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Could NBC lack imagination even more ?

By fred | February 26, 2008

Watch out, ABC, cause NBC will have their own show about people lost on a desert island !

No, this is not going to be a “remake” or even a clone of ABC hit-drama or anything like that, thank God, what NBC has in mind is different, but it still shows a pretty amazing lack of imagination if you ask me.

NBC has picked up and ordered no less then 13 episodes of a new series based on Daniel Defoe’s classic novel, Robinson Crusoe.

And moving on to their latest will to change on the TV business work, they won’t bother with ordering a very expensive pilot that may not go anywhere, but go right ahead with a 13-episodes order, which supposedly mean they have more confidence in the show. NBC is also producing the show with leading European producer of high-end TV movies and miniseries, Power, which gets the international distribution rights while NBC gets the domestic rights.

In the end NBC can invest “only” about $10 million dollar on the project, for a total budget estimated to be about $35 million, thus allowing them to get a full 13-episodes new series for a little more than what they’d usually have spent on the pilot only (For example, the two-hours pilot of Lost reportedly cost about $11 million). Meaning that they might not feel as invested in the show as they would usually be, so maybe they won’t have problems canceling it after only a few episodes aired if it doesn’t do good enough, who knows?

But enough with that, here what really made me laugh on that news : this show is reportedly coming out of an “unorthodox brainstorming idea” coming from no other than NBC’s new boss, Ben Silverman. Silverman had asked his development team to come up with a list of “the most engaging stories ever told”, and rate them to find out which was was most likely to appeal to people.

The resulting list had about everything you could think of, from The Last Of The Mohicans to David and Goliath, to Sleeping Beauty, to Jekyll and Hyde. And at the top of the list was found no other than our good old friend Robinson Crusoe, hence the new series.

Seriously, if this is how NBC intends to come up with “new” ideas now, I doubt they’ll ever find a new big hit. Don’t they think that maybe what helped make shows like Lost, 24, CSI, Prison Break or even House such hits is that they were new, as in actually new ideas, new characters, new stories, not just yet another rehash of something that’s been done before. Original ideas don’t hurt, quite the contrary. And shall I remind NBC that it’s not because you re-do what’s been done before, even if it was a hit, that you’ll have something popular on your hands. Bionic Woman, anyone?

Still, the network that brought us Bionic Woman last season, and is already planning to add a new version of Knight Rider to its schedule, now is actually looking for new ideas in a bag of old ideas. Awesome! Who’s taking bets now, what will come to NBC next ? The A-Team ? Airwolf ? Starsky & Hutch ?

According to Silverman, this new Robinson Crusoe will be an “adrenaline-charged version” of the 1719 novel, it will still be set up in the 17th century (when the book is set) yet have a a new take on some topics, like race relations. Silverman described the show as “part MacGyver, part contemporary morality tale about race and personal discovery, part comedy and part Castaway meets Survivor.”

Needless to say, it sounds like a pile of crap. Maybe they should simply do a new version of MacGyver… or not.

Posted in News
Shows: Crusoe