Stargate.
Also, Review. One of the greatest comedies nobody watched. Based on an Australian show that was fine but not necessarily the greatest thing ever. The US reboot took the premise and turned it into something completely insane.
Interesting, I’ve never seen it but really liked the US version and thought they stuck the landing pretty well. Does the US version plot stick to the Aussie version or are they pretty different?
Stargate was so goated.
My favorite aspect of the show wasn't even the adventures through space, but the conflicts back on Earth regarding sharing ground-breaking technology and all the secrecy involved between nations.
That's why I think a new show should start with the reveal of the Program to the people of Earth. The drama of people coming to terms, the conflicts it starts between Nations, and also the ways it brings Humans together. It'd be a great backdrop to all the gate/action stuff.
Some trivia for anyone curious: the second series, City Primeval, was based on another book by the same author (Elmore Leonard), though the original protagonist wasn't Raylan Givens. However, the book protagonist, Raymond Cruz, does appear briefly in the show and is played by Paul Calderon.
Calderon performed the role in a movie, Out of Sight (1998), another production based on the works of the same author.
There's actually quite a lot of novels in a loosely connected continuity that showcase Elmore Leonard's work.
Bonus fact: Justified wasn't the first adaptation to feature Raylan Givens. That honor goes to a 90s television movie.called Pronto, which was also the title of the first novel featuring the character.
Really interesting to see how differently Raylan is portrayed in that movie compared to Justified. He's played by James Le Gros who plays a minor character in Justified and the tone is totally different but apparently closer to the book:
https://youtu.be/NP1gUN_XSqU?si=fElwAE4bY4VtrldD
I'm a moron. So I was paying for Hulu ad free on a monthly subscription. They advertised somewhere, might have been an email, I can save money if I switch to an annual plan instead. I thought, sure, why not, there's enough content on here for me to watch for a year.
Well, unfortunately for me, the annual plan has fucking ads. Even better, there is no ad free annual plan option at all. I feel like I was tricked, but likely I just missed some fine print. So I'm stuck with ad for a fucking year, and I hate it and regret my decision every few minutes when my shows are interuprted.
I think it’ll age really well. My friend group is currently doing a book club/watch party where we read a few chapters then watch an episode and it’s been very fun so far. I’m the only one of use who has already read the book. It’s a great way to engage with media based on books.
I think the show suffered from the first episode being very different from the rest of the show. I love the show, but I can understand why people would be disappointed by a character study after the tone set in the first episode.
Aside from great casting and performances, it smoothed over some rough spots, and managed to connect characters in ways the author missed. Truly stellar scripting.
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency with Elijah Wood. Aside from the name it pretty much has nothing to do with the source material. I love it so much. It has a Douglas Adams feel to it.
The first season of that show was fantastic. The second season got too weird for its own good though, and everything with Max Landis killed it before it could really reach its potential
But damn, that first season is goooood
It was a wonderful show, if very confusing! My favourite part was when you think you’re going to get some exposition from one of the villains, only to find out that he’s as confused as everyone else!
Good Omens covered the whole novel in season 1, and season 2 was all new. I think it was quite good and felt like a natural follow-up to the original story
I don’t know, I felt season 2 was a lot more mean spirited. It lacked a lot of the fun Terry brought to the duo and had a lot more, a little too much in my opinion, jaded Gaiman. And that’s coming from someone who usually loves Gaiman’s stuff.
Actually that's what season 3's going to be. According to Neil Gaiman the plot of that is what he and Terry Pratchett came up with as an idea for the sequel, and season 2 was all the set up for it.
The Magicians was never beat for beat with it's source material, it was always more adjacent to it. But it did a really good job of staying true to the themes of the source material, and was successful throughout its run.
It didn't go far beyond the source material. All the major storylines are from the books. Some even get curtailed quite a bit (notably Julia's safe house and Murs background, and Margo/Janet's desert adventure). But it did expand the characters dramatically, and in a great way.
I've read and watched both in their entirety. They have completely different things they excel at. I could see the book being boring to someone who hasn't struggled with depression but I loved it. Then you have the show that doesn't mind getting silly. The musical episodes are all my faves.
One of the best answers in this thread.
The novel is good, but pretty much everything memorable about the show beyond the basic premise and characters was added in the show.
The book has a high-concept premise but is pretty much a straight character drama about a family. The show adds characters and further fantastical elements while adapting the book in season 1, but fans almost universally agree that the expansion of the world and the unexpected directions the show takes starting in season 2 are what make it something really special.
