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Vampires, werewolves and zombies have already become small screen superstars, so what supernatural creature should be next?
Blogbusters is back! Each week we’ll be asking the SFX bloggers what they think about one of the countless burning issues in genre fiction. TV, films, books, comics, games, roleplaying and podcasting will all be falling under the searing gaze of our bloggers, just like the Eye of Sauron, just much smaller, and with two eyes. And not evil. Well, mostly not evil…
Moving swiftly on, this week’s question is:
With The Walking Dead and True Blood continuing to be huge ratings successes, what other monsters would you like to see starring in their own TV shows?
So let’s go with giant lizards, stomping across cityscapes – everyone loves giant lizards, right?
The Walking Dead has the right idea, dealing with the ongoing situation and the ramifications, so maybe this is what’s needed. A giant robot show with fights, and dealing with the fallout from them. The main giant robot would be really cool, equally loved and hated for saving the world from evil, but his occupational hazard he’s also a bit clumsy and has committed accidental genocide. Instead of going on the run from the government with his human friend’s – which would be cost prohibitive on a TV budget – they get a really good PR company to cover up the events like Claudia Brown from Primeval . As a series it could deal with heavyweight issues like “acceptable losses”, “friendly fire incidents” and what happens after the really big explosions.
So how about a Frankenstein’s monster comeback? Put a modern “gritty” spin on the tale and contemporise the core of the character by adding an Inspector Gadget riff that allows him to dismember body parts and add other ones (including the occasional curveball weaponised limb or two) and a whole “genetics gone mad” morality angle. There’d be a whole load of character development to plough through (is he even possible of free will or humanity when he’s been cobbled together like a Kinder Egg surprise?), and enough of a literary backstory to mine both personal and fantastical plots aplenty.
It’s an idea which science fiction plays with a lot too, thanks to the Invasion Of The Bodysnatchers movies (all of which, by the way, take place in the same universe and timeline and I can prove this using science, possibly an etch-a-sketch and a tremendous amount of narrative tap dancing) and most recently the wonderfully unpleasant shapeshifters on Fringe . Something which subverts the most important part of us all, our sense of self and identity, something that preys on the pack from inside the pack. That’s a terrifying idea and done right, it could make a hell of a TV show.
So there you go, giant robots, Frankenstein’s monster and doppelgangers are what the Bloggers would like to see be the next big thing. Now, to the gentle sound of me trying to work out how to combine those three concepts into one (Frankenbotenganger?) we’ll say goodbye. Join us next week when the Bloggers will be celebrating Halloween by answering this question:
What one piece of horror, book, TV, film or comic, has terrified you more than anything else?
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