William Gibson’s novel comes to life in the first teaser for The Peripheral

A young woman struggling to pull herself together in small town America witnesses what may or may not be a murder in the first teaser The Peripherya new Prime Video series based on William Gibson’s 2014 novel of the same name.

(Spoilers for the novel below.)

The novel is in many ways a classic Gibson: a grim, dystopian future world full of big thematic ideas, visionary technology and its own slang terminology. The reader is immersed in this environment and must acclimate accordingly; Gibson has no interest in presenting everything to us on a silver platter. But that initial outlay pays off as the novel evolves into an action-packed cyberpunk thriller.

There are two storylines that eventually converge. The first arc is set in our near future and revolves around a young woman named Flynne. Flynne works at the local 3D printer in a small town; The store is the sole source of merchandise for the populace, along with Walmart’s fictional future descendant, Hefty Mart. Flynne’s brother, Burton, is a veteran of the US Marine Corps’ Haptic Recon Elite Force and suffers from brain trauma resulting from his cybernetic implants.

Burton works in security for a video game/virtual world operated by a company called Milagros Coldiron. When Flynne agrees to one day replace Burton at work, she witnesses a woman being brutally killed by a swarm of nanobots. But is it an actual murder, or is it just part of the game? (This is a Gibson novel, so the boundaries may get a little blurry.)

The second arc is set in a futuristic and desolate London after an apocalyptic event called “The Jackpot” that wiped out 80 percent of the population. This world is essentially ruled by Russian oligarchs (“Klepts”). Here, our main protagonist is a corporate PR guy named Wilf Netherton, who is orchestrating a publicity stunt for Daedra West, the world version of an influencer. The stunt goes horribly wrong and Wilf gets fired.

The link between the two timelines is the eponymous “Peripherals” black market technology favored by hobbyists known as “Continuua Enthusiasts”. The peripherals running on “quantum servers” digitally connect users to the past, and the moment they make direct contact, the past splits into an alternate timeline dubbed a “stub.” Wilf is introduced to the technique and existence of stubs by his rich buddy Lev. We eventually learn that Flynne’s world is such a stub. The increasingly convoluted and intertwined storyline involves a hunt for Daedra’s missing sister Aelita, corporate espionage, political corruption, timeline shenanigans, and multiple attempts on Flynne’s life as she is the only witness to Aelita’s murder.

Prime Video greenlit the TV adaptation in November 2019, and the show was developed by western world showrunner Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy as part of their overall deal with the streaming platform. They serve as executive producers along with series creator and showrunner Scott B. Smith. Per Deadline Hollywood, The Periphery is intended to be a “dazzling, hallucinatory glimpse into the fate of mankind – and what lies beyond”.

Chloë Grace Moretz plays Flynne Fisher, Jack Reynor (Midsommar) plays her brother Burton, and Eli Goree plays Burton’s triple amputee competitor Conner. Gary Carr plays Wilf and Charlotte Riley plays Aelita. (Curiously, there is no cast list for Daedra, who plays a central role in the novel.) The cast also includes JJ Feild as Lev, Adeline Horan as Billy Ann Baker, T’Nia Miller as Cherise, Alex Hernandez as Tommy Constantine, Austin Rising as Leon, Louis Herthum as local drug lord Corbell Pickett, Chris Coy as Jasper, Melinda Page Hamilton as Ella, Katie Leung as Ash, Hannah Arterton as Dee Dee, and Alexandra Billings as Detective Ainsley Lowbeer.

Will the series be good? It’s hard to tell from this extended teaser, which focuses on introducing the basic premise and is set to weird retro electronic music reminiscent of stranger things or TRON. But the visuals are certainly impressive, and we’re definitely going to get a lot of action. We get glimpses of the novel’s posable tattoos, a possible nanobot swarm, and what appears to be cloaking technology for a car that could resemble the invisible “squid suits” favored by assassins in the novel’s future world.

The Periphery Premiered on Prime Video on October 21, 2022. A second season is reportedly already in active development. The eight-hour episodes of season one were meant to cover the entirety of the 2014 novel, raising the question of where the show will go in its second season. One possibility: Gibson will release a “sequel and a prequel” novel called in 2020 Agency. This book features the same futuristic technology and is set in an alternate 2017 (when Hillary Clinton was elected US President) and – what else? – a “post-apocalyptic” time period in the 22nd century

Promotional image from Prime Video