If at first this trailer looks a lot like the first teaser for Prime Video’s The Peripheral, just wait a minute. While a good deal of the footage is similar, this time, we’re being let in on a few more details about the world in which Flynne Fisher (Chloë Grace Moretz) finds herself. Her ordinary rural life is, a colleague says, a waste of her skills. But what would the future make of them?
What is clear in both trailers is that when Flynne puts on that fancy VR headset, she goes to a London that’s seventy years in her future. What wasn’t previously clear is that she does so, at least at first, in the body of her brother, Burton (Midsommar’s Jack Reynor), who is supposedly beta-testing this contraption. (I too would do a lot of backflips, if I suddenly found myself in a body capable of doing them.) But maybe sometimes we see Flynne from her own perspective, in her body? Maybe not? Maybe she goes to the future herself? There’s something tantalizing about the way these two ideas—virtual time travel, virtual body-swaps—twist and mingle.
The summary for the show says:
Flynne Fisher lives in the rural American South, working at the local 3D printing shop, while earning much needed extra money playing VR games for rich people. One night she dons a headset and finds herself in futuristic London—a sleek and mysterious world, alluringly different from her own hardscrabble existence.
But this isn’t like any game she’s ever played before: Flynne begins to realize it isn’t virtual reality… it’s real. Someone in London, seventy years in the future, has found a way to open a door to Flynne’s world. And as utterly beguiling as London is… it’s also dangerous. As Flynne searches to discover who has connected their worlds, and for what purpose, her presence here sets dangerous forces into motion…forces intent on destroying Flynne and her family in her own world.
This is a bit more dramatic than the book’s description, but doesn’t sound entirely out of keeping with the kinds of worlds and stories author William Gibson tends to create. The series is produced by Westworld’s Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan, and their influence seems clear in the strange, faceless robots and sleek future. But I’m quite intrigued to see what creator and showrunner Scott B. Smith (A Simple Plan) has up his sleeve.
The eight-episode first season of The Peripheral premieres on Prime Video on October 21st.
