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why am i not in charge of all of television?
I've been thinking a lot about what kinds of TV shows I would make if I were in charge of making TV shows. Mostly because I listened to this podcast episode and immediately went, "THAT WOULD BE AN AWESOME TV SHOW!"
So here's some things I'd like to see, starting with the show inspired by that podcast episode.
+ Bisophere 2
Some background for those of you who don't want to listen to that whole episode (even though you should totally listen to that episode because it's amazing):
Everything about this true story screams for a television adaptation. You've got the inherent human drama of a small group of people in close proximity under strained circumstances for years on end. You've got the backstage shenanigans of the people running the thing and their hubris. You've got the ending where literally Steve Bannon takes over the whole thing and sends armed police in to seize the biosphere. You could even film the thing in the real Biosphere 2, giving it another use! How has this not happened already?????
It should start with the first day that the biospherians are sealed inside, but it should include flashbacks to the planning and background of the thing, especially the stuff where John Allen was firing anyone who pointed out the weaknesses of the project. Instead of showing the two separate experiments, they should tack on the Steven Bannon ending of the second experiment to the body of the first experiment.
+ Benjamin January
Look, everybody loves historical mystery shows! This one has a unique setting (New Orleans in the 1830s and 1840s) with the most fascinating culture that most people don't know much about, strong characters, tons of diversity, intriguing mysteries, and tons of emotional and moral complexity.
Skip the first book (since it's not as strong as the second and doesn't introduce Rose--you can come back to this one later in the series) and start with Fever Season which also has the benefit of being based on a historical event. Film it on location in New Orleans!
The only problem would be the issue that half of the time the characters are speaking French and half the time they're speaking English. In my dream world, half of the show would be in French and half in English, but this would be an American TV show and that wouldn't happen, so there'd have to be a lot of fudging to make this work.
You would need a hell of a showrunner (a Black one) and a writing room to carry over the nuance of the books. If you aren't going to do this one right, you shouldn't do it at all.
+ Hollywood studio drama
Literally do not understand why there hasn't already been a show based around a fictional Hollywood studio during the Golden Age of Hollywood. You could choose any of the first few decades of Hollywood--the nonstop partying of the late '10s and 20s, the Hayes Code struggles and Depression influence of the '30s, the way WWII dominated the '40s.
You could have the best ensemble show! The actors and executives, obviously, but also the fixers and press people, the screenwriters and editors, the camera people and electricians, the people running the canteen, the costumers and prop people...the possibilities are endless. There's SO much drama here, you'd literally never run out of plotlines.
[eta] I hate Ryan Murphy so very much, so I'm ignoring the existence of his show. There's no reason there can't be multiple shows with this premise--there are seven million FBI shows!
+ Some kind of pre-contact America show
Look, I just really want a show entirely created by Native writers, actors, crew, etc. Set it pre-contact so that we can explore a time in history that gets glossed over or treated as ahistorical. I'm not picky about what communities this would focus on or where geographically it would be filmed. Just give some Native showrunners a budget and see what happens.
+Ella Enchanted
Credit for this idea to Hannah, who pointed out that it would make such a good series! Ignore the absolutely horrendously abysmally awful film "adaptation" of this totally delightful book. Embrace the extremely vivid worldbuilding and create the most colorful adaptation possible. You could very easily have an incredibly diverse cast and it would just be so incredibly fun.
It's a reteling of Cinderella in which Ella is cursed by a fairy godmother to always obey. Obviously this results in a nightmare! The entire book is about Ella trying to maintain agency when she literally has to obey anyone who gives her an order. The supporting cast is wonderful, the main romance is lovely, I just think this would be so easy to adapt well, which is not something you can say about most of my favorite books.
Are there any potential TV shows you've longed dreamed of? Tell me about them!
So here's some things I'd like to see, starting with the show inspired by that podcast episode.