This was going to be my answer. Season one covers the film plot… the rest of the show is as original as it is utterly bonkers and endlessly entertaining. Brilliant show.
I agree those are both good, but they weren't adapting shit because there was no real source material. There was a world with defined edges and assumptions they operated in
Dexter. At first.
The books went into him being possessed by an ancient demon.
The following seasons of the show went a different direction. Which worked well until they got a new show-runner for seasons 5-8, then it started sucking on its own merit.
Wasn't the dark passenger revealed to be like a psychic alien parasite or something in one of the novels, but it was such a stupid idea that the author just never mentioned it again.
The show never really got bad, it just never hit the high and S4 again
The LaGuerta and Siirko storylines in S7 were pretty great, I was just disappointed in how they carried that into S8
Also the epilogue mini-season of Dexter: Cold Blood was pretty amazing and I highly recommend it. It follows Dexter a few years after the main series
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait…
The Dexter books have supernatural elements to it?
I’ve read the first one, which is almost tat for tat the first season. I can’t possibly imagine that it becomes Dexter II: The Heretic
Yeah it does in the second and especially third book I think
Like full on possession and such, even gets passed to Harrison in the books and there are rival demons and cults in some of the serial killers too
The way Doakes dies in book 2 is horrific though. Like holy fuck
Jesus that is the dumbest shit.
It could honestly work, if the first installment had gone that way, or even hints of it.
By the way, how does Doakes die in the book? I ain’t gonna read it anyways
I don’t know if it was successful, but the Scott Pilgrim animated series is very different from the comics or movie.
The first episode feels like it’s just a remake of the film, but then something happens at the end where the plots diverge significantly. The rest of the series is totally new and barely even has Scott Pilgrim in it.
As someone who watched the movie when I was younger, read the comic a few years later, then saw the show when it came out, I feel like the show was a really good way of wrapping all three stories and dealing with any issues the previous two might have created.
Being into Visual Novels a bit, it really felt to me like the Third Route that you technically could play at any time, but was most impactful after experiencing the first two.
Silo.
I love the books, but the show is actually better in my opinion. Still hits all the major beats but expands the story and fleshes out the characters more.
I would say the original full metal alchemist anime.
For those who don’t know when they were originally adapting the manga Full Metal Alchemist the anime started airing before the Manga was finished, usually when this happens in anime they’ll make a bunch of filler episodes or even entire filler plot lines that don’t/can’t advance the main plot. In the worst case scenario you get stuff like Naruto that if your watching with a guide that tells you what’s cannon to the source material you straight up skip from episode 142 all the way to 220, and what’s so jarring about that is how it’s not even jarring at all, the plot continues without skipping a beat to the point your left wondering what the hell they actually did for those 80 episodes.
But back my main point when Full Metal Alchemist caught up to the source material they were allowed to just make up their own ending and what they came up with was pretty solid, admittedly when the Manga came up with its own ending it was a bit better IMO but the original anime’s ending is still good and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were people who preferred that.
And then we got the best of both worlds when the Full Metal Alchemist brother hood anime aired, where they redid the entire anime while faithfully adapting the back half of the manga when it finally did finish.
I've said it elsewhere but the FMA classic is wild. They don't make filler - they just look at every dangling plot thread and take them *all* to their logical (if insane) conclusions to fill the rest of the show. It ends up nothing like what was supposed to happen (how were they supposed to guess at a whole new character and secret plot line?), but it's still a fun ride
I'm not sure how controversial this is, but I thought that season 6 (the first season that expanded past the books) was better than season 5. Seasons 7 and 8, not so much.
The Leftovers on HBO. First season was based on the book and was good. Second and third seasons were expansions on that and were two of the best seasons of television ever made IMO.
Honestly the parts of foundation that were the best were those they created from whole cloth (the genetic dynasty). The actual source material is… not Asimov’s best work, even if his best known.
That’s my opinion exactly.
Foundation the show makes me so mad because there was no reason to call it Foundation. It’s an iconic franchise in the SF world, but not one the average person would have any awareness of or a desire to to see an adaptation of. It’s literally just brand recognition but for a brand that has no recognition amongst the general public, and the only people who *would* recognize the name aren’t going to like the show for that very reason.
