We are apparently living in the golden age of television. With the near diminishment of the Breaking Bad hype there are few shows to starting or even still around take its place. There are obvious exceptions though, for example Nic Pizzolatto’s True Detective is a masterpiece. As for the ongoing gems like Mad Men, Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead they are still going strong but they are starting to irritate fans with their drawn out stories and annoying characters. Seriously Carl, just stay in the fucking house, just this once.
Currently, it seems some writers are running low on ideas and are reverting to the world of movies for inspiration. It’s not a bad idea when you think about. You have a universe that has only been explored for two, maybe three hours tops. You have the characters already crafted as well as a story-arc and general tone of the show too, so why not build on that? There are a handful of shows out there that are doing this at the moment and no doubt there are many more to come. Though some of these Movies-to-TV shows are truly fantastic, some are also below par and after witnessing some of the trailers for the upcoming fall schedule, the future of this trend looks dire at best. WARNING: Though this article doesn’t contain any spoilers, it features trailer which y’know, may contain spoilers. Just a heads up.
Two examples of where the trend’s successes are Fargo and Les Revenants (marketed over here as The Returned). Both posses the same odd quirks and strange characters found in the films as well as the ominous undertones that run throughout. What’s refreshing in both cases is that they aren’t just simply re-telling the movie, other than sharing the same name for some of their characters and throwing in a few small references to the film here or there they’re damn near an original stories. In either show, they the use the initial film as a springboard to launch the story into new heights, developing rich back stories and probing into intriguing sub-plots.
Coincidently, both have a Twin-Peaks vibe to them but in very different ways. Fargo captures the weird and strange behaviour of small town folk and how everybody knows everybody. Whereas Les Revenants has the dark and ominous sense of unease and entrapment felt by strangers in a foreign settlement. This level of tonal story-telling is what both films do so well and that has translated near flawlessly into a TV series. Perhaps this is due to the fact that every episode of Fargo is written by the same guy, Noah Hawley, and all episodes of Les Revenants were written by the same small team. Either way, both shows are fantastic and a sound investment of your time. Plus, Les Revenants has a killer soundtrack created by Mogwai that is a must-listen.
Then there is From Dawn Till Dusk, an example of where this trend doesn’t work. Now I loved the film and was perplexed when they decided to make it into a TV series. The original director, Robert Rodriguez, was brought on board to direct a handful of episodes and he even wrote the pilot episode. Perhaps it’s because of this that the series is nothing more than a piss-poor, shot-for-shot remake of the original film. Though they try to expand on it with the Tarantino-esque, non-linear story-telling technique but when it is done every episode, it just gets frustrating and tacky.
I’m not sure if you could call this a rip-off since the same people who made the movie are involved with the show but that’s how it feels. The execution of the series characters is a copy-paste job, where the mannerisms and traits are identical to those in the film. Though this is no fault of the actors their performances just irritated me and lack any originality whatsoever. I blame the director, not them.
Whereas Fargo and Les Revenants expanded on their universes, From Dawn Till Dusk dug its heels into its own and fumbled about for a story within arm’s reach of the original plot. It’s sexy TV made to make money, not tell a story. If you’re into shit like True Blood then you’d probably like From Dawn Till Dusk. I feel I should point out though, if I hadn’t seen the original film, From Dawn Till Dusk could well have been thoroughly enjoyable but it was hard to watch with the nagging sense of COPY-PASTE COPY-PASTE COPY-PASTE.
As for the future of this trend, it does not look good and heading in the direction I feared most. They are cashing in on the superhero franchise. Now I hate superhero films (with the exception of Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy and Watchmen) as they are the same formulaic bullshit tales told in a variety of different colours that rarely deviate from the norm. However, with a vast history of comics for every fucker with a cape or skin-tight suit, there is a huge universe there to explore. Currently on the fall schedule are series focusing on The Flash, Batman and Constantine. This will of course be joining the already popular squeaky clean CGI-riddled Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D which has inexplicably been renewed for a second season AND a god damn Captain America spin off.
The Flash just looks shit, plain and simple. Sure it’s got high production values but it’s just one long, drawn-out version of a superhero movies that’s peppered with bullshit, generic lines like ‘it’s better to have a good heart than fast legs’ or ‘I spent my whole life searching for impossible *PAUSE FOR EFFECT* never imagining *PAUSE FOR EFFECT* I would BECOME the impossible’. BOOOOOOOOOOOO! Plus, it’s an even more inane cash-cow than you think because it’s sold as a gritty cop drama but, spoiler alert, the cop is a superhero who must keep his secret hidden in order to make him a better cop. BIGGER BOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! Seriously, watch the trailer and tick off all the superhero clichés. I would say take a drink for each but you’d probably die of alcohol poisoning.
NBC has also thrown their hat into the ring with Constantine. Genius idea guys, make a shit TV show about a shit film.
Like The Flash, is chocked full of overused plots of promises of protection and dialogue so generic it is essentially white noise. I have seen windows 95 screensavers that look more entertaining than this turd of a show.
Then there is Fox’s offering of Gotham, a series that follows the rise of Commissioner Gordon. Now Fox is a tricky one to predict, with the exception of House and Fargo, most dramas Fox make are pretty predicable and generally fade into nothing. However, given the success of Batman and the direction they are currently taking, Gotham could well be a winner. The trailer looks semi-promising even though it follows the classic Fox rule of only hiring pretty people to star in its shows. Sure it looks generic but no way near as bad as the two mentioned above and despite this, it still looks, dare I say, good-ish. Though I doubt I will be watching it, it’s certainly the better of the three.
I would like to point out though that there are there are several movies out there that are ripe for making a series of. For example Reservoir Dogs, you have 10 exceptional characters whose back stories are barley talked about and could so easily be expanded upon to create a one-off 10 episode series. While I really despise the superhero direction the movie-to-TV trend is taking, it’s going to happen anyway. The amount of money it will generate will no doubt trigger a shit storm of origin-tales and cross-over series. So buckle up and get used to kids, just stock up on box-sets of good TV shows to keep you going while you ride out the storm.
7bitarcade - Archive 