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Thursday, November 7, 2013

If I Were a Television Producer

This is something like playing if I were king for a day, and making proclamations about what you would do to make things better. In this instance, I'm going to pretend I am a TV producer who has been given a pot of money and lots of artistic freedom to develop TV programs I believe the viewing audiences would appreciate watching as much as I would. Since I like to read, I'd start looking at acquiring the film rights to crime fiction authors I admire and enjoy reading. Michael Connelly comes to mind. But I believe I read where Amazon has already grabbed him to make a TV series. Now that was a smart business move. Walter Mosley is another one. Why didn't more Easy Rawlins movies get made? Well, let's make him into a TV series instead. Speaking of cop shows, the other night I saw The Streets of San Francisco (starring Michael Douglas and Karl Malden) and Cannon (starring William Conrad) on a retro TV channel. It was pretty cool. I ended up liking Cannon more than I did the SF show. But maybe it is because I'm more partial to the private eye premise. Anyway, let's hope some good TV cop programs will be coming out soon.

2 comments:

  1. I grew up a fan of Cannon, Mannix, the original Kojak and Adam-12.

    I remember the 3 year series Spenser For Hire starring Robert Urich, based on Robert B. Parker's well known character. I always felt that Urich was a little too nice as the lead. Sandford's Lucas Davenport also appeared on television a couple of times. I've only seen the Mark Harmon version, and found it not much more than o.k. PBS could probably do a pretty good job with Donna Leon's Commisario Guido Brunetti.

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    1. Hi Gregg, I saw a rerun with Urich in it, and he just looks too clean-cut to me. I expect Spenser to be a craggy-faced type. I was a big Kojak fan, too. PBS could do Donna Leon's Brunetti well as they do the more exotic kind of crime shows. Thanks for the comments. I enjoyed them.

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