Fri 3 Aug 2012
MAKE A LIST: What Fictional Characters Should Have a TV Series?, by Michael Shonk.
Posted by Steve under Characters , TV mysteries[46] Comments
What Fictional Characters Should Have a TV Series?
by Michael Shonk
Not every fictional character has been blessed with a TV series. Many famous characters such as PHILO VANCE, NICK CARTER, and THE SHADOW have tried with only a failed pilot or two left behind. Iconic private eye SAM SPADE has never had a TV series due to politics and TV writers finding it cheaper to steal than pay for the real thing.
The following are my top five choices of fictional characters I would adapt for a TV series. Feel free to add your own or make fun of mine in the comments (points awarded to anyone who has read any of all five (seven) characters’ books). While I focused on mystery novels, any characters from any genre of fiction and any format besides novels may be selected.
CYRIL “MAC†MCCORKLE & MICHAEL PADILLO. Created by Ross Thomas. Appeared in novels Cold War Swap (1966), Cast a Yellow Shadow (1967), The Backup Men (1971), and Twilight At Mac’s Place (1990).
One of television’s programming quests is to find a successful light drama series featuring the team of an average person (for the viewers to identify with) and a top secret agent. McCorkle and his partner and feared ex-spy Padillo run Mac’s Place, a bar located in Washington D.C. and a favorite spot for political intrigue and power brokers.
ELDON LARKIN. Created by Vince Kohler. Appeared in novels, Rainy North Woods (1990), Rising Dog (1992), Banjo Boy (1994), and Raven’s Widows (1997).
Eldon is an average guy, a lovable loser with a talent for finding and solving murders. He is a reporter for the South Coast Sun that covers a small community in rainy coastal Oregon. Take the loony locale of a Carl Hiaasen, the off-beat characters of an Elmore Leonard, and the fun dialog of an Gregory Mcdonald and you have a slight idea of the late Vince Kohler’s unique talent.
HAP COLLINS & LEONARD PINE. Created by Joe R. Lansdale. Appeared in novels Savage Season (1990), Mucho Magic (1994), Two-Bear Mambo (1995), Bad Chili (1997), Rumble Tumble (1998), Veil’s Visit (1999), Captains Outrageous (2001), Vanilla Ride (2009), and Devil Red (2011), as well as novella “Hyenas (2011). (http://www.joerlansdale.com)
Imagine what cable networks FX, HBO, or Showtime would do with these two characters. I can’t better describe them than Kevin Burton Smith did at his website Thrilling Detective. (https://www.thrillingdetective.com/hap.html)
CAPE WEATHERS. Created by Tim Maleeny. Appeared in Stealing the Dragon (2007), Beating the Babushka (2007), and Greasing the Pinata (2009). (http://www.timmaleeny.com)
Former reporter now San Francisco PI, Cape is from the Robert Parker’s Spenser school of PIs, but lighter with less realism. His companions include Sally, an assassin raised from childhood by the Chinese Triads, a computer genius who is called Sloth for good reason and Sloth’s close friend Linda, a reporter whose hair has a life of its own.
INSPECTOR FRANCIS XAVIER FLYNN. Created by Gregory Mcdonald. Appeared in Confess, Fletch (1976), Flynn (1977), Buck Passes Flynn (1981), Flynn’s In (1984), and Flynn’s World (2003). (http://www.gregorymcdonald.com)
While Fletch gets all the attention it is another Mcdonald’s character, Flynn that is best suited for a weekly TV series. Flynn’s secret past full of intrigue offers a nice series arc, while the weekly episodes featuring the eccentric and brilliant Boston homicide cop, following in the tradition of endless beloved TV detectives, using unconventional methods to solve crimes. Add his “perfect†family and his abused assistant Grover and you have a nice basis for a network weekly series.
August 3rd, 2012 at 7:07 pm
From your list, Michael, I am ashamed to admit how few of those books I have read. Once the 1990s came along, all I’ve done is fall farther and farther behind.
I don’t know about anyone else, but there are many many series characters I would like to add to your list. I will restrain myself, however, and mention only a couple, the first being Marcia Muller’s Sharon McCone series, and if that were on the air, then Bill Pronzini’s “Nameless PI” series.
