To be fair, it was almost required to be unrecognizable. The original novels consist mostly of two people in a room, alone, talking to each other. Not exactly workable for a major TV series.
Rereading it though, there are bits of brilliance in a sea of cigar smoke and 50’s atomic futurism. The suck fairy hit it pretty hard.
I wonder if the Mule vaguely corresponds to the rise of Muhammad and the Muslim conquests?