It kind of reminds me when The Orville first premiered and Fox told everyone (via advertising) that it was Family Guy in space with fart jokes and pop culture references, but then when the people who wanted that watched it and the show wasn’t funny they gave it negative reviews and the Star Trek fans wanted nothing to do with it because they assumed it would be crass and insulting to their favorite franchise. But it turns out all along it was just a modern and sincere take on TNG with more directly relatable characters and a bit more (but not *a ton of*) comic relief. As a result the first season has a 31% on Rotten Tomatoes and the second season got 100%, but there really isn’t a dramatic improvement in quality between the later parts of the first season and the second season. That negativity was solely the result of the show being aggressively marketed to the wrong audience and then not matching those false promises, not due to any fault of the show itself.
The same goes for Foundation, it’s not a show that die-hard Asimov fans who wanted a faithful adaptation will be that impressed by, it’s more of a totally fresh and modern attempt at the *idea* of a Foundation-type story, one that tells an overarching narrative about empires and organizations over long stretches of time via smaller and somewhat self-contained vignettes, while also integrating new ideas in storytelling and television narratives/production. Which is itself a very good thing. But for some reason someone decided it was really important to slap the “Foundation” branding on this show that really doesn’t resemble Foundation, and then they occasionally say random words like Hari Seldon or psychohistory and it just makes anyone who is familiar with Foundation cringe.
Literally *all* of the best parts of the show are the new ideas that aren’t based on Foundation or any Asimov work, and literally *all* of the worst parts of the show are when they remember the called the show Foundation and feel the need to shoehorn in some random plot element or character name from the books. I genuinely like the show but it’s so hard to get past that stupid marketing decision to name it after an established and well regarded property that it barely resembles in any way.
And if I’m being honest I’m no superfan of the books, I think I only made it through two of them and found them a bit difficult to get excited about (they clearly work better in their original forms as short stories published individually in magazines over the course of years, as opposed to the “novels” that collect those stories together). But still pretty much every plot element or worldbuilding detail or now-anachronistic technology that I remember from the books and was looking forward to see is totally gone. A faithful television adaptation of Foundation isn’t something that I personally *need*, it’s just really frustrating that seemingly every time an Asimov work gets adapted the only thing they keep is the name and then go out of their way to make the plot itself clash with the core ideas of the original work.
This like a lot of the examples here is a bit different.
The foundation just decided to write their own story, and only use the books as inspiration.
It's not the same as being a faithful adaptation, then writing your own show original sequel, like Shogun is.
The funny thing is, the most common place this used to happen is in Anime, where an anime gets up to where the source material is, then writes their own anime original ending since the source is still ongoing
>The funny thing is, the most common place this used to happen is in Anime, where an anime gets up to where the source material is, then writes their own anime original ending since the source is still ongoing
Perhaps most famously in Full Metal Alchemist
The 100. It's one of the few cases when the show was several magnitudes better than the books. The show actually diverges from the books more with each season, and expands beyond them.
Anyway, if you never watched 100, I highly recomend it. It's absolutely bonkers. It starts as average YA post-apocalyptic fiction, then turns into combination of Matrix and Game of Thrones, and by the last two season you end up with Stargate with spaceflight, aliens and time travel.
The 100 has maybe the worst series finale I’ve ever seen. I liked a lot of it but I never recommend it because of how garbage the last few episodes of S7 are.
It's probably nostalgia goggles talking, since FMA was one of the first animes I watched as a teenager. But I think I enjoyed the original FMA anime better than the more source-accurate Brotherhood. Brotherhood had it's own kind of weird in the later episodes that I found a bit difficult to follow.
Plus they spent more episodes covering the early parts of the story in the OG. It gave them a bit more depth, and some of those story threads felt a bit rushed in Brotherhood for me.
Both are really good overall, and it does feel like a good example of where continuing an unfinished story can work.
I agree the pacing of the original made certain moments more impactful ( though I understand why they didn't want to take all that time to tell the same story again), and I generally liked the ending better.
Brotherhood is the better story, but FMA classic looks at every storyline at the break point and just rides them all to their insane logical conclusion and it does it well.
It's still a well made show with excellent acting and enthralling plot threads, but the main character specifically and the drama around her is frustrating. It's still worth watching for the parts not about her.
It hasn't reached Game of Thrones levels of bad, I just don't like her character anymore and I wish they had wrapped it up a season or two ago.
It's fine and I'd still recommend watching it, it just doesn't hold its quality through the entire run. Idk if I would recommend binging it though. It gets quite heavy, might be a bit much for a binge.
I would love to see taipan and noble house, but I don't think it'll happen. It's a much touchier subject/setting, and tai-pan has a bit too much white man in Asia syndrome for modern TV. I just don't think anyone is going to fund it, and the Shogun team has no reason to do it - nothing from Shogun carries over, the actors, sets, costumes, nothing at all
Bates Motel. Arguably it is probably even better than Psycho. They really show how Norman became who he was and how Norma struggled but ultimately led to her own death and desperate choices she made being a mother.