The only problem being that I think the people who would be responsible for putting either one on the air would feel the need to “jazz” them up somehow. McCone and Nameless may be too ordinary and not quirky enough to make it on their own.
McCone came close, once, as you can read in this interview done with Marcia Muller: http://marciamuller.com/author/interview.asp
If Geena Davis had been interested, it sounds as though it might actually have come to pass. And it might have actually have worked.
Michael, do you have any suggestions as to who might play any of the characters you picked? I think Pronzini himself might be the best one to play “Nameless,” in the same way that Mickey Spillane did a super job as Mike Hammer.
Darren McGavin as Mike Hammer? The stories are good, for 30 minute episodes, but otherwise, no way.
There’s also no way cable or premium channel networks should ever run out of source material. I’d watch any and all of the above on TV, and I think millions of others would, too. Think of all the British detectives whose adventures have made into series in the UK. What’s wrong with the networks in this country?
August 3rd, 2012 at 8:20 pm
Parnell Hall’s Stanley Hastings or Simon Brett’s Charles Paris would be perfect candidates. And Steven Torres’ Precinct Puerto Rico, Bill Crider’s Dan Rhodes, Ed Gorman’s Sam McCain, Harold Adams’ Carl Wilcox, Fredric Brown’s Ed and Am Hunter, Peter Lovesey’s Peter Diamond, Craig Rice’s John J. Malone, Ed Hoch’s Nick Velvet (or any of his many other characters), Joan Hess’ Arly Hanks…the list is almost endless
August 3rd, 2012 at 8:47 pm
All great choices, Jerry. I wonder which one will make it to small screen first? I’d love to see any of them, but I’m particularly glad to see you mention Ed Hoch’s Nick Velvet character, since I asked him about the possibility of a such a series when I interviewed him back in August 2004.
https://mysteryfile.com/Hoch.html
His answer to a question I asked included this reply: “More than twenty years ago when a Broadway producer held the Nick Velvet option, she suggested Ben Gazzara for the part.” Later on Marv Lachman suggested Barry Sullivan, and my response was Tim Dalton.
I know it’s too late for a Nick Velvet series to suddenly appear now, but I’ll keep wishing.
August 3rd, 2012 at 8:52 pm
Re John J Malone, there was a early 1950s tv series that only lasted one season: ‘The Amazing Mr Malone’, starring Lee Tracy. It took its title, and possibly some of its storylines, from a radio series of the same name.
August 3rd, 2012 at 8:57 pm
David
I knew of the radio series, and in fact I have a few episodes in my collection. But I didn’t know about the TV series, and I’d like to know more.
There isn’t much information on IMDB about it, only that it lasted for 13 30-minute episodes, a few of which they have titles for.
I’ll have see if any of the other online TV sites have anything more about it.
August 3rd, 2012 at 9:01 pm
I seem to have known about the MR. MALONE TV series at one time. I must be getting old, because I mentioned it myself in a comment on this very same blog:
https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=10076#comments
August 3rd, 2012 at 9:08 pm
Jerry House (Comment #2)
Add to the list of failed pilots that Michael mentioned: ARLY HANKS, based on the Joan Hess character, made in 1993 with Kate Jackson in the starring role. It’s not clear if this ever aired. At the moment, I’m assuming not.
I’d like to see this one.
LATER: Wikipedia says is was shown on CBS on August 20, 1994, but low ratings led to its being removed from the fall schedule. Maybe copies exist!
STILL LATER: A four minute clip can be found on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwpLMP58Opw
LATER STILL: I found a fan-based site that has it on DVD. It’s too pricey for me, in the $20 to $50 range, according to the site. Ah well.
August 4th, 2012 at 1:23 am
I would like to see Dan J. Marlowe’s Earl Drake on TV, a bankrobber becoming a special agent for the U.S., and Norbert Davis’ P.I. Doan with his huge dog Carstairs, a funny couple. Was Richard Stark’s Parker ever on T.V.?
August 4th, 2012 at 2:50 am
I would like to add Chester Himes’ Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones.
August 4th, 2012 at 3:28 am
Sir Henry Merrivale: Dr Fell is a good character, but HM would perhaps transfer more easily to the screen. There are enough novels, and it wouldn’t take much to change some of the Colonel March stories to HM stories.
