I've just come back from Los Angeles, where I made a point of catching up with all the news shows. I can't help but be a little disappointed at this season's premiers. There's really very little to get excited about. Playboy and Charlie's Angels quickly bit the dust and it's not difficult to see why. Both could easily have been successful but lacked the courage of their convictions. (Hey, ABC and NBC, there are female showrunners now. Really.)
It's interesting to note that the most successful shows are all based on classic books or stories. Pan Am is William Thackeray's Vanity Fair in the air. Revenge is simply Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo with a sex change and set in the Hamptons. While Grimm and Once Upon a Time both use classic fairy tales from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves to Little Red Riding Hood.
Showrunners take note: if you want a show to stay on the air, mine the world's canon of literature for stories to adapt. So come on down! Let's play Fantasy TV shows! With the success of The Help, what about revisiting Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird? Let's see, Scout and Jem are now adults. While Scout has followed her father Atticus' footsteps into the law, Jem has just returned after serving two tours in Iraq. He is haunted by his experiences - and his unrequited affair with Calpurnia's mixed-race son (yes, Calpurnia and Atticus had a secret love child, so that makes him Scout and Jem's half-brother).
Here's another one: what about Charles Dickens' Great Expectations meets Training Day? A rookie New York cop falls in love with the daughter of a Supreme Court judge, only to be cruelly rebuffed...
Or what about Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov as Mad Men meets The Kennedys? When a Senator is murdered all his sons fall under suspicion, including his eldest son who harbours political ambitions of his own...
See how much fun this is?
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