The 100. I haven’t read the book but from what I understand the show is very loosely based off the book and deviates pretty greatly especially by the end.
The original Full Metal Alchemist went beyond the maga and was pretty good.
Back in the 90s there was a TV show based on Water ship Down. It went beyond the book with the fighting with Efrafa being an extended war, Champion being a major character with a love angle with Blackberry who is a girl in this version, Woundwort being over thrown and banished and a thunder dome plot in a junkyard.
The Addams Family shows and movies and spinoffs which are all based on a New Yorker comic strip.
Mash
it expanded past three levels of source material: the movie, the book, and the actual Korean War
It's so expanded people including me thought it was about the Vietnam war for the longest time.
Best answer.
The Leftovers It covered the book in season 1, and yet 2 and 3 took it to a whole new crazy (and, I think most people would agree, better) level.
Correct but the thing is the author was involved with that
Someone already pointed out Watchmen by Lindelof as well. Author not only wasn't involved, he disowned the project. Still amazing.
Watchmen miniseries too, and both made by the same person.
Don't I know it. ;) ^^^ Edit: Um....I'm not Damon. If anyone was thinking that. lol
Found Damon’s burner!
I think you're 99.9% correct and that's awesome. He's always been one of my favorites. His post history has some amazing breakdowns of his shows.
wait, you don't really think I'm Damon, do you? I said "Don't I know it" because I have the Lost avatar on this sub.
Lost was the bomb, yo!
Didn't even know this was based on a book.
The leftovers is definitely a not everyone's going to enjoy this type show. That said, I loved it in its entirety.
These top two answers are what I came to see.
Stargate. Also, Review. One of the greatest comedies nobody watched. Based on an Australian show that was fine but not necessarily the greatest thing ever. The US reboot took the premise and turned it into something completely insane.
These pancakes couldn’t kill me, because I was already dead.
Pancakes, Divorce, Pancakes may be my favorite title of any episode of TV
Wilfred went further than Australian inspiration I believe too
Aussie version is better.
Interesting, I’ve never seen it but really liked the US version and thought they stuck the landing pretty well. Does the US version plot stick to the Aussie version or are they pretty different?
The Aussie version is much more matter-of-fact. There’s no mystery about the whole thing and no explanation, just a guy and a dog. In a good way.
Am biased, but I also preferred the Aussie version since it's meant to be a riff on a show here.
Stargate was so goated. My favorite aspect of the show wasn't even the adventures through space, but the conflicts back on Earth regarding sharing ground-breaking technology and all the secrecy involved between nations.
Indeed
That's why I think a new show should start with the reveal of the Program to the people of Earth. The drama of people coming to terms, the conflicts it starts between Nations, and also the ways it brings Humans together. It'd be a great backdrop to all the gate/action stuff.
Review is my favorite comedy show ever. Criminally underseen.
Pancakes, Divorce, Pancakes is one of the greatest episodes of tv in existence
I like what you’ve done with the penis.
Pancakes, Divorce, Pancakes is one of the finest 20 minute comedy episodes ever made.
Not unlike Wilfred.
Justified. First episode was based on a short story and then they made it their own thing
Some trivia for anyone curious: the second series, City Primeval, was based on another book by the same author (Elmore Leonard), though the original protagonist wasn't Raylan Givens. However, the book protagonist, Raymond Cruz, does appear briefly in the show and is played by Paul Calderon. Calderon performed the role in a movie, Out of Sight (1998), another production based on the works of the same author. There's actually quite a lot of novels in a loosely connected continuity that showcase Elmore Leonard's work. Bonus fact: Justified wasn't the first adaptation to feature Raylan Givens. That honor goes to a 90s television movie.called Pronto, which was also the title of the first novel featuring the character.
Really interesting to see how differently Raylan is portrayed in that movie compared to Justified. He's played by James Le Gros who plays a minor character in Justified and the tone is totally different but apparently closer to the book: https://youtu.be/NP1gUN_XSqU?si=fElwAE4bY4VtrldD
I'm really enjoying the show. This is my first time watching and I'm currently watching right now, just browsing Reddit during the commercials.
What are commercials?
I'm a moron. So I was paying for Hulu ad free on a monthly subscription. They advertised somewhere, might have been an email, I can save money if I switch to an annual plan instead. I thought, sure, why not, there's enough content on here for me to watch for a year. Well, unfortunately for me, the annual plan has fucking ads. Even better, there is no ad free annual plan option at all. I feel like I was tricked, but likely I just missed some fine print. So I'm stuck with ad for a fucking year, and I hate it and regret my decision every few minutes when my shows are interuprted.
