(Don’t worry-there are still orgies.) Another marked departure from the book is the introduction of John the Savage ( Alden Ehrenreich), who comes to the story not as the only white man born on an Indian reservation (a plotline that sends 21st century alarm bells ringing in every direction) but rather as a scrappy underling working at the Savage Lands amusement park, where well-connected New Londoners vacation to witness the perverted and backwards customs of history. Both white male characters are replaced with black women, suggesting immediately a different vision for this particular dystopia. Several minor characters are gender- and/or race-swapped-most notably, world controller Mustapha Mond becomes Mustafa Mond, played by Nina Sonsanya, while emotional engineer Helmholtz Watson becomes Wilhelmina, called “Helm,” played by Hannah John-Kamen. The new series is a clever modern adaptation, engaging deeply with the source material while dispensing with Huxley’s glaringly racist themes and some of the misogyny, too. Surely that last word should be “come”? But it was 1932.) (A chant from the book: Orgy-porgy / Ford and fun / Kiss the girls and make them One. More often than not, these feelies seem to end in orgies casual, consequence-free sex is one of the many perks of New London. The populace is kept stimulated with titillating entertainment, dubbed “feelies,” which are more about producing sensations than communicating a story.
Inconvenient emotions-anger, sadness, fear-are dosed with various doses of the drug soma. Huxley’s New London is based upon a conveyor belt that mass produces humans-some purposefully genetically engineered to be low-class workers, others coddled to be future elites. The sparknotes: A “savage” outsider disrupts a dystopian future ruled by soothing drugs and biologically determined social classes.
The nine-episode drama-which premieres when NBC’s entry into the streaming wars debuts on July 15-is a loving departure from Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel of the same name, which you may have been assigned to read during some desultory high school summer. If you can keep up with new streaming platforms and their flagship shows, Peacock original Brave New World is the latest effort to entice you to a new service.
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