+ Bisophere 2
Some background for those of you who don't want to listen to that whole episode (even though you should totally listen to that episode because it's amazing):
Constructed between 1987 and 1991, Biosphere 2 was originally meant to demonstrate the viability of closed ecological systems to support and maintain human life in outer space as a substitute for Earth's biosphere. It was designed to explore the web of interactions within life systems in a structure with different areas based on various biological biomes. In addition to the several biomes and living quarters for people, there was an agricultural area and work space to study the interactions between humans, farming, technology and the rest of nature as a new kind of laboratory for the study of the global ecology. Its mission was a two-year closure experiment with a crew of eight humans ("biospherians")....
Biosphere 2 was only used twice for its original intended purposes as a closed-system experiment: once from 1991 to 1993, and the second time from March to September 1994. Both attempts, though heavily publicized, ran into problems including low amounts of food and oxygen, die-offs of many animals and plants included in the experiment (though this was anticipated since the project used a strategy of deliberately "species-packing" anticipating losses as the biomes developed), group dynamic tensions among the resident crew, outside politics and a power struggle over management and direction of the project.
Everything about this true story screams for a television adaptation. You've got the inherent human drama of a small group of people in close proximity under strained circumstances for years on end. You've got the backstage shenanigans of the people running the thing and their hubris. You've got the ending where literally Steve Bannon takes over the whole thing and sends armed police in to seize the biosphere. You could even film the thing in the real Biosphere 2, giving it another use! How has this not happened already?????
It should start with the first day that the biospherians are sealed inside, but it should include flashbacks to the planning and background of the thing, especially the stuff where John Allen was firing anyone who pointed out the weaknesses of the project. Instead of showing the two separate experiments, they should tack on the Steven Bannon ending of the second experiment to the body of the first experiment.
+ Benjamin January
Look, everybody loves historical mystery shows! This one has a unique setting (New Orleans in the 1830s and 1840s) with the most fascinating culture that most people don't know much about, strong characters, tons of diversity, intriguing mysteries, and tons of emotional and moral complexity.
Skip the first book (since it's not as strong as the second and doesn't introduce Rose--you can come back to this one later in the series) and start with Fever Season which also has the benefit of being based on a historical event. Film it on location in New Orleans!
The only problem would be the issue that half of the time the characters are speaking French and half the time they're speaking English. In my dream world, half of the show would be in French and half in English, but this would be an American TV show and that wouldn't happen, so there'd have to be a lot of fudging to make this work.
You would need a hell of a showrunner (a Black one) and a writing room to carry over the nuance of the books. If you aren't going to do this one right, you shouldn't do it at all.
+ Hollywood studio drama
Literally do not understand why there hasn't already been a show based around a fictional Hollywood studio during the Golden Age of Hollywood. You could choose any of the first few decades of Hollywood--the nonstop partying of the late '10s and 20s, the Hayes Code struggles and Depression influence of the '30s, the way WWII dominated the '40s.
You could have the best ensemble show! The actors and executives, obviously, but also the fixers and press people, the screenwriters and editors, the camera people and electricians, the people running the canteen, the costumers and prop people...the possibilities are endless. There's SO much drama here, you'd literally never run out of plotlines.
[eta] I hate Ryan Murphy so very much, so I'm ignoring the existence of his show. There's no reason there can't be multiple shows with this premise--there are seven million FBI shows!
+ Some kind of pre-contact America show
Look, I just really want a show entirely created by Native writers, actors, crew, etc. Set it pre-contact so that we can explore a time in history that gets glossed over or treated as ahistorical. I'm not picky about what communities this would focus on or where geographically it would be filmed. Just give some Native showrunners a budget and see what happens.
+Ella Enchanted
Credit for this idea to Hannah, who pointed out that it would make such a good series! Ignore the absolutely horrendously abysmally awful film "adaptation" of this totally delightful book. Embrace the extremely vivid worldbuilding and create the most colorful adaptation possible. You could very easily have an incredibly diverse cast and it would just be so incredibly fun.