Gervase Fen: Another character who would transfer very easily to TV. The comedy aspects of the books, and the way that they meld with the detection elements, remind me of JONATHAN CREEK.
Sam Hawthorne: Ed Hoch wrote enough stories to keep any television series going for ages. Period settings, likeable characters, and some real brain bending puzzles. Surprised that it hasn’t already been adapted.
Stingaree: This short series written about 1900 was the work of E W Hornung, who also wrote Raffles. The title character is a disgraced English gentleman who has become a bushwhacker in the Australian Outback. It’s a setting that hasn’t been used very often on TV, and might work very well.
Luis Mendoza: Dell Shannon (Elizabeth Linnington) seems to have been more or less forgotten, which is a terrible shame as her police procedurals are excellent. These novels ran from ’60 to ’92, so they could be done as either period or modern.
Oh, and I’d love to see Lillian de la Torre’s Dr Samuel Johnson detective stories done for TV.
August 4th, 2012 at 5:21 am
The problem I see with serializing especially noir characters on today’s TV is-How in the world would you show hard-drinking guys in a chain-smoking environment?
I have my doubts about contemporary TV and its possibilities.
It could do more harm to classic mystery, than good.
The Doc
August 4th, 2012 at 6:15 am
I love the idea of Hap and Leonard.
August 4th, 2012 at 8:41 am
Travis McGee.
Lew Archer.
August 4th, 2012 at 9:14 am
Any one of the fourteen series from Detective Fiction Weekly that Monte Herridge has covered thus far would be programming that I’d support.
I knew about the J. J. Malone series when I suggested it, but didn’t know about the Arly Hanks. A lot of the radio and early television shows would be worthy of a modern reboot.
McGee, Archer, Parker, and Coffin Ed and Gravedigger have all been featured in films, some successfully.
Hap and Leonard, Gervase Fen, HM, Luis Mendoza, Flynn, Doan and Carstairs, McCorkle and Padilla, Dr. Sam…all great choices. I (**bowing head in shame**) am not familiar with Eldon Larkin or Cape Weathers, Michael, but I certainly trust your judgment; I look forward to adding their adventures to mount TBR.
I wish someone would place us in charge of network programming.
August 4th, 2012 at 10:48 am
A note to The Doc (# 11):
There are two possibilities to adapt an older detective series to a new TV series: You can choose the historical environment of the original stories or you adapt them to the present tense. If you have the historical context then there will be chain-smoking etc. But everybody knows: this is long ago and does not matter anymore. If you adapt the old stories to the present tense, there will be many changes. I prefer the historical context, but younger people probably not.
August 4th, 2012 at 11:36 am
Sorry I’m late. I am recovering from what I hope is successful glaucoma surgery in my left eye and still having problems reading so forgive any typos. Normally, I would reply to each and all of your suggestions, but the eye needs rest. Not surprisingly, they all been great, and they have given me some new writers/characters to read.
What makes TV interesting today is the variety of TV networks. Imagine a character such as Don Quixote. Think of what kind of TV series the character would have on AMC (period drama MAD MEN) or CBS (they would solve crimes) or ABC (romance for female viewers) and so on.
The problem with noir as a weekly TV series is how can the characters be doomed if they come back every week. HARRY O showed TV is more successful on major networks as melodrama with its happy ending. But noir is finding its place on pay-TV with limited success. To me the fifties noir characters belong in movies and the big screen.
Pulp characters suffers from the current lack of interest in PIs (over cops) and the success of comic book superheroes (vs the Pulp heroes).
Of course most of our choices suffer the fate of Sam Spade and a copy will do just as well as the original (in TV programmer eyes). Doan and Carstairs has been ripped off and done in film and TV and never well (probably because they didn’t have Norbert Davis).
It is a surprise there isn’t a cozy amateur TV series on today (especially ABC, Lifetime or USA networks).
We are currently in a period when networks and producers are shopping for pilots. So you will read about characters being optioned (producer buys film and or TV rights). Hopefully, they will listen to us. Most likely, it will be from books currently in print.
But it is fun to play TV programmer anyway. If nothing else this is a great list of forgotten books too.
