Amazon
From Barry Jenkins, the Oscar-winning filmmaker behind Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk, comes a stunningly beautiful and powerful TV adaptation of Colson Whitehead’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Underground Railroad. Telling the story of a young slave named Cora Randall (Thuso Mbedu), the Amazon series follows her as she goes on a harrowing journey through the antebellum South to find freedom in the North by way of the mysterious (and real) underground network of trains, tracks and tunnels.
On one hand, this 10-episode story is a historical drama, taking viewers back in time to an era of American slavery in an otherwise fictional tale. But it’s also an alternate version of history, with a real-life railroad system brought to life in a surreal way by Jenkins, that allows the Underground Railroad to be considered science fiction.
For Jenkins, who is a big fan of the genre, “sci-fi is a great descriptor because I knew that we weren’t making a show about actual history,” he tells ET, adding that as the series progresses, “the genre kind of shifts as we go on.”
Read More at ETOnline.com: Barry Jenkins Talks ‘Underground Railroad’ and Black Sci-Fi (Exclusive)
