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Fannish Friday
I know I've made a post about this before, but I always get such fun answers that I'm revisiting it.
1. Tell me which book/book series you'd like to see made into a television show. Assume that the showrunners understand exactly what you love about the original, the casting is perfect, it's not too long or too short. Everything goes as perfectly as an adaptation could. What would you most like to see as a show?
I'm asking specifically about shows as opposed to movies. I'm interested in what you think could make either a limited series (let's say at least 3 episodes) or an open-ended one, something that needs more space to breathe than a film can provide.
2. Alternatively, tell me about a book/book series that has been adapted to TV, but that didn't do it very well and you wish someone who really got the heart of the text could take another shot at it. (TV, please! I'll ask about bad film adaptations in another post!)
3. And/or tell me about a book/series that you think should not be adapted to TV or film because you just can't imagine it actually working! The stuff you love most about it just wouldn't translate to a visual media!
For question one, my answers always include the Benjamin January series, which could easily do a short season (say, 6 or 8 episodes) for each book. Mara: Daughter of the Nile would make a great limited series of 6ish episodes, imo, and so would Robin McKinley's Sunshine. When the Radiant Emperor duology is finished, it should get the full C-drama treatment! (It will not.)
I would love to see a really good Queen's Thief adaptation, but I do not think the one currently in development for Disney has a snowball's chance in hell of satisfying me.
For question two, the obvious answer for me is the sequels to Ken Sullivan's Anne of Green Gables. The original 1987 one based on the first book is so close to perfect! I love it so! And then the second two just abandon the canon! (Well, they steal some stuff from Anne of Windy Poplars, which is one of the weakest of all the books! I find it inexplicable!) I would give anything for a really good adaptation of, say, Anne of the Island--Anne and her girlfriends at college!!!!! I want it!!!!
I am also tempted to put the Dublin Murder Squad series on here. The first book was adapted, and I really liked who they cast as Cassie, but...I got bored with it? And didn't finish it? And yet I would looooove to see The Likeness as a mini-series! But only made by the right team!
For question three, the most obvious answer is most of Faulkner. People keep trying to adapt his most stream-of-consciousness novels, and...it doesn't work! Sorry! You can't make The Sound and the Fury or Absalom! Absalom! work! You miiiiight get away with something like Sanctuary, but even that would be a stretch.
Till We Have Faces also wouldn't work! I just don't think Orual's thoughts, which are the whole book, would translate to voice-over. It would feel heavy-handed and clunky.
I think mostly Code Name Verity would make a fantastic short series, but the central "twist" would be almost impossible to pull off in a visual format, so I'm not sure it would actually work, though I'm interested in whether y'all think it would.
1. Tell me which book/book series you'd like to see made into a television show. Assume that the showrunners understand exactly what you love about the original, the casting is perfect, it's not too long or too short. Everything goes as perfectly as an adaptation could. What would you most like to see as a show?
I'm asking specifically about shows as opposed to movies. I'm interested in what you think could make either a limited series (let's say at least 3 episodes) or an open-ended one, something that needs more space to breathe than a film can provide.
2. Alternatively, tell me about a book/book series that has been adapted to TV, but that didn't do it very well and you wish someone who really got the heart of the text could take another shot at it. (TV, please! I'll ask about bad film adaptations in another post!)
3. And/or tell me about a book/series that you think should not be adapted to TV or film because you just can't imagine it actually working! The stuff you love most about it just wouldn't translate to a visual media!
For question one, my answers always include the Benjamin January series, which could easily do a short season (say, 6 or 8 episodes) for each book. Mara: Daughter of the Nile would make a great limited series of 6ish episodes, imo, and so would Robin McKinley's Sunshine. When the Radiant Emperor duology is finished, it should get the full C-drama treatment! (It will not.)
I would love to see a really good Queen's Thief adaptation, but I do not think the one currently in development for Disney has a snowball's chance in hell of satisfying me.
For question two, the obvious answer for me is the sequels to Ken Sullivan's Anne of Green Gables. The original 1987 one based on the first book is so close to perfect! I love it so! And then the second two just abandon the canon! (Well, they steal some stuff from Anne of Windy Poplars, which is one of the weakest of all the books! I find it inexplicable!) I would give anything for a really good adaptation of, say, Anne of the Island--Anne and her girlfriends at college!!!!! I want it!!!!
I am also tempted to put the Dublin Murder Squad series on here. The first book was adapted, and I really liked who they cast as Cassie, but...I got bored with it? And didn't finish it? And yet I would looooove to see The Likeness as a mini-series! But only made by the right team!
For question three, the most obvious answer is most of Faulkner. People keep trying to adapt his most stream-of-consciousness novels, and...it doesn't work! Sorry! You can't make The Sound and the Fury or Absalom! Absalom! work! You miiiiight get away with something like Sanctuary, but even that would be a stretch.
Till We Have Faces also wouldn't work! I just don't think Orual's thoughts, which are the whole book, would translate to voice-over. It would feel heavy-handed and clunky.
I think mostly Code Name Verity would make a fantastic short series, but the central "twist" would be almost impossible to pull off in a visual format, so I'm not sure it would actually work, though I'm interested in whether y'all think it would.
no subject
1. The first thing that comes to mind is that these pictures of the actor Wang Yang give me tremendous Aral Vorkosigan vibes, and I would love a Chinese live-action version of the Vorkosigan books. Casting Miles would always be hard, but I think the series could be arranged into a cdrama very satisfactorily (ideally without censorship, oh dear. I can't imagine what the Chinese censors would make of Barrayar and Komarr.)
Also a number of police procedural-type mystery series--I think there's already a Rivers of London series in the works? Other good ones would be Cynthia Harrod-Eagles or (as a Japanese quasi-period drama) James Melville. Also Lee Killough's near-future mysteries would be a lot of fun on screen if the budget was big enough to play with.
Also I think Pamela Dean's Secret Country series might work surprisingly well on TV, if the child actors were good enough and the script was faithful to the books; they're very visual.
3. Mysteries that wouldn't do well on TV: Fred Vargas' Adamsberg series, I feel like the particular degree of...mostly benign weirdness...? set up by the text would not be translatable on screen.
The Teixcalaan series would be visually absolutely gorgeous, but I feel like they're so reliant on language in various forms that a TV version would lose something, plus trying to figure out "alien, but not very" plausible costuming would be a nuisance.
The Marlows books also rely so much on interiority that it would be very hard to relate to the characters in the same way on screen.
no subject
Wow, this would never have occurred to me, but I agree that it would work in a c-drama way! What a fun idea!
The Teixcalaan series would be visually absolutely gorgeous, but I feel like they're so reliant on language in various forms that a TV version would lose something, plus trying to figure out "alien, but not very" plausible costuming would be a nuisance.
Yeah, I feel this. I feel like it would end up being dumbed down.