FX’s Kindred, which was officially ordered to series in January, is almost here. The premiere date was announced during a panel at New York Comic Con, where showrunner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins and much of the cast were on hand to discuss the show.
There’s also a poster, which gives very little about the story away—but does say that it premieres on December 13th.
Whatever this is, it’s real. Based on the best-selling novel by Octavia Butler, FX’s Kindred premieres December 13. Only on @hulu. pic.twitter.com/KOVLQUFj4z
— FX Networks (@FXNetworks) October 9, 2022
What this doesn’t say is that FX has decided to drop all eight episodes at once—perhaps not the greatest release strategy for a heavy and heartbreaking story about a modern Black woman who is inexplicably pulled into the past, to a 19th century plantation where her existence is dramatically different. FX’s summary explains:
FX’s adaptation of Kindred is centered on Dana, a young Black woman and aspiring writer who has uprooted her life of familial obligation and relocated to Los Angeles, ready to claim a future that, for once, feels all her own. But, before she can get settled into her new home, she finds herself being violently pulled back and forth in time to a nineteenth-century plantation with which she and her family are surprisingly and intimately linked. An interracial romance threads through her past and present, and the clock is ticking as she struggles to confront the secrets she never knew ran through her blood, in this genre-breaking exploration of the ties that bind.
Mallori Johnson stars as Dana James, and the rest of the cast includes Micah Stock (Bonding), Ryan Kwanten (True Blood), Gayle Rankin (GLOW), Austin Smith (Hamilton), Antoinette Crowe-Legacy (Passing), and David Alexander Kaplan (Creepshow). Kindred has quite the star-studden cast and crew: showrunner/writer/executive producer Branden Jacobs-Jenkins was a consulting producer for Watchmen and Outer Limits, while Darren Aronofsky (The Fountain, Black Swan) and Joe Weisberg (The Americans) are also among the show’s producers.
Kindred premieres on December 13th on Hulu.
