Octavia E. Butler’s Kirkus-starred 1979 novel, Kindred, tells the story of Dana Franklin, a Black woman who, on her 26th birthday, is mysteriously transported from her home in 1976 Los Angeles to a Maryland plantation in the early 19th century. There, she witnesses Rufus Weylin, a White boy, drowning in a river and rescues him; the boy’s mother, Margaret, believes that Dana is murdering her son, and when the boy’s father, Tom—the owner of a plantation and an enslaver of several Black people—threatens Dana with a rifle, she finds herself suddenly back home in ’70s LA.

Dana’s White husband, Kevin, saw her vanish and reappear, and, like her, he’s baffled by this turn of events. Hours later, she’s carried through time and space again—and this time, she saves Rufus, who’s now a few years older, from a fire. She stays in the past for a longer period of time and comes to know some local enslaved and free Black people, but she eventually ends up back in present-day California. On a subsequent trip to the past, Kevin accompanies her, and they’re forced to assume identities as a master and enslaved person, which leads to further difficulties. Dana also figures out that Rufus is her ancestor, and that she must keep him alive to ensure that she exists in the future; over the course of the book, she tries to influence Rufus to be a better person than his violent father. 

Critics have been hesitant to classify Kindred as science fiction, despite its time-travel trappings and the fact that Butler was a well-established SF author at the time of its publication. This may be due to many mainstream critics’ inability to accept that SF works can be about anything other than spaceship battles and alien invasions. (Even Kirkus’ 1979 reviewer noted that Kindred’s “appeal should reach far beyond a sci-fi audience—because the alien planet here is the antebellum South”; they also called the novel a “searing, caustic examination of bizarre and alien practices on the third planet from the sun.”) In any case, Butler tackled a range of issues in this novel that had rarely been addressed in the SF genre before, including the day-to-day horrors of slavery and the complex legacy of violence over generations. A new FX series on Hulu, developed and co-written by Obie Award–winning playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (An Octoroon), addresses these issues, too, but attempts to shoehorn in new elements work less well. Its first season premieres on Dec. 13.

The eight episodes, which star newcomer Mallori Johnson as Dana and Tony Award-nominated Micah Stock (It’s Only a Play) as Kevin, stay faithful to the framework of the first half of Butler’s book. However, the show’s creative team makes a number of changes—apparently to fill out the running time, as they add little else of substance. Dana and Kevin are married fiction writers in the book, but here, they’ve just started dating; Dana is now an aspiring TV writer (making a living as a short-story writer is apparently less believable in 2016, when the show is set). Kevin is a waiter/musician instead of a successful novelist. (The show also gives him a substance-abuse problem—an easy shortcut for character development in prestige-TV dramas—as well as a concerned sister who, unlike her portrayal in the book, isn’t outwardly racist.) Dana’s aunt and uncle have much bigger roles onscreen, too, but rather than disapproving of Dana’s relationship with a White man—as they do in the novel—they pass judgment on her other choices, such as selling her grandmother’s house to move from Brooklyn to the West Coast. These changes allow for some anxious, stagy conversations but do little to develop any of the novel’s more ambitious themes. The show also spends quite a bit of time on a new subplot, in which Dana’s cartoonishly intrusive neighbors convince themselves that Dana and Kevin’s relationship is an abusive one; a Nextdoor-like app called “Neighborhüd” plays a key role in their machinations.

All this takes up far too much running time and feels like unnecessary padding. Butler’s novel focuses on the past, viscerally relating the inhuman violence that Tom Weylin and his hired men inflict on enslaved Black people (not to mention Tom’s abusive behavior toward his own family), as well as the dangers that free Black people faced. The show is less violent than its source material, which has the effect of making one scene of brutality, late in the season, more powerful than it might have been. However, it’s a choice that makes the show feel much less intense. The series also adds a new character in the past—someone whom Dana never expected to meet; it’s a turn of events that’s initially shocking, but one that ends up having very little effect on the plot.

The show also glosses over one of the book’s most intriguing throughlines, in which Dana attempts to teach young Rufus to be a kinder, more humane person. The novel gradually reveals how Rufus repeatedly makes choices to hurt others, and it strongly implies that he does so because he’s chosen to remain part of an evil system. It’s a compelling theme that’s barely addressed onscreen; indeed, by the end of the season, Rufus is still a boy, with his most horrific deeds still ahead of him.

Johnson does fine work as Dana, delivering a tense, impassioned performance that’s reminiscent of Elisabeth Moss’ award-winning work on the Hulu show The Handmaid’s Tale. Stock’s portrayal of Kevin is a bit quirky but has a warmth that’s compelling; overall, Dana and Kevin’s relationship gives the series a solid grounding amid the complexities of time travel. True Blood’s Ryan Kwanten, as Tom, and GLOW’s Gayle Rankin, as Margaret, are both excellent, as is The Last Ship’s Charles Parnell as Dana’s tough-as-nails uncle Alan. But, in the end, this series’ narrative is too disjointed, and its themes too softened, to leave much of an impression. Hopefully, a second season will look more closely at Butler’s work for inspiration.

David Rapp is the senior Indie editor.