Review: 'Kindred's' transfer to TV keeps the novel's plot intact, but loses its spirit

Sixteen years after her premature death, Octavia Butler is having a moment. As one of the first Black women to write science fiction, Butler has been celebrated and studied for a long time, but she has lately come into wider view. Her 1993 novel "Parable of the Sower" jumped onto the New York Times bestseller list in 2020, and in the Hollywood spirit of "Get me one of those," several of her works have been optioned for development. The first of these to appear is "Kindred," whose eight-episode first season premiered in its entirety Tuesday on Hulu.

Published in 1979 and set by turns in the bicentennial year and the early to mid-1800s, the novel is not science fiction per se; although it involves time travel, it is inexplicable in any but metaphysical terms.