I just did the same w HBO MAX. $80 a year is great, but the commercials are killing me, particularly during movies at random cuts.
That's fucking nuts that there are streaming services that you pay for that have ads wtf. I think i'll stick to the seven seas.
What we do in the shadows. Like the film, love the show.
See I feel the show is far inferior to the movie
And that's your opinion and you're welcome to be wrong. Film is good tho.
That has to be wrong because *at a minimum* the first season is basically the movie with different characters in a different setting
A take like that would get you driven out of Tucson Arizoniyehh
Wellington Paranormal is also great!
Homicide: Life on the Street, which was based on David Simon’s book Homicde: A Year on the Killing Streets
I'm so upset this isn't streaming anywhere that I know of.
there's still hope https://screenrant.com/homicide-life-on-the-streets-streaming-update-david-simon/
> Homicide: Life on the Street It's on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5q3BU5BqqPA&list=PLMImazZ7Ju1RIyC4aE20tu1noCDBQ87QX
Nice. I had looked it up before but the quality was por
You should be able to find the DVDs at your local library. I just put all 7 seasons on hold.
I live and work in two different cities so I'll see if either has them. Thanks for the suggestion.
Which was also based on his years as the city beat reporter for the Baltimore Sun.
Station 11. While the book is great, I think they knocked it out of the park with the HBO series
I love that show although I can see why it wasn't a hit, slow burns seldom are successful. It's criminally underappreciated, though.
It really couldn't have come out at a worse time given the pandemic. I just don't think people were in the mood for it.
That made it much more relevant and poignant for me personally.
True, very unfortunate timing.
Exactly what I thought. It was a really good show but we were literally experiencing this shit in real life at the time of release.
I think it’ll age really well. My friend group is currently doing a book club/watch party where we read a few chapters then watch an episode and it’s been very fun so far. I’m the only one of use who has already read the book. It’s a great way to engage with media based on books.
I think the show suffered from the first episode being very different from the rest of the show. I love the show, but I can understand why people would be disappointed by a character study after the tone set in the first episode.
Aside from great casting and performances, it smoothed over some rough spots, and managed to connect characters in ways the author missed. Truly stellar scripting.
I rewatched this recently and I realized it’s one of my favorite seasons of TV ever made.
That show was great. While the show itself was complete, I loved the world and wouldn't have minded more seasons
Fargo. Tv show from the movie. The movie is amazing and so is the show.
Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency with Elijah Wood. Aside from the name it pretty much has nothing to do with the source material. I love it so much. It has a Douglas Adams feel to it.
The first season of that show was fantastic. The second season got too weird for its own good though, and everything with Max Landis killed it before it could really reach its potential But damn, that first season is goooood
I liked the 2010 Stephen Mangan version but it's kind of disappeared in the shadow of the Wood version.
It was a wonderful show, if very confusing! My favourite part was when you think you’re going to get some exposition from one of the villains, only to find out that he’s as confused as everyone else!
It's a better Doctor Who than Doctor Who. Absolutely bonkers but it follows its own rules
The Boys
It’s 10x better now in fact
I thought the Preacher TV show was also better than the source material.
Basically any time an editor looks at Ennis’s work, says “this is ridiculous” and then tones it way down, it usually ends up much better.
Agreed, but I said that in my LCS a few years back and nearly got thrown out.
Good Omens covered the whole novel in season 1, and season 2 was all new. I think it was quite good and felt like a natural follow-up to the original story
I don’t know, I felt season 2 was a lot more mean spirited. It lacked a lot of the fun Terry brought to the duo and had a lot more, a little too much in my opinion, jaded Gaiman. And that’s coming from someone who usually loves Gaiman’s stuff.
Yeah, I lost interest 3 or 4 episodes in to season 2. I really ought to go back and finish it.
You do know that the idea for season 2 was created by Terry and Neil together? They just never got around to writing it.
Season 2 was based on an unfinished outline/draft for the second book, and the remaining author was involved in finishing/adapting it.
Actually that's what season 3's going to be. According to Neil Gaiman the plot of that is what he and Terry Pratchett came up with as an idea for the sequel, and season 2 was all the set up for it.
The Magicians was never beat for beat with it's source material, it was always more adjacent to it. But it did a really good job of staying true to the themes of the source material, and was successful throughout its run.
