By Ryan Riley, Contributor
Happy New Year, everyone. I took a couple of weeks off from writing the column to recharge my batteries and deal with the chaos of the holidays, and now I'm good to go for another year of ranting & raving. And after hearing the news that this new column is based on, I have no choice but to kick this new year off with a rant.
A couple of weeks ago, my esteemed colleague Robert Meeks broke the news that DC's Vertigo title Fables had been optioned as a TV series. Fables is my all-time favorite comic book, so I was naturally overjoyed at the prospect of an adaptation to another medium. Then I saw that ABC is the network that has optioned it, and my joy transformed into trepidation.
What's so bad about ABC, you ask? Well, based on their track record and some of their current programming, there are three distinct possibilities as to what could happen with the Fables TV series, and here they are:
The "Lost/Pushing Daisies" scenario
This is the most positive of the three possible outcomes of ABC's involvement with the Fables adaptation. The show's producers could give the viewers a relatively intact adaptation of the comic book. For viewers, that would mean an hour-long, fantasy-based TV drama that could potentially give the first season of "Lost" a run for its money with its sheer creativity and ingenuity.
The only problem with this approach is that the general TV audience can be pretty fickle when it comes to sci-fi/fantasy based shows. Under ideal circumstances, the show could find a large following in a short amount of time, as was the case with "Lost" and with "Heroes" on NBC. I'm confident that if the show hits the ground running (and if the show is relatively unchanged from the comic) it could happen. As with any new show, if the first few episodes aren't up to snuff it's likely that it won't pick up the ratings it would need to continue for a full first season.
Even if it does gain a solid viewer base, fantasy-based shows aren't guaranteed a free pass. "Pushing Daisies", an innovative show about a homicide detective that can resurrect murder victims to ask them how they died, did well its first season, but didn't grow its fanbase enough to make it through their second season without getting cancelled. Even "Lost" & "Heroes" have encountered unhappiness with the direction of the story. ABC stuck with "Lost" and it appears that the majority of its viewers are once again happy with the show's direction, and it looks as if NBC is allowing the producers of "Heroes" to work through similar issues.
If the Fables TV show doesn't pick up an audience, it will at least have been an honest attempt at a faithful translation, which is infinitely more preferable than the other two possibilities.
The "Desperate Housewives/Grey's Anatomy" scenario
ABC is a television network, and that means they are going to choose the path that makes them the most money. That being said, it seems that ABC is giving its strongest push to shows like "Desperate Housewives", "Grey's Anatomy" and "Private Practice". I am not a big fan of these "chick shows", but I have nothing against them. I know that a large number of people enjoy them, and I recognize that they are well-executed for what they are. What I will take issue with is if they attempt to take the premise of Fables and re-work it into a formulaic romance/drama in the veins of the aforementioned shows. In its comic book incarnation, Fables has something for everyone (including the "chick show" crowd), and the show's producers would be doing fans of the series (and I'd like to think millions of TV viewers) a serious disservice by making it into something it's not in order to pander to a certain demographic. Look at what happened with that show "Valentine" on the CW. Its premise had the Greek goddess Aphrodite working with a romance novelist in order to help people fall in love. They took a great sci-fi/fantasy staple like the Greek Gods and shoehorned them into a "chick show", and it only lasted four episodes. This was on the CW, mind you, a network that is already filled to the brim with teen-centered "chick shows".
The "Clerks: The Animated Series" scenario
This is by far the most depressing of the three scenarios. The network might initially give support to the show in the conceptual phase even though they're not entirely sold on it. Once the show has got a few episodes in the can, the network executives will balk at the prospect of giving it even the tiniest bit of support.
This has happened many times before with other shows, I'm certain, but there is one particularly ugly example that comes to mind for me. I'm sure a lot of you are familiar with movie writer/director Kevin Smith. Back in the early part of the decade he was approached by ABC to have his very first film, "Clerks", translated into an animated series. Even though Kevin's involvement with the project was minimal compared to that of his films the project looked good on paper. It had Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson & Jason Mewes reprising their roles as Dante, Randal & Jay, so what could go wrong? Everything!
First of all, the often vulgar "Clerks" was a concept that was not at all compatible with ABC, which is owned by Disney. If it had been optioned by a cable network like Comedy Central or Cartoon Network there was a chance it would have translated quite well to the small screen. Even the Fox network could have made it work, given their success with shows like "The Simpsons" & "Family Guy". But because ABC took it on the show's producers attempted to transform "Clerks" into something it definitely wasn't: a normal animated sitcom. It ended up being such a watered-down version of the source material that it turned off a lot of Kevin Smith's normally loyal and forgiving fanbase (myself included) and viewers unfamiliar with Smith's other work just didn't connect with it.
It doesn't help that ABC seemed to revel in making a bad situation worse. It delayed the premiere of the series from early Spring to Summer, then it made the decision to air the fourth episode of the series as the pilot episode. The network then aired the second episode, which was a "flashback" episode with the flashback sequences referring almost solely to what was intended to be the first episode. With seemingly the entire deck stacked against it, "Clerks: The Animated Series" was cancelled after merely two out of the six completed episodes having aired.
The Bottom Line
While it seems doubtful that such a perfect storm of ineptitude could befall the Fables adaptation, a precedent does exist. The watchwords I would tell fellow fans of the book to live by would be "cautious optimism". Oh, and it doesn't hurt to give regular feedback to the producers of the show during the planning phases of the show. They might not heed your advice, but at least you'll know that you tried your best to let them know what the fans expect.
personally i would have wished to see an ANIMATED series......... not sure a television series is the best for such a great comic book! =S animated series are by far more loyal to the comics than television series or motion picture movies (i think of spider-man, x-men, batman, super-man etc....)
the huge advantages you have with an animated series is that you get to see characters as seen in the comic book but animated on your screen (duh!!). also you get to cast voice-actors instead of glamourous hollywood actors that most chances are they would only portray their characters physically and highly disapoint us with their perfomances... and finally.................. MUCH CHEAPER TO PRODUCE!
What's with the Clerks: The Animated Series hate? Among my friends and websites I visit, "Who is driving car? Bear is driving car!" is quoted as much as some of the best Simpsons quotes. It was a very good series and used the fact that it was animation to do things that could never have been pulled off otherwise.