Dune: Prophecy episodes 1-4, reviewed by Tyler Robertson. Narrated by Erik Adams.Dune: Prophecy’s depiction of a fledgling Bene Gesserit gives fans of later Dune novels a lot to chew on. Many of the more character-focused elements of its story are thrilling,

The new series traverses the formative years of the Bene Gesserit sect, the simmering tensions between the great houses of Herbert’s world and the wake of the war with the “thinking machines”. But with an exposition-heavy first episode,

The world of Dune is inherently cinematic. Even the ill-fated and much maligned David Lynch adaptation felt large-scale and ambitious. Yet Dune: Prophecy lacks the epic scope necessary to realistically bring this universe to life. This iteration feels like an imitation, rather than an expansion, of the Denis Villeneuve directed films.