Like Princess Jasmine trapped in Jafar’s gigantic hourglass, drowning in sand , we’re back in the world of Dune again. HBO’s latest big-budget IP gamble Dune: Prophecy premieres on November 17, taking over the slot of its last big-budget IP gamble The Penguin and fulfilling similar prequel responsibilities as this summer’s big-budget IP gamble House of the Dragon . Dragons, birds, worms: Is HBO’s premier Sunday-night slot going for a “we bought a zoo” thing? Set more than 10,000 years before the events of Denis Villeneuve’s Dune and Dune: Part Two (together an adaptation of Frank Herbert’s seminal 1965 novel), Dune: Prophecy focuses on the beginnings of the sisterhood eventually known as the Bene Gesserit.
The space-witch order ostensibly provides trusted advisers to the ruling Emperor of the Corrino Empire and his Imperium’s aristocratic great houses, like House Atreides and House Harkonnen, but has secretly harbored long-gestating plans about who can and should rule. The six-episode series, based on the 2012 novel Sisterhood of Dune by Frank’s son Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson, explains and contextualizes the Bene Gesserit’s decisions that lead to Paul Atreides’s rise to power in the Dune movies.
Emily Watson stars as Valya Harkonnen, the Reverend Mother who’s led the sisterhood for 30-some years and shaped it to meet her vision of subtle manipulation: Via elaborate matchmaking schemes amid the powerful elite, she hopes they can eventually .