August 5th, 2012 at 4:33 pm
I’ll cast my out-of-the-box vote for Larry “Doc” Sportello, from Thomas Pynchon’s 2009 shaggy-dog detective novel Inherent Vice. I also have a special fondness for Moll Robbins, the NYC reporter at the epicenter of Don Delillo’s classic classic paranoid thriller Running Dog.
August 5th, 2012 at 5:52 pm
Two great choices, David. What I am enjoying the most about this list is how it reflects what each of us is reading.
I am still waiting for some film, radio, or comic book characters to get mention.
In the film SIMON by Marshall Brickman that is set in a think tank of four bored crazy geniuses who decide to brainwash a guy and convince the world he is a space alien. A weekly visit to the think tank and the four mad geniuses would make a great TV series, especially with the short run seasons (6 episodes or so) of cable networks like Showtime.
In radio ROCKY JORDAN is my pick and now TV has the ability to actually film the period adventure properly. Check out my earlier review: https://mysteryfile.com/blog/?p=12982
In other genres, sf/fantasy Kage Baker’s THE COMPANY book series has a mysterious company in the future discover time travel and place operatives in various places and various time lines to guide humans down the correct path or for possible other reasons.
August 5th, 2012 at 11:41 pm
I suppose that since Mystery*File is supposed to be a mystery blog, nobody read the instructions and we’ve all chosen our choices from the pages of mystery fiction.
Including me, even though I did read the instructions.
I don’t know how many people are still monitoring this post, but this certainly opens the door a lot wider than it’s been before.
Many of the continuing character shows on Old Radio have already had their chance on TV, with most of them not getting much traction, especially the sitcoms. Westerns like GUNSMOKE and HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL have done well.
You’ve already mentioned SAM SPADE, NICK CARTER and THE SHADOW as mystery-oriented characters who didn’t make it. But ROCKY JORDAN, though — I second the motion for that one.
As for SF and Fantasy, I’ll have to let others do the recommending there, save for Isaac Asmov’s “Lije Bailey & R. Daneel Olivaw” series. (The first two books have been adapted for BBC television, but as separate programs, not as a series.) Has there ever been a far-future detective series on US TV? Emphasis on “detective.” At the moment, I don’t know. I’m just asking.
I also admit that I’ve restricted myself in thinking of the standard longer length slash continuing series. There are lots of books that I’d love to see done as either a mini-series or a limited series. (Is there a difference between the two terms?)
Weren’t some of the Tony Hillerman novels converted to short-term series? I never watched them, and maybe no one did, either, since the idea never caught on. I haven’t followed the LONGMIRE series on A&E as to how successful it was. I hope well enough that I can see it on DVD.
I also hope it did well enough that it will tempt TV producers to do the same for some of the other characters that have been mentioned so far!
August 6th, 2012 at 8:18 am
With great films, you always have to wonder whether we should just leave well enough alone — even a sequel can be disastrous, let alone a TV show. But quite possibly my all-time favorite film investigator would be Rick Deckard from Blade Runner; I just have no idea if he would translate into a TV series. I would hate to see him wind up in the hands of, say, Jerry Bruckheimer.
August 6th, 2012 at 10:22 am
One of the least considered differences between books and TV/film is creative control. With books, despite the influences of editors and publishers, it is a story created between the writer and the reader. With TV and film the role the novelist plays is assumed by a legion of people from casting to network/studio bosses to the point where the writer can be forgotten. The rule of thumb for creative control is books-writer, TV-producer, film-director, and theatre-actor.
Books create images not limited by budget or technology. Imagine Syfy channel vs HBO doing Deckard.
As someone as interested in television as books, I like playing matchmaker as well with my wish list.
Lists such as this one should be fun, but the reality, as most Jack Reacher fans have discovered, be careful what you wish for.
August 6th, 2012 at 11:07 am
In the early ’70s, I made the belated discovery of The John Putnam Thatcher series by ‘Emma Lathen’.
Thatcher was vice-president of a big Wall Street bank, and the murder cases always turned on various aspects of business, with a layer of social satire thrown in.
There was a ‘family’ of regulars – Thatcher’s staff at the bank – and I went through several rounds of casting them with the character actors I’d been seeing in movies and on TV.
