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The political intrigue aspect was handled much better in the miniseries than in Lynch's version, particularly with the Harkonnen. Lynch reduced them to a group of depraved, gluttonous, monkey butlers in his version; the miniseries brought back some of their Machiavellian nature.
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Casting was a mixed bag, IMO. The Fremen leads were well done (note to Lynch: Sean Young as Chani? AW-HA-HA-HA- HA!!!) as was the Imperial family and the Guildmasters. I also agree with Drew that this Gurney Halleck was better than Stewart's. A few of the picks were subpar, though:
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I think Alec Newman (Paul Atreides) must have been selected to fill the show's "let's-get-the-Generation Y-audience-and- girls-who-think-Freddie Prinze/Matt Damon/Ricky Martin types-are-dreamy" demographic. Whiny and ineffective, IMO. Martin Keeslar's Feyd was okay, and mostly true to Herbert's character, but I liked Sting's cheeky malevolance in the film version.
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Ian McNeice (Baron Harkonnen) was uneven. Sometimes he was great, other times he was as about as scary as Cesar Romero's version of The Joker. And what was with that talking in rhyme crap?
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The special effects were mostly very good, though there was some cheese factor here and there. That's forgivable, though - it WAS a made for cable miniseries, after all. :) I was damn glad to see they got rid of the absurd "weirding module" gimmick used in Lynch's version.
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Overall, I'd give it a B-minus. Not great, but pretty good, and a whole lot better than Lynch's film.
-Theo
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