issue it takes so long to get interesting most of the audience has walked away in boredom. I can’t really blame them, I would have done the same but this was one of those shows I kind of have to watch as part of my job here. For once it was rewarding, but there was a major delay in my gratification.
Except for Mark Strong and Travis Fimmel, most of the actors are experienced unknowns. Performances were what I would expect from seasoned talent who knew its craft but hadn’t really been given its moment in the sun yet. Mark Strong, gave a masterfully subtle performance of a weak man, who knows he’s weak but must always appear strong. A man who supposedly rules the known universe but who is hopelessly imprisoned by the circumstances of his life. Think Nicholas II of Russia.
The Harkonen Sisters had a deeply layered relationship. Thula would follow her sister Valya anywhere but also knows that Valya will take literally everything from her if it serves her purposes. Valya repeatedly proves that she will destroy everyone she loves if it pushes her cause forward. She does indeed love the people she destroys and mourns them deeply when they are gone but she cannot possibly allow her love to get in the way of her soaring ambition.
The Empress Natalya had a steady if understated plot. She was an almost completely powerless woman, nearly imprisoned in the palace, and by the end of the first season she had recovered all of her power and then some.
Travis Fimmel was kind of typecast in this one as a strange, enigmatic warrior with a hidden agenda but he certainly delivered everything he needed to.
Dune Prophecy is a show about power, the lengths people will go to get it, and the price it extracts from them. Considering how little I was expecting from this show I was favorably pleased. But as I said at the start it’s not for everyone. If I’ve done my job right then hopefully you now know if it’s for you or not.
The Dark Recommends with Confidence (3.8/5)
