Good Morning. Here's a Terrible Idea for a TV Show

By Dustin Rowles | Industry | September 7, 2016 |

FX’s Fargo shouldn’t have worked. Ash vs. Evil Dead shouldn’t have worked for Starz, but it did. A Hannibal TV series on NBC sounds like a terrible idea, but it wasn’t. A Bates Motel series sounds ridiculous, but people like it, or so I have heard.

Sometimes turning a movie into a television show works. Most of the time — Limitless, Minority Report, Uncle Buck, Scream (probably), etc., etc. — it doesn’t.

This is one of those cases where it won’t.

TV Land is moving forward with plans to turn Heathers into a TV series. The cabler on Tuesday announced that it has formally greenlit a pilot for a half-hour, single camera series based on the 1988 cult classic, which starred Winona Ryder and Christian Slater. TV Land says it will “reimagine” Heathers as a present-day anthology series, with each season focusing on a different heroine and a new set of mean girls.

An anthology series with a new set of mean girls every season? That sounds misguided, and TV Land is not exactly the destination for compelling television. You can’t even say “Fuck me gently with a chainsaw” on TV Land.

Dumb. Dumb. Dumb. !

Heather McNamara (originally played by Lisanne Falk) is a black lesbian; Heather Duke (Shannen Doherty) is a male who identifies as gender-queer whose real name is Heath; and Heather Chandler (Kim Walker) has a body like Martha Dumptruck.

Oh, that doesn’t sound so bad. The “outcasts” are now the mean girls. Hmmm.