Television Suicide (Don’t Do It)

I was browsing the interwebs the other day and a headline caught my eye. I can’t remember the exact wording, but let’s just say it was a remark about how Heathers (the TV show) wasn’t going happen.  My understanding is that it would be a sequel of sorts.

Why on earth would anyone want to turn Heathers (the movie) into a television series? Let me count all that goes wrong with that idea. Seriously, TV executives! What’s your damage?

1. Aside from rarities such as M*A*S*H and Friday Night Lights, movies turned TV shows lose something in the translation. They almost always fail. Let’s all remember warnings such as Ferris Bueller’s Day Off  and My Big Fat Greek Life. The only other time movies to TV seem to work is when the movie was a box office flop or turned into an animated series–thus allowing the show to reinvent the story. I don’t know if this would work for Heathers since the proposed sequel uses the original for its backstory. It’s not a reinvention.

2. Heathers is very much a cult classic. I think any adaptation of it would kill the very thing that made it so special. What if someone announced they wanted to do a TV version of The Breakfast Club? The beauty of movies is that the time and story captured between the credits is all there is. It’s a moment. 

3. I worry that unless Showtime or HBO got hold of the show, it would very much be a CW item and thus all the fun and originality would be sucked out of the show leaving a husk of advertisements for clothing lines and what music one heard in the just-aired episode. I believe Bravo had hold of this project and passed on it. Bravo worries me more than the CW since it seems to spend all its time documenting the lives of spoiled “housewives.” I honest don’t care, Bravo. I wish you understood that.

Maybe I’m being a little harsh, but come on! Here’s an idea. How about networks try for some original programming! Yes, it’s riskier than bringing something along with a built-in audience. But if it works, they’ve got something truly unique. The risk of a built-in audience comes to play when you offend them. Heathers the TV show? I’m already offended.