Again, I must start with the praise that there is genuine heart and care in this project on the creative team's behalf. Sets, music, costumes, down to the tiniest details, they are all done with respect to the source material. There's even an intriguing story of a brewing showdown between the great mental schools, formed during and after the Butlerian Jihad, buried deeper than Shai Hulud in the Southern desert.
Because dear Maker, the writers do everything in their power to steer you from enjoying it. The dialogues are some of the worst I have seen on TV. Wannabe pseudo-intelligent sentences like "You need to burn down something before saving it" made me cringe like rarely before. Do you even read what you write down?
Also, clunky exposition dumps again. "My favourite Ixian" - since when do normal people talk like that? Do you talk that? Or are they just stuffing this sentence in so the audience knows that Ix exists and makes machines? Wouldn't a casual "What news from Ix" have been more natural?
Character work is abysmal and those who have the focus are getting stupider by the minute. Don't believe me? Well, let me give a few examples:
- Tula leaves the secret chamber with a thinking machine wide open, a secret for which Dorothea had to die, and which can easily bring the wrath of the entire Imperium upon the Sisterhood.
- Sister Emeline stating her intention to betray Tula and openly threatening her... Like really, what the hell did you expect to happen?
- The double agent sister, not warning Vayla that key members of their feigned coup plot are being rounded up and taken away. Lady, you had one job.
- The empress throwing both her husband and Desmond under the bus by leaking info about the Richese assassination plot because she THINKS it will push the events into the right direction? Well, what would've happened if Richese already rallied the houses against you? Or one of their allies? What if Desmond was killed or put out of the equation entirely? Or heck, even if he just arrived 5 minutes later to the trial? She had neither the influence nor the competence, or the knowledge to shape the events the way they've been shaped. One might say she's lucky, like, winning the jackpot twice in a row lucky. I say, it's hack writing.
The male leader characters not only returned to their episode 1 portrayals, they actually became so much worse. The Prince? Useless. Emperor Corrino? A puppet. Every single leader of the great houses? Gullible fools. Baron Harkonnen? A pitiful useless wimp. Old Baron Harkonnen? A pathetic nobody. I am so sorry for Mark Strong and Mark Addy, being wasted in such a god-awful script.
Let me state again the obvious: the Sisterhood is awesome in the books because they thrive in a universe where strong male characters shape the fate of the universe (or so they think). This? This is just a pathetic copy, where we're supposed to cheer for an MMA champion for taking a candy bar from a kid. The writers want strong light but no strong dark. It just doesn't work like that.
