Fan Rant: Heathers, the TV Show

Forget about a Heathers remake. That's not in the works, but a television show is. Variety reports that Fox is developing the classic cult film into a new TV series. Mark Rizzo is adapting the story with the help of Sex and the City's Jenny Bicks.

As well all know (or should!) Heathers focuses on Veronica Sawyer, a smart girl who gave up normal life for popularity with a group of Heathers. When the sexy, Jack Nicholson-esque Jason Dean enrolls in the school, she falls for his charm, and briefly, his rather harsh way of dealing with the unjust aspects of high school politics. In other words, a series of murders covered up as suicides.

While I've been known to be quite ... apprehensive ... of plans to re-enter the world, whether it be with a sequel or an on-stage musical, the idea itself is neat. Veronica's frantic diary entries would make a great weekly organizer for the serial killing antics, and television could do with more smart black comedy. That being said, there's the big issue of how you keep killing off popular jerks without either getting caught or running out of victims. And within our real world -- how students killing other students on a weekly basis will play out socially. Buffy fans surely remember the problem not only with the Earshot episode and real-life shootings, but also with the Season 3 finale -- even though it was about students fighting a monster gearing up to eat them, rather than a fellow student or innocent.

Now, time for the hate. Heathers is worth more than a case of jumping on the bandwagon. As the news post states, Lakeshore Entertainment (rights holder) had been playing with the possibility of remaking the film, but then decided "TV seemed like a fresh and original idea." Original? Fresh? I don't even have cable and I know how false that statement is. Remaking old shows and films is the hot new thing. We have three (or are there more?) films becoming series this year alone -- Parenthood, Witches of Eastwick, and Ten Things I Hate About You.

The cult classic deserves more than jumping on the bandwagon. When projects get revisited to make the most of a new trend, it's not for the right reasons and most often means a diluting, if not an all-out lobotomy, of the charm that made the original work classic in the first place.

And if all of the above issues can, or do, get resolved, I still shudder to imagine a bunch of 90210-ish waifs struggling to be as cool as Winona Ryder, Christian Slater, Kim Walker, Lisanne Falk, and Shannon Doherty.