Deadline reports that The CW has put in development a reboot of Louisa May Alcott’s classic coming-of-age novel, Little Women. This drama is described as “a hyper-stylized, gritty adaptation” of the novel, which was published in 1868. In the new series, “disparate half-sisters Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy band together in order to survive the dystopic streets of Philadelphia and unravel a conspiracy that stretches far beyond anything they have ever imagined -– all while trying not to kill each other in the process.” Herein, some thoughts for The CW to consider as it moves forward in this possibly ill-advised creative endeavor.
• This sounds like a project so radically removed from its source material that, upon first (and second, third, and fourth) glance(s), it is not clear why this show has been framed as a version of Little Women at all. Why not just make a new show with this exact same premise, and call it something else?
• Yes, obviously, name recognition is useful and stories such as this are proof that latching onto a beloved, known entity is a way to grab eyeballs in this vicious world. Even if you are going to keep only the name and abandon everything else that made the original story wonderful in the first place. We can call this the Teen Wolf tactic.
• You know what they could call this not-so-new drama is Pretty Little Women, as this reads as a blatant, desperate attempt to siphon off viewers from the ABC Family smash Pretty Little Liars, in which four teenage girls band together to survive the streets of a fictional Philadelphia suburb and unravel a conspiracy that stretches far beyond anything they have ever imagined -– all while trying not to kill each other in the process.
• May we suggest looking to the past instead of the future and setting this “gritty adaptation” in the actually gritty Philadelphia of the 1970s? Though this may sound chronologically impossible, future dystopias are so over.
• Did you all know that WordPress doesn’t think “dystopia” is a word? Spellcheck only suggests “utopia” as a correction.
• …No, seriously. Think about it.
• The upside to this announcement is that The CW is investing in a show built around four female protagonists who are defined by their platonic relationships to each other, not their romantic entanglements with men. And due to the fact that the March sisters are apparently now “half-sisters,” maybe at least one of these girls won’t be white.
• What kind of dystopia are we talking about, here? Are we in a state of post-war poverty? Has this coastal city been ravaged by climate change? Is this a constant surveillance thing? The City of Big Brotherly Love?
• Alcott refused to have Jo marry Laurie because, as she wrote in her journal, “Girls write to ask who the little women marry, as if that was the only aim and end of a woman’s life. I won’t marry Jo to Laurie to please anyone.” This would be fine, except Jo doesn’t ditch Laurie to lead the life of an adventurous author-about-town; she marries that weird, old German dude who trashes her writing and is so unworthy of her it’s honestly insulting that he even graces the pages of this otherwise lovely tale. While ThinkProgress would ordinarily advise against meddling with the source material, feel free to right a centuries-old wrong here and either let Jo and Laurie get hitched or leave Jo and her independent, unwinnable writer-heart be.
• Mr. March is functionally useless and, as others have noted, seems like he’s dead for most of the book anyway. In the interest of banning all men, feel free to cut him from the story.
• I could also take or leave Amy, if we’re being ruthless here.
• You can still walk this back, CW. You can change your mind.
• You really don’t have to remake everything.