The ’70s were the era of the Mystery Movie ‘wheels’ and that seemed to me to be the way to go with Thatcher – six or eight stories each season, rotated with other amateur ‘tecs from book series that I enjoyed. Also, a wheel series might properly attract an older movie star who might be interested in part-time prime-time TV for a career booster (in Thatcher’s case, I was thinking someone like William Holden or Richard Widmark, who were aging out of ‘leading man’ status).
Side note: about this same time I had accidentally discovered a lesser-known series by ‘R.B.Dominic’, about a Congressman named Ben Safford, and I started thinking of that one in terms of a wheel series. I was two books into that one before I found out that ‘Dominic’ and ‘Lathen’ were in fact the same author (well, two authors – Mary Latsis and Martha Hennisart).
Well, all this was back in the ’70s; the authors are now passed on, the books (then highly topical) are now period pieces, and let’s face it – of all possible TV characters, who would be a tougher sell to the current audience than a banker or a congressman?
I still have all the books, though …
… and I can still reread them with pleasure (I just have to reset my mind for the ’60s-’70s – and remember which character actors I’d cast).
The foregoing is just one example out of many I could give you. If this thread holds out, I could concievably plague you with more …
… many, many, many more …
August 6th, 2012 at 11:17 am
I like the idea of casting our wish-fulfillment series, too. I sometimes do this with books I read, but most of the time, I’d have a heck of a time being a casting director. The picture conjured up in my mind by the author seldom matches any actor I can think of.
But I do know when someone is wrong. Tom Cruise as Jack Reacher is about as wrong as you can get. Does anyone think he’ll grow into the part?
PS. Mike. Plague us all you want. I was a big fan of the Emma Lathen books too. William Holden more than Rchard Widmark, I think, but once again, neither matches the picture I have in my mind of him.
August 6th, 2012 at 11:33 am
#22. Mike, thanks for two more books I need to check out. So you and Steve (#1 in the post and in our hearts 🙂 ) are casting fans. As you might guess my interest has always been behind the camera rather than in front of it.
You mention the wheel series of the seventies. Cable has brought it back with short seasons for their series but instead of rotating episodes they rotate seasons. AMC will air MAD MEN for a handful of episodes, then it goes off and BREAKING BAD or WALKING DEAD takes their turn. Cable schedules are wheel years.
August 6th, 2012 at 12:22 pm
Great discussion. I liked Michael’s comment questioning how a series noir character can be doomed in every episode. I think many series are classified as noir because of their general mood and ambience but can’t possibly be noir under a strict definition. For a series private eye novel or TV show to be noir, wouldn’t the noir protagonist have to be a different secondary character every time?
Those Tony Hillerman adaptations (I think three or four only) with Wes Studi as Leaphorn and Adam Beech as Chee were excellent, probably the closest American approximation to the kind of work the British do when they adapt their detective classics. They don’t seem to have made much of a splash, however. There was a DVD set but per Amazon it seems to be OP. At least a couple of the individual ones are available.
Regarding chainsmoking characters: It’s not a matter of whether you do it present-day or period but a matter of political correctness. I remember the film PEARL HARBOR of a few years ago. The period look and feel seemed meticulously accurate, but then there’s a scene with a bunch of young nurses, and I am sure in reality they would have been smoking like chimneys, but not a one lit up.
August 6th, 2012 at 4:24 pm
Michael:
Uh, that’s two more series of books by ‘Lathen/Dominic’, about twenty volumes total.
And good luck in finding them, because they’re all out of print, and have been since shortly after Mary Latsis’s death in 1997.
(If I’m wrong about this, correction definitely welcomed.)
My first Lathen was Murder Against The Grain, published in 1967, and read by me about two years later, when it got into paperback (cover price 60 cents). The story concerned a trade treaty between the USA and the USSR involving shipments of wheat between the two countries, with a generous skewering of cold-war politics. At the start of the book, there are “news stories” from various countries about the grain deal, each skewing the story from each country’s point of view (this is the satire I was referring to).
Also, there was a solid whodunit puzzle.
