Brave New World Season 1 Review: All Dressed Up and Nowhere To Go

Brave New World, in general, has been a difficult property to adapt to film and television. It has historically either failed to make it to the screen due to one factor or another and when it has, the reception has been more lackluster than anything. Sadly, that’s still an appropriate reaction for this first season of the Aldous Huxley adaptation. 

A part of the problem here is that, from the jump, you’re pushing a boulder uphill in even attempting to adapt something as classic as Brave New World. Here’s an exaggerated example: let’s say that Star Wars never came out. Pop culture carried on like it always had in exactly the same way but this important work never came along to be the source of inspiration for a lot of sci-fi. 

If it were then to come out now, it’s likely that it would be completely derided because so many other properties had taken bits of it. What was once a starting point becomes something derivative, which is kind of where we’re at with Brave New World. 

This work is so seminal and has bled through so much dystopian fiction that — especially now where there is so much of that subgenre being put out — this ends up feeling too bland and hollow. It’s taking this vision from the novels and updating it just enough to fit in a modern aesthetic but that’s about it.

The series puts in a lot of work to look good and to think about the technology and world just enough to get by but that’s all it is: the bare minimum. It’s not really taking this nightmarish utopia and taking it apart for us. To be quite honest, this a show that is only interested in its own inner mechanics as far as it has to do with sex. 

Yes, there are very clear (and somewhat arbitrary) class distinctions seeded throughout these episodes but, nine times out of ten, this is something that only pertains to the hedonistic, hypersexuality that the show puts such an emphasis on. That is extended to be, by and large, excuses to have verbose and boring orgy scenes. 

It really can’t be emphasized enough that if orgies aren’t your cup of tea, this might not be the show for you. 

Brave New World is all flash and no substance. It looks good but that’s about as far as it goes. It isn’t really interested in getting too deep into how the world operates because that’s not where its priorities lie. If not that, what are they? That isn’t entirely clear unless it’s to bring up levels or sex. 

The problem is that it doesn’t go far enough into bringing this to a 2020 sensibility. Everyone’s obsessed with sex here but where do individual sexualities exist in this world? Is it assumed that everyone is bisexual here? If you’re gay, are you expected or forced to have sex with the opposite gender? Do asexuals even exist and, if they do, how? 

The show is actively uninterested in these questions. It doesn’t want to ask them and it certainly doesn’t want to answer them, along with much of its world. 

To be fair, this is not necessarily a bad show; It’s merely a rather dull one. There are worse things that a show can be but it’s definitely not the best. What does end up saving this show more often than not is the very excellent cast that it has assembled to fill out its ranks. 

Jessica Brown Findlay, Alden Ehrenreich, and Harry Lloyd make a very good main trio as Lenina, John, and Bernard, respectively, and their presences are normally what brings us back. The only sticking point is that John appears to have a personality transplant once he gets out of the Savage Lands and it makes for a dizzying experience following his character. 

The rest of the cast is also very solid. Hannah John-Kamen is a scene-stealer as Helm, channeling Aneela from Killjoys, to bring this larger-than-life energy that demands to have her presence known. Kylie Bunburry (of Pitch fame) has some notably wonderful moments as Frannie, Lenina’s best friend, simply trying to keep her in line. 

Joseph Morgan, who many will know from The Originals is utterly chilling and normal as CJack60. He appears so average throughout the season that you almost forget what a great it is that he’s putting on. Demi Moore is also here and criminally wasted as Linda, John’s mom in the Savage Lands who was a beta left behind years ago. 

What the show does give her is incredible and it all should’ve been about her instead of John. That’s the most unfortunate part of all of this: that we’re getting the least interesting version of this story.  

What did you think of Brave New World? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

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Brave New World drops on Wednesday, July 15 on Peacock.

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