‘Nancy Drew’ TV Series In Development (Again)
If there’s one thing US network tv loves it’s a twist on a classic story. This time its children’s book ‘Nancy Drew’ getting an interesting adaptation which has been put into development by NBC.
For those that don’t know the ‘Nancy Drew’ books, they centred on the teenage amateur detective Nancy and her two best friends, the delicate Bess & tomboy George, as they solved various mysteries around their local area. The books were conceived by ‘Hardy Boys’ creator Edward Stratemeyer, but were written mainly by ghostwriters and put out under the pen name Carolyn Keene.
The new show comes from ‘Doubt’ creators Tony Phelan and Joan Rater, who previously piloted a version of the classic mystery fiction series at CBS. Now at NBC, this interesting take sets Nancy as the hugely successful author of the famous teen detective books, who is thrust into a real-life murder mystery. Not sure what to do, she turns to her two childhood best friends who were her inspiration for the novels that made her a massive success. However, the “friends” have rather an axe to grind with their so-called “bestie” due to her taking liberties with their characterisations, by always casting herself as the heroine, and relegating her friends to sidekicks.
This differs quite a lot from Phelan & Rater’s failed 2016 CBS pilot ‘Drew’, which had Nancy as a grow NYPD detective, somewhat stripping it of anything unique, and turning it into a standard police procedural. What I rather like about this version is it keeps the amateur detective element and has the nice twist of Nancy being somewhat of a fame whore, and not nearly as brilliant as the books would have had you believe. They’re looking at women ages 40-50 for the lead roles, as the, now grown, trio of childhood friends who have to get past their “bad blood” and come together to solve the mystery.
‘Nancy Drew’ is still only in development at NBC, but we’ll let you know when we hear more.
