In North America right now, Netflix has the conch. The phrase “lord of the flies” has been deployed by hacky comedians to describe brutal, survival-of-the-fittest violence for so long it’s almost lost its power. (I can’t remember who said it, but the description of the group dressing room at Loehmann’s department store as “ Lord of the Flies in pantyhose” sure brought the house down for my grandmother and her friends.) The BBC’s new, robust adaptation of William Golding’s book reclaims the