Adapting a beloved literary classic is a daunting task, but the team behind Kindred, based on Octavia Butler’s 1979 novel – and its time-travelling exploration of slavery – is a promising one. The series is developed by the acclaimed playwright, and MacArthur-certified genius, Branden Jacobs-Jenkins, with a pilot directed by buzzy Zola director Janicza Bravo. Its young star, Mallori Johnson, comes with Julliard school of performing arts’ stamp of approval. Those classy credentials are clear in the pilot where a tense family dinner at a restaurant and subsequent “meet cute” with a charming waiter are scintillatingly written and performed. But as the show dives into its central concept, it becomes increasingly insubstantial, with an accelerating brutality that feels hollow and gratuitous.
Where the novel had its protagonist Dana bouncing between 1976 and the antebellum south, the television adaptation specifies the present as 2016. We follow an aspiring Black soap opera writer who uses her inheritance to move to suburban LA, complete with McMansion and uppity white micro-aggression-heavy neighbours. She has a budding relationship with aspiring musician Kevin, which is complicated when Dana finds herself transported back to early 19th century Maryland every time her ancestor Rufus’s life is in danger – and she has to save his life in order to secure her bloodline.
