In Peacock’s flagship, a Brave New Westworld
CONSCIOUSNESS DEFINES HUMANITY. IT GIVES US EMOTIONS and choices, allows us to form societies, create art, understand the world around us. But it also opens the door to inequality, war, genocide, environmental destruction. It’s what makes us dream of utopia and—because any perfect society would still require drudge work no self-actualized individual would be happy doing—what keeps that idyll out of reach.
The futuristic World State of Aldous Huxley’s classic 1932 novel Brave New World, which comes to TV in a pulpy adaptation for NBCUniversal’s new streaming service Peacock, believes it has solved that paradox. Each person is genetically engineered to be an ideal member of their caste: Alphas are the brilliant ruling class. Epsilons are the simple manual laborers. The rest fall in between. Each rank performs a crucial function, has its material needs met and is conditioned to enjoy its daily routine. Family and monogamy are illegal. Pregnancy is obsolete. To regulate brain chemistry there’s soma, a happy pill dispensed like candy. The World State has, in effect, hacked consciousness to eliminate dissatisfaction.
Showrunner David Wiener (Homecoming) populates his adaptation with mostly the same characters as Huxley’s novel. Entangled in a sexual relationship that has become exclusive, Beta-Plus hatchery worker Lenina Crowne (Jessica Brown Findlay) is sent to Alpha-Plus counselor Bernard Marx (Harry Lloyd) for a scolding. After he humiliates her with a holographic replay of her monogamous trysts—Brave New World has as much weird sex as any premium-cable romp—they form a bond based on mutual stirrings of discontent.
‘It’s obviously an immensely powerful instrument.’
ALDOUS HUXLEY, reflecting on television in a 1958 interview with Mike Wallace
Far from the grand rose-tinted vistas of Lenina’s and Bernard’s home city New London, a young man named John meets —until the action abruptly shifts back to New London.
