The Lost Symbol is a straightforward adaptation, held back by many of the same things that stymied Ron Howard’s three (apparently, though I remember only two) attempts to adapt Dan Brown novels for the big screen. That one of those three shows somehow became a towering artistic achievement with almost no broadcast compromises is one of the great oddities of 21st century TV, but the Hannibal formula isn’t one that anybody is trying to reproduce here. Think Lincoln Rhyme: Hunt for the Bone Collector. This is the kind of book-to-movie-to-TV brand-mining that NBC has tried to do repeatedly. Langdon’s supposed to work alone, but he quickly finds himself in an unsteady alliance with CIA operative Sato (Sumalee Montano), a Capitol cop with a military background (Rick Gonzalez) and Peter’s feisty daughter Katherine (Valorie Curry), whose interest in noetic science gives Langdon something to constantly malign. An anonymous caller, saying he has Solomon in his grasp, sends Langdon on a mission to unravel the clues tied to some sort of ancient knowledge and a portal possibly located in D.C. The hand is covered in tattoos and it’s wearing Peter’s ring, the ring of a 33rd degree Mason. Expecting to give a lecture at the Capitol, Langdon instead stumbles upon a severed hand on a pedestal in the rotunda. Langdon is summoned to Washington by his academic mentor Peter Solomon (Eddie Izzard). The series’ creators and pilot director Dan Trachtenberg stick generally to the shape of Brown’s novel. But it never finds an enjoyable way to interpret Brown’s trademark reliance on a main character whose superpower is mansplaining. After that initial Langdon lecture, The Lost Symbol settles into a polished, decently acted rhythm that follows the plotting of a Dan Brown novel.
If the property’s journey from NBC to Peacock inspired any hope that something perplexingly ambitious might come out of this airport potboiler, worry not.
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It has nothing specific to do with the book they’re adapting, and, through the rest of the three episodes sent to critics, it has nothing to do with their TV show.
It’s a clever thing for creators Dan Dworkin and Jay Beattie to acknowledge at the beginning of their streaming conspiracy thriller. This, to some not insignificant degree, is the primary legacy of Dan Brown’s wildly popular novels and the infinite conspiracy-baiting fictions they’ve emboldened. He notes that these groups have created or appropriated imagery, gestures and slogans and built QAnon-style movements around misinterpreted and out-of-context clues. At what point, though, do their convictions and your pursuit of happiness become mutually exclusive? When do benign symbols become malignant?”Ĭast: Ashley Zukerman, Valorie Curry, Sumalee Montano, Rick Gonzalez, Eddie Izzard and Beau KnappĬreators: Dan Dworkin and Jay Beattie, from the book by Dan Brownįrom there, Langdon goes on to discuss the symbols that bind alt-right groups and fringe conspiracy theorists. He touches briefly and rudimentarily on the power of symbols and continues, “It’s all superstition, but people can believe what they want. Symbologist Robert Langdon ( Succession and Manhattan veteran Ashley Zukerman) is lecturing a Harvard class, and it’s one of those lectures intended to instruct not the gathered group of fictional students, but rather the show’s viewers. Within five minutes, Peacock’s Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol does something fairly smart, something that will also immediately alienate much of the show’s intended audience.