Aldous Huxley’s 1932 novel Brave New World is a classroom staple, often paired with George Orwell’s 1984 as early examples of dystopian fiction, books that extrapolate the consequences of real-world trends and social policies at the time of their publication. The dystopia that Huxley envisioned, a society numbed into complacence by drugs, sex and mindless entertainment and divided into a rigid caste system with family and individuality abolished, is both relevant and highly dated, and the new TV adaptation has trouble figuring out that balance. Premiering as one of the first shows on NBC Universal’s Peacock streaming service, Brave New World has been in development at corporate siblings Syfy and USA for years, and it comes off more like a basic cable reject than the flagship original series for a new streaming service.

Creator David Wiener keeps the basic structure of Huxley’s setting, along with the central characters, but changes and updates much of the narrative both to modernize the story and to extend a novel that runs less than 300 pages into an ongoing TV series. Huxley’s novel has been so influential that what was visionary at the time now seems derivative, and the insular, caste-based future society of this Brave New World mostly looks like a variant on The Hunger Games or Divergent, rather than its own unique concept. The set and costume design could be taken from any future-set sci-fi series or movie of the last two decades, with its clean, sleek interiors, neutral-colored outfits and whooshing transportation pods.

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Like the novel, the show takes place in New London, part of the World State, in which humans are bred in hatcheries with no family structure, and are designated from birth as part of a social hierarchy, led by the Alphas (and Alpha-Pluses) at the top, down to the Epsilons, menial workers who are conditioned not to have feelings. Beta-Plus hatcheries technician Lenina Crowne (Downton Abbey’s Jessica Brown Findlay) is vaguely dissatisfied with her place in society, and when she’s called to a meeting with Alpha-Plus counselor Bernard Marx (Harry Lloyd), she inadvertently comes across another malcontent.

The two misfits are sent from New London on a trip to the Savage Lands, a sort of nature preserve in what used to be the United States, where "savages" live in accordance with "primitive" values (that is, what we might recognize as more or less contemporary society). There, Bernard and Lenina get caught up in a rebellion of the savages, who are forced to re-enact a sort of grotesque version of their "ancient" rituals (marriage, shopping) for gawking visitors from the World State. Savage rebels execute any foreigners, but Lenina and Bernard are saved by John (Alden Ehrenreich), a savage who works on the props for the re-enactments and lives with his perpetually drunk mother Linda (Demi Moore, in a disappointingly brief guest stint).

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Eventually, the three escape back to New London, where the bewildered John is treated like a celebrity, and becomes entangled in New London politics thanks to his complicated origin, which straddles the two worlds. It takes several episodes for John to reach his eventual destination, and the series suffers from a lack of focus, stretching out events from the novel while adding new tangents and character arcs. Unlike many dystopian stories, Brave New World isn’t about the efforts to overthrow the dominant society, and the vague conspiracy elements lack urgency.

Like Hulu’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Brave New World takes a standalone novel whose social commentary was about a specific time and place and contorts it into an ongoing series with theoretical relevance for the present day. But while the Handmaid’s creators have found ways to bridge the gap between Margaret Atwood’s novel and current prestige drama, Wiener never figures out how to make Huxley’s novel feel vital and urgent -- or even just exciting and suspenseful. The show adds a lot more action and danger to the story, and it takes advantage of the sexually permissive nature of the World State to showcase lots of artfully lit nudity, but the characters remain props who deliver philosophical ideas that have now become completely incoherent.

The three stars do what they can with these characters, who are more archetypes than people. Lloyd conveys the inner conflict of the frustrated Bernard, who desperately wants to be a happy conformist like everyone around him but just can’t let go of his doubts and ambitions. Findlay’s performance improves as Lenina becomes bolder and more willing to break the rules, but Ehrenreich comes off as a posturing bad boy, like he brought his version of Han Solo into a treatise on hedonistic socialism.

Both comic-book writer Grant Morrison and filmmaker Brian Taylor worked on developing the series along with Wiener, but there’s none of the endearing oddness you’d expect from Morrison or the over-the-top craziness you’d expect from the co-creator of the Crank movies. Instead, Brave New World is disappointingly sedate, settling for recycling familiar sci-fi elements while vaguely fitting them alongside Huxley’s ideas. Huxley’s novel was revolutionary when it was published nearly 90 years ago, but the show has turned it into just another piece of consumer content.

Starring Jessica Brown Findlay, Harry Lloyd, Alden Ehrenreich, Kylie Bunbury, Joseph Morgan, Sen Mitsuji and Hannah John-Kamen, the nine-episode first season of Brave New World premieres Wednesday on Peacock.

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