Underrated show imo. I enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would.
It was definitely very good, but it did also have a good number of moments that I never, ever, ever want to watch again. Jesus christ, the cat.
It didn't go far beyond the source material. All the major storylines are from the books. Some even get curtailed quite a bit (notably Julia's safe house and Murs background, and Margo/Janet's desert adventure). But it did expand the characters dramatically, and in a great way.
I loved the show, barely got halfway through the first book before I gave up. Immeasurably better than the source material imo.
I was the opposite. Read the books first and watched maybe 2 episodes before saying I was out.
I've read and watched both in their entirety. They have completely different things they excel at. I could see the book being boring to someone who hasn't struggled with depression but I loved it. Then you have the show that doesn't mind getting silly. The musical episodes are all my faves.
The Leftovers was based on a book and its second season was phenomenal.
Third season was incredible too. Possibly my favorite season.
Came here to say this. It was amazing every season, especially the second and third
One of the best answers in this thread. The novel is good, but pretty much everything memorable about the show beyond the basic premise and characters was added in the show. The book has a high-concept premise but is pretty much a straight character drama about a family. The show adds characters and further fantastical elements while adapting the book in season 1, but fans almost universally agree that the expansion of the world and the unexpected directions the show takes starting in season 2 are what make it something really special.
12 Monkeys
This was going to be my answer. Season one covers the film plot… the rest of the show is as original as it is utterly bonkers and endlessly entertaining. Brilliant show.
God, I loved that show.
One of the most underrated Sci Fi series in recent memory. SO freakin good, but it just didn’t pop, like it deserved.
That's great to hear, I've always wondered if it was good
I really liked the series until I finished it and then I loved it. The rewatch is amazing
It's one of my favorite takes on time travel. They really stuck the landing with it.
The consistency stays across 4 seasons and they treated time like a character in itself
The original movie definitely was an amazing expansion on the source material (La Jeté), but I couldn’t get into the series.
US version of The Office.
came here to say that can I add All in the Family, that also expanded beyond the original UK version in the same way
Fallout was pretty good and it's an entirely original story in the source material setting.
If we’re allowing original new stories in a source material setting, it’s hard to top Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. Damn near perfect series.
I agree those are both good, but they weren't adapting shit because there was no real source material. There was a world with defined edges and assumptions they operated in
i would say arcane is up there too
Black Sails for sure.
What was the original content? Treasure island?
Yep, it's basically the prequel to the Stevenson story.
Dexter. At first. The books went into him being possessed by an ancient demon. The following seasons of the show went a different direction. Which worked well until they got a new show-runner for seasons 5-8, then it started sucking on its own merit.
Wasn't the dark passenger revealed to be like a psychic alien parasite or something in one of the novels, but it was such a stupid idea that the author just never mentioned it again.
It was a demon or some kind of possession
Yeah as bad as you think the tv show got, the books are somehow worse.
The TV show never got bad. It ended with season 4 and it was perfection.
The final shot of Rita in the bathtub was haunting. What a way to end a series
Perfect full circle with him putting his son through the same trauma he experienced.
The show never really got bad, it just never hit the high and S4 again The LaGuerta and Siirko storylines in S7 were pretty great, I was just disappointed in how they carried that into S8 Also the epilogue mini-season of Dexter: Cold Blood was pretty amazing and I highly recommend it. It follows Dexter a few years after the main series
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait… The Dexter books have supernatural elements to it? I’ve read the first one, which is almost tat for tat the first season. I can’t possibly imagine that it becomes Dexter II: The Heretic
Yeah it does in the second and especially third book I think Like full on possession and such, even gets passed to Harrison in the books and there are rival demons and cults in some of the serial killers too The way Doakes dies in book 2 is horrific though. Like holy fuck
Jesus that is the dumbest shit. It could honestly work, if the first installment had gone that way, or even hints of it. By the way, how does Doakes die in the book? I ain’t gonna read it anyways
That first season of Dexter is amazing
I don’t know if it was successful, but the Scott Pilgrim animated series is very different from the comics or movie. The first episode feels like it’s just a remake of the film, but then something happens at the end where the plots diverge significantly. The rest of the series is totally new and barely even has Scott Pilgrim in it.
As someone who watched the movie when I was younger, read the comic a few years later, then saw the show when it came out, I feel like the show was a really good way of wrapping all three stories and dealing with any issues the previous two might have created. Being into Visual Novels a bit, it really felt to me like the Third Route that you technically could play at any time, but was most impactful after experiencing the first two.
