Veronica Mars proved (2.5 million in under 24 hours) that if a fan base is hungry, you can use Kickstarter to revive shows once thought dead. It’s not as easy as that as Rob Thomas et al had to convince Warner Bros to let them do it (since Warner owns the show legally) and a hundred other things – but if there’s one thing I’m sure of it’s that I won’t be held back by your petty logic and reason!
With that in mind I was asked, once again as the drunkest one in the room, to come up with a few other shows that should be resuscitated. Shows that had an untapped potential in their time, that could have gone on to do great things if they weren’t already and, most importantly, shows that truly matter to the people.
With those criteria firmly in mind I reached out for the most obvious choice. Firefly? Farscape? Star Trek: Enterprise? Oh no.
Space: 1999. Originally only running two season from ’75-’77, Space: 1999 concerned itself with the people who lived on Moonbase Alpha after all the radioactive waste being stored on the moon explodes. That explosion launches the moon off into space.
Wait, seriously guys hear me out. The moon is being shot through space like a missile while people cling to it and hope for the best. How could this fail to make an amazing movie? Well! IT almost did, once, and then they stopped and went: “Wait, we were going to make a Space: 1999 movie, crap, stop drinking, Bob!” but this is our time! The time to make rash choices and commit to Space: 1999 – the fan funded masterpiece! It could be a period piece, even.
Now I hear you complaining I am not taking this gig seriously. Fine then how about my next choice? It’s serious.
Black Scorpion. A TV show that started in two movies and then died a quick, some might argue ill-timed, death about a cop who felt she could also fight crime and save a city. It’s a common enough story. So why was it shut down, you wonder. Was it just bad? I blame the fact she drove the Scorpionmobile.
Still,, bringing back the Batman-like Black Scorpion and doing it up serious and right would be amazing for fans, and non-fans, alike. Thrill to the idea of a cop in an impractical one-piece swim suit fighting crime while looking as if she was going to try out for roller derby. Chill at the action of Black Scorpion always being second best to Steve Raafftery who was a better cop than she was, and then remember if she’d been the best cop then she wouldn’t also have to be a vigilante now would she? Spill your drink when you remember there was a villain named Professor Ursula Undershaft.
Damn, I guess I’m not convincing you I’m serious, am I? Fine, but believe you me when you hear what my next idea is…
Manimal! Yeah guys! Manimal the movie! You remember Manimal, the guy who could turn into any animal and… wait where are you going? No, really, Manimal: The Movie. I… wait, no stop, all right, a real suggestion!
Small Wonder. A family sitcom about a guy who built a robot girl and got her to fake being part of his family. I am perfectly serious. We get the cast together, and explain the fact that VICI has aged as new bodies to keep up appearances. Think of how interesting it would be to touch base on this family, with VICI firmly slid into a real life – married, adopted kids perhaps, and then it all gets pulled down by trauma. Her whole family turn out to be robots created by her father to fool her. VICI, enraged goes on a tear to destroy humanity held back only by her robot family’s insistence on love over anger.
The whole movie could be a lesson in loving what you have not what you think you want, and in being true to yourself. That love, that is a Small Wonder, indeed.
Let’s get that Kickstarter going!
Wait… where are you going? I was serious about Small Wonder!