As I acquired more of the series, I got to know the regular characters and their quirks, and I find when I reread them, my casting call is stuck in the ’60s-70s. The character pool has definitely shrunk in recent times (and in the past year or so seems to be drying out almost completely). Just about every actor I could think of for running roles or guest shots is either already dead or of such advanced age as to prove impractical for casting use nowadays *sob*.
And on that depressing note …
August 6th, 2012 at 6:48 pm
#25, Jon, the Tony Hillerman adapations were done by the British production company, Granada, for PBS MYSTERY THEATRE.
SKINWALKER (2002)
COYOTE WARS (2003)
A THIEF OF TIME (2004)
August 6th, 2012 at 8:18 pm
#26. Mike, when adapting characters dated settings and background usually can be updated or ignored. The Ross Thomas books were set in the era of the Cold War but most could easily be updated (though I doubt MISSIONARY STEW would appeal to today’s audience or readers).
Another important factor for our characters success is what type of dramas/comedies are currently “in.” From the trade coverage of the recent TCA meetings CBS seemed to be trying to distance itself from their decade of successful police procedurals. Its now about the characters. This generally means fewer cast members and less focus on whodunits. This makes me curious about CBS’ ELEMENTARY. (Meanwhile, NBC was getting attacked for having a broad and funny comedy with a monkey, ANIMAL PRACTICE, as if all that is allowed is quality little watched comedies such as COMMUNITY.)
Of my choices, Eldon Larkin would have the hardest time making it on TV. American TV viewers have rarely flocked to series with odd characters. Elmore Leonard has finally made it with JUSTIFIED but those characters lack the strange oddness of MAXIMUM BOB and GET SHORTY.
The secret to any success in TV is “to do something different but the same.” So how close is your character to today’s television yet is it different? With my choices, FLYNN offers a cop show with an arc of his secret past as a spy. Same but different.
August 6th, 2012 at 11:46 pm
In Comment #19 I asked if there has ever been a far-future detective series on US television. I’ve had no chance to research the question myself, nor has anyone responded, so the question remains open.
There has been one on Scottish TV, though, sort of: SHERLOCK HOLMES IN THE 22ND CENTURY.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherlock_Holmes_in_the_22nd_Century for more details. (It’s in my Amazon cart right now.)
August 7th, 2012 at 12:05 am
Sorry, I forgot to check, but I will.
As for SHERLOCK HOLMES IN THE 22ND CENTURY, it was a bad syndicated animated kids show syndicated on American TV with one very annoyingly addictive theme song.
August 7th, 2012 at 1:36 am
Uh-oh. You’re my go-to guy for animated series. The comments on Amazon were Good, but it’s a good thing I didn’t spend any money yet!
August 7th, 2012 at 9:01 am
Steve, episodes are available to watch on YouTube.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxmoOUsZzOs
August 7th, 2012 at 10:30 am
#29. Steve, TV series about cops in the future date back to ROCKY JONES, SPACE RANGER to next season’s FRINGE.
Anime has GHOST IN THE SHELL. There is the animated BATMAN BEYOND.
LOGAN’S RUN was a SF FUGITIVE. I don’t think it was set in the future but there was the buddy cop show ALIEN NATION.
Genre benders such as mixing mystery and SF tend to focus less on simple crimes or whodunits, but instead focuses on great conspiracies. While mystery is about restoring order from chaos in society, SF is about exploring the larger problems of the society as a whole. SF is more likely to go over the top dramatically, while mystery is content with understated small injustices such as the death of one person.
I’ll try to think of some other future cops (FUTURE COP was a series set in the present featuring an android cop).
August 7th, 2012 at 4:28 pm
Michael
Thanks for the YouTube link in Comment #32. I’ve been away from the computer most of the day. I’ll take a look tonight.
Also thanks for the suggestions you made in #33, none of which I’d come up with on my own. I hadn’t realized that FRINGE was moving to the future next year. My son and I have been watching the show on DVD, and we’re about half way through season 3.
We both enjoy it very much, although we remain amazed that it appeals to enough people for it to have stayed on so long.
In any case, cops in the future weren’t exactly what I was looking for, but rather detective stories in the future (a la the Asimov books), emphasis on the “detective” — realizing that cops can solve crimes, too!
