Dune: Prophecy is a slow and cerebral meditation on the power of patience

Image: HBO

HBO’s new Dune prequel series sharpens the Bene Gesserit’s history into a pointed drama that calls for some patience.

Though Frank Herbert passed away in 1986, just a year after the publication of his sixth and final Dune novel, the franchise continued on thanks to new books penned by his son Brian and writing partner Kevin J. Anderson. Few of the duo’s 20 Dune books have been able to replicate the philosophical complexity and textual grandeur that made the original hexology such beloved pieces of science fiction. But some entries, like 2012’s Sisterhood of Dune, managed to add new depth and narrative texture to the larger Dune saga by fleshing out the far-flung history of its Truthsaying witches.

The thinking behind Dune: Prophecy, HBO’s new series based on Sisterhood, is easy enough to understand when you consider the box-office success of Denis Villeneuve’s films and Warner Bros. Discovery’s eternal hunt for another Game of Thrones-level ratings giant. The book’s exploration of the internal drama that shook the Bene Gesserit order in its early days made for an intriguing — if winding and pulpy — read. And the new show does a respectable job of reworking the beats of Herbert and Anderson’s novel into a much sharper story about vengeance and power.

Prophecy’s tendency to pivot even further away from the core Dune texts and its less-than-cinematic TV production values might be turnoffs for franchise purists and melange fiends chomping at the bit for the upcoming Dune Messiah adaptation. But even though this first season takes a couple of episodes to really hit its stride, once it does, Dune: Prophecy becomes a captivating dive into the past.

Set just over 10,000 years before Paul Atreides’ birth, Prophecy revolves around sisters Valya (Emily Watson) and Tula Harkonnen (Olivia Williams) — two of the Reverend Mothers instrumental in the creation of the Bene Gesserit. In the show’s present, when the secretive, all-women order is at the height of its power, the pair oversees the Sisterhood’s school, where girls from across the Imperium learn to become brilliant, lie-detecting political advisers valued by the Great Houses. As Valya decides which of the Great Houses deserves having the services of a fully trained member of the Bene Gesserit, Tula guides the school’s young acolytes like Lia (Chloe Lea) and Theodosia (Jade Anouka) in their studies of statecraft and spirituality.

Valya and Tula both embody the almost mystical power of multigenerational perspective that the Bene Gesserit gain by consuming and internally transmuting a poison that unlocks the ancestral memories coded into their genetic memories. But as formidable a presence as the sisters are as adults, Prophecy spends a significant amount of time chronicling Valya (Jessica Barden) and Tula’s (Emma Canning) youths, when they were ordinary girls dealing with the consequences of their family’s ruinous fall from grace.

One of the bigger issues that some Dune fans have taken with Herbert and Anderson’s novels is the way they reframed the Butlerian Jihad — originally presented as a philosophical rejection of technology in pursuit of humanity’s advancement — as a literal war against tyrannical robots and cyborgs. Much like Sisterhood of Dune, Prophecy uses Valya and Tula’s story in the past to shine more light on the conflict and the way one of their ancestors caused the Harkonnen family to be exiled in poverty.

Especially in moments when Prophecy flashes to scenes from the war, it seems like the show is leaning into a garden-variety postapocalyptic vibe that doesn’t exactly gel with the tone set by the big-screen Dune projects it’s spun off from. But the way this first season quickly establishes how the war shaped Mother Superior Raquella Berto-Anirul’s (Cathy Tyson) radical approach to run the Sisterhood when Valya is first sent there makes it feel like Prophecy’s creative team is trying to improve on the book’s weaker points.

Compared to the novel, Prophecy does a much better job of organically bringing its characters’ arcs together, and the past timeline’s events inform the present-day mystery. It’s in the past that the proto-Bene Gesserit first start storing their extensive genetic records on forbidden computers and thinking about how they could be used to the Sisterhood’s long-term political advantage. Some of those plans seem to be playing out beautifully in the present as the Bene Gesserit make their final moves involving Emperor Javicco Corrino (Mark Strong) and his daughter Princess Ynez (Sarah-Sofie Boussnina). But for all of adult Valya’s belief that she’s guiding her Sisters down the correct path, there are others whose trust in the Bene Gesserit is shaken when a series of strange deaths puts some of the Imperium’s most powerful families on high alert for treachery.

Though Dune: Prophecy shifts between its different plot lines well, moments not focused directly on the Harkonnens and the goings-on at the Sisterhood’s school struggle to lead with an energy that feels distinct from other fantasy and sci-fi television adaptations. The Corrino family’s drama — Ynez is engaged to a child for political reasons but is secretly in love with Swordmaster Keiran Atreides (Chris Mason) — is central to the series. But even though it’s interesting to see how the Bene Gesserit quietly influence the Corrinos through Reverend Mother Kasha Jinjo (Jihae), the show’s approach to doing palace intrigue is nothing you haven’t already seen in previous HBO genre shows.

Prophecy’s directors and cinematographer Pierre Gill are clearly trying to tell a more intimate Dune story where war is waged in smaller, emotionally charged moments rather than on spectacularly realized battlefields. It works beautifully when the camera zooms in to pick up the parallels between Watson, Barden, Williams, and Canning’s tremendous performances as the Harkonnen sisters. The show is at its most visually stunning (and disturbing) in a number of scenes that unpack some of what it means for the Bene Gesserit to gain access to their Other Memories. But Prophecy’s external shots of important Dune locations like Salusa Secundus lack the atmospheric strangeness that made the Imperium of the films feel alien.

Even though Prophecy sharpens Sisterhood of Dune’s story into a much stronger drama, the show still feels like supplementary reading that might not appeal if you aren’t deeply invested in the larger narrative. In its first four (of six) episodes, it only barely begins venturing into a space that might make this moment in Dune history captivating in its own right. That could keep this first season from being the breakout hit HBO wants it to be, but it works as a lore-heavy dose of space meant to tide the Dune faithful over until the next movie is out.

Dune: Prophecy also stars Jodhi May, Shalom Brune-Franklin, Aoife Hinds, Travis Fimmel, Tabu, and Josh Heuston. The show premieres on HBO on November 17th.