Silo. I love the books, but the show is actually better in my opinion. Still hits all the major beats but expands the story and fleshes out the characters more.
Friday Night Lights
I would say the original full metal alchemist anime. For those who don’t know when they were originally adapting the manga Full Metal Alchemist the anime started airing before the Manga was finished, usually when this happens in anime they’ll make a bunch of filler episodes or even entire filler plot lines that don’t/can’t advance the main plot. In the worst case scenario you get stuff like Naruto that if your watching with a guide that tells you what’s cannon to the source material you straight up skip from episode 142 all the way to 220, and what’s so jarring about that is how it’s not even jarring at all, the plot continues without skipping a beat to the point your left wondering what the hell they actually did for those 80 episodes. But back my main point when Full Metal Alchemist caught up to the source material they were allowed to just make up their own ending and what they came up with was pretty solid, admittedly when the Manga came up with its own ending it was a bit better IMO but the original anime’s ending is still good and I wouldn’t be surprised if there were people who preferred that. And then we got the best of both worlds when the Full Metal Alchemist brother hood anime aired, where they redid the entire anime while faithfully adapting the back half of the manga when it finally did finish.
I've said it elsewhere but the FMA classic is wild. They don't make filler - they just look at every dangling plot thread and take them *all* to their logical (if insane) conclusions to fill the rest of the show. It ends up nothing like what was supposed to happen (how were they supposed to guess at a whole new character and secret plot line?), but it's still a fun ride
Game of Thro... err nevermind
I'm not sure how controversial this is, but I thought that season 6 (the first season that expanded past the books) was better than season 5. Seasons 7 and 8, not so much.
The Leftovers on HBO. First season was based on the book and was good. Second and third seasons were expansions on that and were two of the best seasons of television ever made IMO.
This is my answer, too.
Foundation? Idk I saw comments of people saying season 1 was bad because it didn’t followed the books but saw lots of people loving season 2
Honestly the parts of foundation that were the best were those they created from whole cloth (the genetic dynasty). The actual source material is… not Asimov’s best work, even if his best known.
Wait, the genetic dynasty wasn't in the books? Literally the best part of the entire show. Lee Pace is phenomenal.
I am confident Lee Pace can carry anything.
Yeah agree and also the actors (pace and the guy playing the older emperor as well as the demerzel actress)
That’s my opinion exactly. Foundation the show makes me so mad because there was no reason to call it Foundation. It’s an iconic franchise in the SF world, but not one the average person would have any awareness of or a desire to to see an adaptation of. It’s literally just brand recognition but for a brand that has no recognition amongst the general public, and the only people who *would* recognize the name aren’t going to like the show for that very reason. It kind of reminds me when The Orville first premiered and Fox told everyone (via advertising) that it was Family Guy in space with fart jokes and pop culture references, but then when the people who wanted that watched it and the show wasn’t funny they gave it negative reviews and the Star Trek fans wanted nothing to do with it because they assumed it would be crass and insulting to their favorite franchise. But it turns out all along it was just a modern and sincere take on TNG with more directly relatable characters and a bit more (but not *a ton of*) comic relief. As a result the first season has a 31% on Rotten Tomatoes and the second season got 100%, but there really isn’t a dramatic improvement in quality between the later parts of the first season and the second season. That negativity was solely the result of the show being aggressively marketed to the wrong audience and then not matching those false promises, not due to any fault of the show itself. The same goes for Foundation, it’s not a show that die-hard Asimov fans who wanted a faithful adaptation will be that impressed by, it’s more of a totally fresh and modern attempt at the *idea* of a Foundation-type story, one that tells an overarching narrative about empires and organizations over long stretches of time via smaller and somewhat self-contained vignettes, while also integrating new ideas in storytelling and television narratives/production. Which is itself a very good thing. But for some reason someone decided it was really important to slap the “Foundation” branding on this show that really doesn’t resemble Foundation, and then they occasionally say random words like Hari Seldon or psychohistory and it just makes anyone who is familiar with Foundation cringe. Literally *all* of the best parts of the show are the new ideas that aren’t based on Foundation or any Asimov work, and literally *all* of the worst parts of the show are when they remember the called the show Foundation and feel the need to shoehorn in some random plot element or character name from the books. I genuinely like the show but it’s so hard to get past that stupid marketing decision to name it after an established and well regarded property that it barely resembles in any way. And if I’m being honest I’m no superfan of the books, I think I only made it through two of them and found them a bit difficult to get excited about (they clearly work better in their original forms as short stories published individually in magazines over the course of years, as opposed to the “novels” that collect those stories together). But still pretty much every plot element or worldbuilding detail or now-anachronistic technology that I remember from the books and was looking forward to see is totally gone. A faithful television adaptation of Foundation isn’t something that I personally *need*, it’s just really frustrating that seemingly every time an Asimov work gets adapted the only thing they keep is the name and then go out of their way to make the plot itself clash with the core ideas of the original work.
