the peripheral (season 1)

The Peripheral is the sort of perfectly competent show that tends to get swallowed up in the never-ending churn of streaming content (even within the confines of its own science-fiction subgenre, it’s basically a less creatively juiced, less visually muscular Altered Carbon)… but it nonetheless has a certain analytic value in terms of the delicate art of television adaptation. The source novel, written by cyberpunk pioneer William Gibson, was an entertaining read - but didn’t really have the internal architecture for a potential series, beyond its dizzyingly high-concept premise. In the hands of novelist-turned-showrunner Scott B. Smith (A Simple Plan, The Ruins), however, the story’s gotten some notably meaty plot upgrades. Smith wisely approached the book as a narrative sandbox and immediately set about erecting his own castle spires.  

Flynne Fisher (Chloe Grace Moretz) occupies a lower rung on the socio-economic ladder in a rural North Carolina of 2032, where she works in a 3D print shop and cares for her ailing mother. When her ex-marine brother Burton (Jack Reynor) is hired to test a video game sim with a new, state-of-the-art headset, Flynne - the more naturally gifted gamer - agrees to fill in for him and finds herself in a futuristic London… where she’s sent to an upscale shindig with orders to seduce (and subsequently abduct) a specific partygoer. It’s all good fun, until Flynne learns the startling truth - she’s not actually playing a sim at all. In fact, the headset creates a virtual bridge between her world and a London 70 years in the future (which exists in the aftermath of an apocalyptic series of systemic global crises referred to as the Jackpot), where she’s able to pilot an artificial body known as a peripheral. And now she’s drawn the attention of some very dangerous people who are very eager to eliminate her and her family.

Flynne soon gains an ally in the form of Wilf Netherton (Gary Carr) - a celebrity publicist in the novel, now a somewhat vaguely defined “fixer” in the employ of the powerful oligarch Lev Zubov (JJ Feild). He explains that Flynne exists in a “stub” - an alternate timeline that diverged at the precise moment their respective worlds made initial contact. He’s trying to locate Aelita West (Charlotte Riley), the woman who initially hired Burton/Flynne and who may be connected to the Neoprims, a mysterious group the seeks to destroy the post-Jackpot world order. Much of this deviates from the book, in which Flynne witnesses Aelita’s death while running drone security… for all of its complex conceits and world-building, Gibson’s plot was a fairly mundane murder mystery, one that spent several hundred pages building up to Flynne attending a party (hosted by Aelita’s performance artist sister - and Wilf’s ex-girlfriend) in hopes of eyeballing the killer. The series understandably seeks to raise the stakes and install a more propulsive engine... one designed to power a reconceived conspiracy that’s significantly knottier and calculated to span multiple seasons - and to that end, it’s rather successful.

The Peripheral, however, never quite engages the imagination with the sense of wonder that the very best science-fiction evokes. Futuristic London - a sparsely populated shell of a metropolis that papers over its ruins with artificial imagery - intrigues on a surface level, but doesn’t entirely convince as a setting… as a fully realized world dreamt into literal being. Moretz, inherently likable as always, was a good choice for the lead. She has fun with the Matrix-style duality of the role - the worn, blue-collar seams of Flynne, contrasted with the sleek and styled poshness of her peripheral - though one wishes the power fantasy elements came across stronger (the character of Connor (Eli Goree) - one of Burton’s former squadmates - touches on the wish fulfillment aspect at least, seeing a peripheral as an opportunity to escape the limitations of his broken body). Flynne, after all, is a gamer effectively inhabiting her own real life video game avatar, but the show is too self-serious to tap into the down-and-dirty fun of that notion.​

Several performances stand out. Alexandra Billings brings a proper flourish of theatricality to the role of police inspector Ainsley Lowbeer. Harry Potter’s Katie Leung has an edge like sharpened Scottish flint as Zubov’s no-nonsense associate Ash, while T’Nia Miller is so coolly cunning as antagonist Cherise Nuland - a role invented for the series - she looks as if she could cut your throat simply by blinking. Elements of the book are brought to life in visually appreciable fashion - such as the cybernetic implants that allow Burton to link up with the other members of his “haptic recon” unit, forming a lethally cohesive battle phalanx (or Ash’s tattoos, which glide across the surface of her skin like sentient ink). The Peripheral struggles for oxygen a bit in the ever-crowded streaming landscape (even just within the Amazon Prime ecosystem), but there’s enough dramatic pulp to chew on here; it’s worth keeping tabs on its still-in-development second season.

UPDATE: Never mind, Amazon changed its mind and cancelled it. Too bad.