The Feed

After spending five years writing for AMC’s ‘The Walking Dead’, Channing Powell wanted to work on something completely different, so when the opportunity to work on the dystopian Amazon series ‘The Feed’, based on the novel by Nick Clark Windo, she was initially unsure.

The book and its TV adaptation follow a psychiatrist named Tom Hatfield (played by Guy Burnet), who is concerned about the effects of a technology called ‘The Feed’, “an implant in the brains of millions of users that allows them to share thoughts, emotions, and memories.”  Unfortunately, Tom is in a sticky situation, because despite his concerns, The Feed was invented by his father, Lawrence (David Thewlis), while his mother, Meredith (Michelle Fairley) is the CEO of the corporation that profits from it.  But when users begin exhibiting violent behavior, attempting to harm themselves or others, Tom has no choice but to dig deeper.

When Powell was approached to adapt the novel into a series, she admits:

“I thought, well, this could never happen; technology like this doesn’t exist.”

However, once she began looking into the subject, she realized that the concepts in ‘The Feed’ were not as far-flung as she thought.

“Allegedly Facebook is working on something that would go inside your head and MIT is trying to develop a technology that is powered by thought, which to me is such a terrifying notion that you would let people inside your head, I mean that is the last frontier of privacy that we have.  And I was a new mom right when it came to me so why not terrify myself more with other things that I should be concerned about happening in the world.”

Being a new mother may have caused one element from the story to hit even closer to home– the pregnancy of Tom’s wife Kate (Nina Toussaint White).

“I am a big fan of ‘Rosemary’s Baby,’ and I had just had my daughter. ‘The Feed’ is about two young parents doing anything they possibly can to protect their child from a world that seems scary, and that was what appealed to me.  There is always going to be the big story going on around the characters, but as long as the characters themselves are interesting, and you can relate to them, it doesn’t really matter what’s happening around them.”

‘The Feed’ was unveiled this week at the Canneseries TV drama festival and will arrive on Amazon Prime Video later this year.  Check back for updates!

 

Source: Variety