In the US: Sundays, 10pm/9pm Central, ABC In the UK: Acquired by ITV2
So when is an adaptation not an adaptation? When you’ve only bought the book for its title because it’s cool and you’re really adapting something else altogether, that’s when.
You might be tempted to think, for example, that 666 Park Avenue might be somewhat like 666 Park Avenue, the book of the same name – on which its credits claim it is based. And yet a brief yet cursory examination of the book’s Amazon listing (or even, like me, if you flicked through it in the book shop) will reveal a few discrepancies:
Welcome to New York City, where the socialites are witches.
Jane Boyle has been living a fairy tale. When her boyfriend Malcolm proposes, Jane can’t believe her luck and decides to leave her Paris-based job as a fledgling architect and make a new start with him in New York. But when Malcolm introduces Jane to the esteemed Doran clan, one of Manhattan’s most feared and revered families, Jane’s fairy tale takes a darker turn.
Now Jane must struggle with newfound magical abilities and the threat of those who will stop at nothing to get them.
Welcome to 666 Park Avenue….
Yes, it’s Gossip Girl meets The Secret Circle. At least, the book is.
But that’s not 666 Park Avenue the TV series. That is something completely different. And by completely different, I mean it’s Rosemary’s Baby meets The Devil’s Advocate with just a hint of The Shining to give us ‘The Devil’s Janitor’. That’s not as sexy a title as 666 Park Avenue, is it?
When Jane Van Veen (Rachael Taylor) and Henry Martin (Dave Annable), an idealistic young couple from the Midwest, arrive in New York City, the glamorous center of industry and media, they are offered the opportunity to manage the historic Drake. Jane, a small town girl with big ambitions, always knew she wanted to be an architect. Henry, a member of the Mayor’s staff, is grounded, intelligent and tenacious. They are lured by the intoxicating lifestyle of New York’s wealthy elite.
Sexy, enticing and captivating, home to an epic struggle of good versus evil, The Drake maintains a dark hold over all of its tenants in this new, chilling drama, tempting them through their ambitions and desires.
Basically, bunch of people in a building. They all get tempted. They sign their souls over to the guy who owns the building – the Devil (probably) – and then bad things happen. Two new people move in. They’re going to be tempted by something, but you can bet they’re going to do some investigating first.
And despite some really quite gruesome scenes, there is almost nothing interesting about this show. Apart from the title. It’s a real place, you know.
The Avengers (Assemble) has been out on Blu-Ray for over a week now. Now, I could at this point write something long and exciting (not) about the differences between the US version and the UK version: the fact the UK version has edits, doesn’t have one of the documentaries and doesn’t have director Joss Whedon’s commentary.
But let’s ignore that and concentrate on something important: the fact there’s – depending on your point of view – a lot of studly comic book superheroes and superheroines to admire or ogle. And given we’re occasionally given to lists round here, today’s question is suitably list based:
Who did you enjoy the most of all The Avengers? And which character’s movie would you like to see next?
Your list can, of course, be entirely sexual, there being a lot of man candy (Thor, Captain America, Tony Stark, Nick Fury, Bruce Banner and – no judgement – the Hulk) and of course Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow), Cobie Smulders (Agent Maria Hill), Gwyneth Paltrow (Pepper Potts) and – no judgement – that waitress Captain America saved. There’s also Tom Hiddleston.
It can also be a list based on which characters you liked the best, which actors you liked the best, who you thought got the best dialogue, who had the best scenes and so on. So let us all know below or on your own blog the answer to that question – you can opt to tell us what the list is or just list them and let us guess.
As for which character you’d like to see next, that’s a slightly more difficult question. Iron Man 3 and Thor 2 are filming right now; Captain America 2: Winter Soldier is currently in discussions; and the Hulk won’t be back until The Avengers 2. There’s also been talk of a Black Widow spin-off movie, although nothing definite yet, and Joss Whedon is working on a SHIELD TV series, albeit with brand new characters.
But, whether it’s happening or not, which of the characters are you looking forward to seeing in their own franchise again next, and which would you like to see get a franchise if they don’t already have one.