I know I’m asking a lot here. Why set the stories into the future if you’re not going to use such a setting as an integral part of the story. So the challenge to the writer is threefold: set up and solve a credible crime, integrate future technology or attitudes into the story, and make it easy and enjoyable for the viewer to watch and follow along.
August 7th, 2012 at 11:49 pm
#34. Steve, I don’t think there has been such a series. If there has it would probably be found on British TV or Japanese Anime.
The American mass audience typically rejects science fiction especially taking place in the future, and the public rarely embraces the weird characters in dramas.
As for FRINGE, it was never a ratings success, but it appealed to a type of viewer enough advertisers wanted to reach to support the series. It helped the boss at Fox is a fan. I won’t spoil any of what is coming for you, but season three was the best season. This year’s season was ok and its best episode was when they set up the jump to the future. Next season will be FRINGE’s last and should get a lot of attention from the media. You might want to watch the DVDs faster so you can join in with the fun as it airs live starting September (or October).
August 10th, 2012 at 4:42 pm
#28:
Sorry, Michael, but my experience as a viewer is that the Cold War cannot be updated today, at least not the way it’s usually tried, i.e., with multinational corporations.
Exhibit A would be the disastrous remake of The Manchurian Candidate from a few years back.
There’s simply no way that you can make a billion-dollar widget-maker project the same level of menace as a large, politically-driven nation bent on world dominion.
Those nations that seem today to be inclined so are so drastically different in culture from ours that such a takeover would be by means of agressive warfare rather than espionage.
That wasn’t the case with the Cold War. The USA and the USSR, for all their political and economic differences, both followed a basically western-European cultural template. A US agent could plausibly infiltrate an Eastern Bloc nation, as a Soviet spy could infiltrate a small town in the Midwest.
How many hundred times have we seen that one, and yet they still play in reruns all the time, and the best ones are as good as they ever were.
Somehow, a militant confrontation between Macy’s and Gimbel’s doesn’t quite carry the same weight.
Here in Chicago, MEtv is rerunning Mission:Impossible late nights; they’re back around to the first season, when Steven Hill was running things. This was 1966, pure Cold War time, with the IM Force overthrowing banana or paprika republics week after week, always blending in with little effort (beyond affected dialects). M:I even did the chestnut about the “spy school town” where the Bad Europeans *nudge-nudge-wink-wink* were taught to act like Americans. That got me to thinking how such a story could be done today if there were still a Cold War.
One dumb idea I had: have all the wannabe infiltrators learn to speak “American” by inserting the F-bomb into every sentence they speak, thus:
“Hello, John, how the f*** are you today?”
“I’m f***ing fine, thank you, and how the f*** are you?”
“I feel really F***ing great. So how the f*** is your wife, Mary?”
“She’s as f***ing great as ever.”
And so on.
Think it might go for two f***ing hours? ;-D
August 10th, 2012 at 5:35 pm
I was wondering about that comment by Michael (#28) myself. You make your point differently (and more colorfully) than I would, though.
I’m not a big fan of Ross Thomas, as I will demonstrate with a review of one of his books any day now, but I agree that his characters would be perfect the basis for a TV series.
I wouldn’t try to update them, though. Keep them in the era when they were written, and I think they’d do fine. It might take a smaller cable network, or a premium channel station to do them as period pieces, but I know I’d watch them, and if done right, I think a lot of other people would, too.
August 10th, 2012 at 5:43 pm
Speaking of MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE, my wife and I have been watching the first season on DVD, and it’s been slow going. I remember it back in the day as a fast-moving, suspenseful show, but either times have changed, or I have.
Compared to shows like NCIS today, M:I just doesn’t have any legs today.
The last one we watched had something to do with an election in some banana republic, and the gang was trying to “unrig” it by faking someone with a heart attack (as I recall) in the booth with the rigged up voting machine.
There’s no way in the world that even banana republicans could fall for a gag like this.
August 10th, 2012 at 6:18 pm
The Ross Thomas thrillers were set in the era but rarely was about the Cold War. They mainly focused on how stupid our government was, something that does not need updated.
Also, I am talking characters not the books. The setting of Mac’s Place, a bar in Washington DC, where local bureaucrats, reporters, diplomats, hanger-ons, and every other characters one reads about in today’s spy thrillers all met remain a great location for crime and spy thrillers..
