The Peripheral (Prime): Not bad! Cyber punk thriller from a book by William Gibson who literally invented the cyber punk genre.

Submitted by Bluest_waters t3_ybku06 in television

William Gibson literally invented the cyber punk genre. This show is based on one of his later novels. Its about people who are paid to assume the game play avatars of rich folks to get them to higher levels of game play.

Our hero takes on a contract and plays a game about kidnapping and organ theft that seems like it is hyper real, way too real. Drama and chaos ensues.

Its really not bad! There are two hour long eps available now, and it takes about 30 minuets to get going but once it does its involving. It get bogged down here and there but the underlying premise is inventive and kept my interest.

I don't know why Amazon has such lackluster acting in so many of hits originals but this one is the same. Not bad acting, just kind of okay. But if you like the cyber punk genre I think you will like this show. NOt great but certainly good enough.

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samuraislider t1_ithfy5l wrote

I would say the only mediocre acting came from some of the lesser side characters. But the brother and sister seemed solid. And they need to carry this. The brothers only “problem” is his face is so generic Hollywood good looking. I feel like he looks like 20 other dudes in Hollywood right now.

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Bluest_waters OP t1_ithjkov wrote

He has that sam worthington generic look to him

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samuraislider t1_ithln9o wrote

That’s it. And Sam ain’t a bad actor. He really showed up recently in that Mormon crime drama show. But. They all blend together at some point.

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farrandor t1_ithxm9o wrote

Reminds me of the guy in The North Water, Jack O'Connell

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Bluest_waters OP t1_itivxx3 wrote

> Jack O'Connell

I just looked him up. Basically the same face, wow

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bannock4ever t1_itmrs8y wrote

He's the douchbag boyfriend from Midsommar so I can't stand him - but that's my fault.

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samuraislider t1_itnmiva wrote

Oooooooh. Well good for him actually. he was good, if not a bad person in that. But then again, he was drugged and raped as well if I recall. Hmmmm, was he a bad person actually?

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jogoso2014 t1_itgvzz3 wrote

I liked it quite a bit.

Future London looks awesome if a bit sparse.

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Bluest_waters OP t1_itgwag9 wrote

Yeah where are all the people?

I guess there is still lots of story to tell

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im_a_dick_head t1_ithc30h wrote

I wouldn't be surprised if there was some major event that killed most of the population, like a plague or war. Or maybe everyone left for another planet for reasons.

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ALaccountant t1_ithheb4 wrote

In the first episode, Aleita said "What if I told you that in 10 years, most of your population would be dead" or something like that. So there was definitely some major event.

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JBloomf t1_ith0zit wrote

Depending on when it was shot, COVID restrictions could be why its sparse.

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farrandor t1_ithx6mh wrote

It's a plot detail. They've hinted a couple of times at some major calamity that happens which must have wiped out most of the population

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Bluest_waters OP t1_itgv3iv wrote

>William Ford Gibson (born March 17, 1948) is an American-Canadian speculative fiction writer and essayist widely credited with pioneering the science fiction subgenre known as cyberpunk. Beginning his writing career in the late 1970s, his early works were noir, near-future stories that explored the effects of technology, cybernetics, and computer networks on humans—a "combination of lowlife and high tech"[4]—and helped to create an iconography for the information age before the ubiquity of the Internet in the 1990s.[5] Gibson coined the term "cyberspace" for "widespread, interconnected digital technology" in his short story "Burning Chrome" (1982), and later popularized the concept in his acclaimed debut novel Neuromancer (1984). These early works of Gibson's have been credited with "renovating" science fiction literature in the 1980s.

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Ithrewitawayforanime t1_itiufz1 wrote

"Literally invented" is debatable, but definitely popularized it (any further debate would be entirely pedantic, imo). Regardless, I'm looking forward to watching it, I love cyberpunk.

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xhrit t1_itk7jce wrote

He invented cyberspace, not cyberpunk. The term cyberpunk comes from the title of a short story written by Bruce Bethke, in 1980, one year before William Gibson published his first work.

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airchinapilot t1_ith93rm wrote

My wife and I quite like it so far. I haven't read the books (though I was a fan of his early novels) and there were bits I couldn't follow, but it is moving along nicely and I'm willing to see where it goes.

If you are fans lf Westworld, Lisa Joy is one of the makers and it certainly feels like Westworld. The director of the first two eps is Vincenzo Natali who made Cube and has had a decent career doing scifi in TV.

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crashfrog t1_itp4y8m wrote

> William Gibson literally invented the cyber punk genre.

I love William Gibson; I’ve read Neuromancer probably once a year for the past 25 years. The Peripheral is a truly tremendous work.

But Gibson didn’t “literally invent the cyberpunk genre”; Akira and Blade Runner both beat him by two years, and the word was coined by Bruce Bethke in a short story two years before those. Walter Jon Williams’ Hardwired is more responsible for the tropes of the genre (drug use, crime, cybernetic modification, hacking) and Mike Pondsmith’s Cyberpunk TTRPG, largely responsible for cyberpunk in its most popular conception, is almost a direct line-by-line data dump of things that feature in Hardwired, as much as everyone wants to act like it’s the playable version of Neuromancer.

Gibson is a hugely influential author but he’s actually kind of the edge of cyberpunk, rather than its barycenter. (On the other hand, he really is double-handedly responsible for the steampunk genre, having written The Difference Engine with Bruce Sterling.)

The Peripheral is a good, Gibsonian show for real, though.

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symitwo t1_itti4v5 wrote

I love a heavy exposition and world building opening, but sheesh.

I find myself already bored. I love Westworld, rpo, gaming in general... I love mysteries, time travel, alt future. Shit, I love Chloe in pretty much every role she plays

Can't figure out why this isn't gripping me.

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