Here’s my shortlist (it probably works for all possible permutations):
Scarlett Johansson (Black Widow)
= Chris Hemsworth (Thor)
= Robert Downey Jr (Iron Man)
I did like Mark Ruffalo’s the Hulk. But he’s not on any list.
Incidentally, I should point out that comics-wise, Black Widow is currently the co-star of both Captain America and Black Widow, as well as Winter Soldier, so it’s not entirely out of the question that she’ll be back in Captain America 2: Winter Soldier.
For those that don’t know Black Widow’s comics back story, she’s as old as Captain America – he even saves her as a child from the Nazis in one comic – having been given the Russians’ version of the Super Soldier Serum, but was conditioned to be a spy and assassin by the Soviets’ ‘Red Room’, Hawkeye eventually breaking her conditioning (as hinted at in The Avengers). Here’s a little explanation of the character and her development in comics.
But largely, family television is a miserable land of compromised, unchallenging, lowest common denominator plotting, conservative values occasionally masquerading as liberalism and attempts to be all things to all people. Plots are never too threatening or ever change the status quo significantly. There are magical MacGuffins that only children could believe in. Characters never move outside of traditional, largely patriarchal family relationships and stereotypical gender relationships. And everyone learns a (traditional) lesson about life, family and love by the end of it all.
These programmes are too unchallenging for both adults (who need something more) and children (who need something more, too) pollute the airways and fill up primetime in an effort to get as many people watching at the same time, leaving less time for decent programming.
And it’s not just primetime, now. For some reason, family programming can stray into the 10pm slot in the US. This is not when family dramas should be on, America. This is when kids should be in bed.
With Revolution, we have a prime example of family programming: the turgid, lifeless, recycling of limp ideas, stale characters and by-the-book writing that characterises the genre. Surprisingly, it’s from Eric Kripke (Supernatural), Jon Favreau (Iron Man) and JJ Abrams (Alias, Lost, Alcatraz, Star Trek et al), who are all capable of much, much better but because it’s family programming they’ve dumbed down.
So, here’s the story: 20 seconds into the future from now, mysteriously the laws of physics are going to change. Suddenly, electricity is going to stop working. No batteries, no mains current. Nothing.
Well – and they don’t make this explicit for some reason – all electricity apart from, say, anything in your body that requires the movement of electrons to work such as your nerves, muscles or, in fact, every single cell you have, of course. Apparently, that’s some other set of laws of electromagnetism that makes them work. The jury’s still out on ions, and covalent and hydrogen bonds, mind, but I’m sure Revolution will get there eventually once everyone’s perms start to fall out, salt crystals fall apart and no one gets static electricity from carpets any more. No more oxidisation, no more reduction. Chemistry is going to be so much easier, but we’ll miss that thing with balloons sticking to people’s jumpers, I’m sure.
However, one man knows this very selective change in the law of physics is about to happen and he’s preparing his family for the oncoming apocalypse. He’s also got some top-secret computer files in a special USB necklace that explain EVERYTHING.
Cut to 15 years later and the world has fallen apart. America is now a set of different, feudal republics. Everyone’s become an agrarian subsistence farmer and there are local lords to appease. But The Secret People Behind It All want that man and his files, which might explain how to reverse The Changes. They also want his brother, who also might know something.
So watch The Changes meets Jericho meets feudalistic collective farming techniques as a daughter and a son struggle to survive in an inhospitable – but not exactly even Z for Zachariah harsh – world and learn a little about family along the way. There’ll be sword fights! Really implausible sword fights! There’ll be baddies! Who won’t really do anything bad! There’ll be bad boys! Who quite like nice girls who aren’t too threatening, who wear nice clothes, look very clean and have nice teeth, despite the end of washing machines, Persil and American dentistry as we know it!
Starring the dad from Twilight! Featuring lots of bows and arrows like in that movie The Hunger Games that you like! It’s empty, vapid and it’s coming to NBC soon! It’s Revolution!
Here’s a trailer featuring Andrea Roth before she was replaced by Elizabeth Mitchell. It gives away just about everything from the first episode but don’t worry about that.
It’s the theme to the 1960s cartoon The Incredible Hulk. Like having Freddy Krueger draw his fingernails over a blackboard… then over your own pulsating brain, before inserting themselves so they can eviscerate you slowly forever and ever as you’re unable to forget them.