The character of Mac would be the lead and all would revolve around him. Padillo, Mac’s friend and co-owner of the bar, would remain a trained killer who faked his own death to escape our side who refused to let him retire.
Thomas was way ahead of his time for his cynical view of American government and politics. There are only three writers I have read who have never let me down, Ross Thomas, Jasper FForde, and Vince Kohler.
August 10th, 2012 at 6:39 pm
I see you have the series all worked out. You’ve sold me! I wish I knew somebody who knows someone, though. Then maybe you could get this show on the air. (Got any stars in mind to play Padillo and Mac?)
August 10th, 2012 at 8:12 pm
I’d avoid any known actors. Recasting the familiar actor attaches unnecessary baggage of that actor’s past. New actors allow the character and actor to grow together (see Jon Hamm and MAD MEN).
I’d pitched this to an independent production company such as Luc Besson’s or Stephen Soderberg’s. Both skilled in action with intelligent light humor coming from the characters.
I would write it for pay-cable over networks (it would work on FX) because of the shorter seasons. Without an official agency (cop or spy) it would be hard to find reason to involve Padillo (who is in hiding) in a 22 episodes a season.
August 12th, 2012 at 12:43 pm
Steve and Mike Doran – FX has picked up THE AMERICANS, a Cold War period drama, as a series for next year.
http://deadline.com/2012/08/fxs-cold-war-drama-the-americans-gets-series-order/
August 12th, 2012 at 1:58 pm
An interesting concept for a show. Do you think the folks at FX have been reading this blog? A few of the people leaving comments don’t think the premise will fly, though. It will be interesting to find out.
August 12th, 2012 at 2:34 pm
#43. Everyone should be reading this blog.
DEADLINE is a “trade” website so the comments are usually self-serving and clueless about what the public wants.
I will watch anything Graham Yost puts his name on. FX is one of the best networks when it comes to supporting their series. I think its got a good shot to make it.
August 13th, 2012 at 10:42 am
#38:
If Mission:Impossible seemed to move faster in 1966 than it does today, bear in mind that most other shows that were on then moved a lot more slowly.
M:I was the beneficiary of several factors:
– The sudden infusion of color, still uncommon in 1966, was a major attention-getter.
– Lalo Schrifrin’s music gave the onscreen action a driving force beyond what was being shown.
– The plots were mainly so intricate that actual concentration was required of viewers to follow them.
This is what some call “The Curse Of The First”.
What was innovative in one era often seems commonplace 40-plus years on, after everybody and his brother has taken a swat at it.
My own observation has been that the quick-quicker-quickest cutting we see today is often used to cover plot holes (” … if we make it fast enough, nobody’ll notice!”) and budget cheats: Short Attention Span Theater, indeed.
Steve, I don’t know how long it’s been since the last time you sat down and watched M:I; I’d make the guess that if it was an episode you’d seen not too long before, you knew what was going to happen next, turning surprise into anticipation.
“What’s gonna happen next?” turns into “What’s taking them so long?” An occupational hazard of our hobby.
That’s my take. What’s yours?
August 13th, 2012 at 11:11 am
Mike
A very nice analysis. The shows on MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE haven’t changed. They are exactly what they were back then. You’re absolutely right. It’s TV itself that’s changed.
I find NCIS notorious for quick cuts and dialogue spoken so fast that it’s often hard to follow, but it’s far from being alone. In order to squeeze a plot into 42 minutes instead of 52, the producers of these shows have no other option.
No more sedentary shots of airplanes landing and taking off, nor cars driving long distances to transport the actors from one scene to another. (To tell the truth, there’s nothing lost there.)
But no, that MI show I was referring to in Comment #38 was one I don’t remember seeing before. Even with all of the innovations the series brought into play at the time — and I agree with you about all of them — this particular episode was as slow as molasses.
Even though the plot was complicated, it wasn’t that I’d seen it before that was the problem. My mind was going faster than what was happening on the screen, and worse, coming up with scenarios that would have been a lot more interesting, and believable.
What makes watching the series on DVD now all the more disappointing, back when it started, it was one of my favorites. Sometimes you can go back, sometimes you can’t.