Peacock’s ‘Brave New World’ is the Horniest TV Dystopia Ever

Balletic orgies, legally-enforced polygamy, and non-stop lusting: Peacock’s Brave New World serves up the horniest dystopia ever on TV. The long-awaited television adaptation of Aldous Huxley’s landmark novel leans hard into the more lascivious parts of the text, giving the show a rather escapist quality. Brave New World won’t have you examining parallels with today’s world so much as it might have you questioning the pros and cons of hookup culture vs. matrimonial monogamy. It is an almost seedy delight, which makes it perfect for hot summer binging.

Brave New World takes us to the “perfect” future society of New London, where people are separated by caste at birth, but are mostly free to sleep with whomever they want. Children are genetically-engineered in order to perpetuate the blissful social balance and practices like monogamy or pregnancy are considered literally savage. Indeed, the only place where humans are able to live anywhere close to contemporary society is a place called the “Savage Lands.” In the Peacock series, the Savage Lands are a sort of reservation for these barbarians that doubles as a theme park for the folks of New London.

The series kicks off by following characters in these two separate worlds. In New London, an Alpha+ man named Bernard Marx (Harry Lloyd) tries to conceal his almost jealous attraction to a Beta+ woman, Lenina Crowne (Jessica Brown Findlay). While Bernard uses his seniority to chastise Lenina for carrying on a fleeting monogamous relationship, he also struggles to do anything but pine for her. After the two develop a unique friendship, Bernard invites Lenina as his guest to the Savage Lands, where they have the choice of literally joining an orgy in the pool area or touring exhibitions where actual “Savages” ham up negative stereotypes for the delight of the snobby tourists. It is here where they cross paths with “John the Savage” (Alden Ehrenreich), a sensitive young man who feels at odds with the Savage Lands. Perhaps that’s because he’s the illegally conceived son of two New London lovers, one of whom (Demi Moore), was left behind in the Savage Lands because of the scandal of her pregnancy.

After a tense stand off with locals, Bernard, Lenina, John, and his mother return to New London, where John’s arrival immediately sets everyone on edge. Not raised in the surveillance state of New London, John chafes at the rules put in place and openly questions the society as a whole. But John’s outlier status makes him a curiosity in this carefully structured society — and it makes him an object of desire. New London is a culture that orgies on the regular and sees sex as a communal experience. Naturally, this “Savage” is going to find himself folded into that world of detached debauchery. Complicated hookups, jealous rivalries, and even a good old fashioned love triangle ensue.

“It is an old story,” Brave New World star Harry Lloyd told Decider over the phone last week. “First of all, it’s complicated. It’s a [love] triangle. So there’s that. But also, there’s going to be the lonely boy looking for love. A boy who’s never really heard of love, or understood it at all.”

Lloyd explained that one thing that struck him about Brave New World — besides the fact that is “a lot more fun than people think” — was the irony of Bernard’s place in New London. He’s ostensibly one of the elites, given that he is an Alpha+, but he doesn’t feel connected to the community

“It’s a really interesting feeling, isn’t it? When you take a straight look at society, everyone’s connected, and you’re disconnected. You’re very lonely,” Lloyd said.

When asked about the way all the sex scenes in Brave New World were handled on set, Lloyd said, “You know what? It was done brilliantly…It’s really great to be open about it.”

“It’s an uncomfortable thing to do,” he said before explaining that the “striking” sex scenes were still key to the show’s story.

“It’s an important part of our story, [sex] being not intimate, but pleasurable. It’s the way that they pass the time and express their love. So you have to create a new dynamic for that. I’m actually very much involved and down to coordinate,” he said, before noting that he had the job of being mostly a spectator in some of the show’s big choreographed orgies.

“A lot of the people in the pleasure gardens, for example, they were dancers. Because I had such a part in that, I went to this rehearsal in London on a Sunday and saw them rehearsing that full body orgasm where everyone escalates,” Lloyd said. “The whole party just becomes a single organism.”

Is it better to be part of a greater whole or your own person? Brave New World asks that question not from a political or economic stance, but a romantic one. Is a polyamorous culture that thrives on people pill-popping mood stabilizers and eschewing personal privacy the recipe for utopia? Or do we crave something uniquely ours? Not just free will, but the freedom to love and lose?

Peacock’s Brave New World ponders these questions in the most decadent way possible: with pretty people hooking up in pleasure gardens and pining after one another from afar. Forget the grim wastes of other utopias; Brave New World wants to drag you swooning into its abyss.

Watch Brave New World on Peacock