It's a reteling of Cinderella in which Ella is cursed by a fairy godmother to always obey. Obviously this results in a nightmare! The entire book is about Ella trying to maintain agency when she literally has to obey anyone who gives her an order. The supporting cast is wonderful, the main romance is lovely, I just think this would be so easy to adapt well, which is not something you can say about most of my favorite books.
Are there any potential TV shows you've longed dreamed of? Tell me about them!
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Literally do not understand why there hasn't already been a show based around a fictional Hollywood studio during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
wasn't there the last tycoon and...something something telling the story of rock hudson among other things (Hollywood...?)?
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So true!
The Last Tycoon was really more based on a few characters, a "rise and fall" kind of thing, from what I understand. Which is great, but I want a true ensemble that follows everyone from the highest to the lowest people in the studio.
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There literally is one, titled Hollywood, on Netflix, here, produced by Ryan Murphy. I liked it a lot.
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But also, if I was in charge, we'd have a million middle aged and old ladies going on adventures. Also at least one cool series about Dorothea of Mansfeld.
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And I am 10000000% for old and middle aged ladies going on adventures!
Dorothea of Mansfeld
YES!
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I'm really bad at thinking of TV shows I'd like to see exist, but I think it would be extremely fun to have a more book-loyal Princess Diaries TV show set in the glorious and horrifying canon-accurate era of the early 2000s. Let the pop cultural references and the Fiesta Giles Action Figure fly! I WANT TO SEE GRANDMERE IN HER CANONICAL TERRIBLENESS & TATTOOED EYELINER. (No offense to actual goddess Julie Andrews.)
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I think I read one? of the Princess Diaries books? But I know just what you mean about adaptations that are pretty good for what they are but that don't really adapt the source material well. (There has never been a good adaptation of any of the Anne books except for the first one. Which is ridiculous, because there's SO MUCH GOOD STUFF in the other books!)
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Iβd also make one major change tho, like a certain ship actually sailing lol
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I very much want a TV series for Kage Baker's Company books that can be tactfully cancelled before the off-the-rails ending and just follows the lives of a bunch of cynical cyborgs having adventures in the past; I also desperately want a TV show about the high drama of the 19th century Yiddish theater focusing on Boris 'Sexy Legs' Thomashefsky.
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I will wait! I'd considered both Omar Sy and πΈππππππ πΊππa as well as both of them speak French! But honestly, it would not be hard to cast that role, I don't think. There's so many great actors out there who would kill for a part like that.
a bunch of cynical cyborgs having adventures in the past;
That sounds fun!
The Yiddish theater is so ripe for adaptation! Please tell me that people literally called him Sexy Legs at the time!
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Gosh, I wish that really creative people would be allowed to make the kind of TV they want to make. But they depend on the funding and so the big corporations get to decide what gets made and it's just heartbreaking!
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It's been a while since I played isurrender, though, and technically, the thing about playing it is you don't have to actually make one yourself, you just grandly hand out random ideas. XD
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overall it feels like a cruel irony that contemporary ""hollywood""" (whatever that means anymore) is unable to insightfully depict earlier eras of its own development due to where everything has ended up. it needs to be just like, a random intense-workplace-dysfunctional-personal-dynamics drama of some kind, that just so happens to be showbiz, instead of being laden with what are now pretty tired and worn through narrative and aesthetic choices. at least that's what i'd like to see!
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it needs to be just like, a random intense-workplace-dysfunctional-personal-dynamics drama of some kind, that just so happens to be showbiz, instead of being laden with what are now pretty tired and worn through narrative and aesthetic choices.
AGREED. Well, I'm okay with the aesthetic stuff--I never get tired of that and I love good production design. But Hollywood just can't help self-mythologizing and it's so TIRED. The whole POINT is that the glamor is just a facade! Come on!
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This whole project has J.J. Abrams and LOST written all over it, tbh ^_^ Not that I trust Abrams after Star Wars.
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