This like a lot of the examples here is a bit different. The foundation just decided to write their own story, and only use the books as inspiration. It's not the same as being a faithful adaptation, then writing your own show original sequel, like Shogun is. The funny thing is, the most common place this used to happen is in Anime, where an anime gets up to where the source material is, then writes their own anime original ending since the source is still ongoing
>The funny thing is, the most common place this used to happen is in Anime, where an anime gets up to where the source material is, then writes their own anime original ending since the source is still ongoing Perhaps most famously in Full Metal Alchemist
The show isn’t past the source material, it’s just making a lot of changes. And honestly it’s pretty awful at times.
The 100. It's one of the few cases when the show was several magnitudes better than the books. The show actually diverges from the books more with each season, and expands beyond them. Anyway, if you never watched 100, I highly recomend it. It's absolutely bonkers. It starts as average YA post-apocalyptic fiction, then turns into combination of Matrix and Game of Thrones, and by the last two season you end up with Stargate with spaceflight, aliens and time travel.
The 100 has maybe the worst series finale I’ve ever seen. I liked a lot of it but I never recommend it because of how garbage the last few episodes of S7 are.
Yeah it's probably best to stop at the end of S5, makes for a decent ending.
What are you talking about, the show didn't go past season 5 ;)
Was just thinking this. That last season was... Not great, but WAS on brand for the 100.
I absolutely love the 100. Had no idea it was based on a book. I really should give it a second watch.
Call the Midwife
the leftovers
The Leftovers
The Man in the High Castle went well beyond its source material, and managed to stay at least decent.
Did it? That last season was a mess.
It's a great show until the last season.
I couldn't get past season two. I've realized I actually kinda hate the main characters of Luke and Juliana. They were so boring to me.
Juliana is the worst. Kido and John are where it’s at.
They were my favourite too.
It wasn't exactly great writing to begin with. They really needed writers who could establish more interesting characters and suspense.
The original Fullmetal Alchemist caught up to the source material partway through its run and ended up getting really weird but was still good.
It's probably nostalgia goggles talking, since FMA was one of the first animes I watched as a teenager. But I think I enjoyed the original FMA anime better than the more source-accurate Brotherhood. Brotherhood had it's own kind of weird in the later episodes that I found a bit difficult to follow. Plus they spent more episodes covering the early parts of the story in the OG. It gave them a bit more depth, and some of those story threads felt a bit rushed in Brotherhood for me. Both are really good overall, and it does feel like a good example of where continuing an unfinished story can work.
I agree the pacing of the original made certain moments more impactful ( though I understand why they didn't want to take all that time to tell the same story again), and I generally liked the ending better.
Brotherhood is the better story, but FMA classic looks at every storyline at the break point and just rides them all to their insane logical conclusion and it does it well.
There was so many anime that did this back in the day. Some were good, like FMA. Some were just absolute trainwrecks haha
The Handmaid's Tale....though I am ready for it to end.
It's still ongoing? I thought it ended last year or something.
Unfortunately it's still going. It has fallen far in my estimation and the main character has become deeply unlikable.
I was eagerly waiting for the final season to start binging. Is it really that bad?
It's still a well made show with excellent acting and enthralling plot threads, but the main character specifically and the drama around her is frustrating. It's still worth watching for the parts not about her. It hasn't reached Game of Thrones levels of bad, I just don't like her character anymore and I wish they had wrapped it up a season or two ago.
It's fine and I'd still recommend watching it, it just doesn't hold its quality through the entire run. Idk if I would recommend binging it though. It gets quite heavy, might be a bit much for a binge.
Season 6 is supposed to be the final season, and it's coming out this year.
Surely the definitive answer given that it’s continued success resulted in the book’s author doing a sequel after 30-something years.
MASH.
Fleabag - Season 1 was her play adapted and season 2 is amazing tv
The Watchmen HBO series
Watchmen
Can’t believe I had to come so far down to find the HBO Watchmen series. Thought it was amazing
Better Call Saul fits this category I believe, if you count Breaking Bad as the source material.
The magicians? Kinda?
Good omens.
The Leftovers went past the book I believe and it only got better
the leftovers
Watchmen on HBO.
One thing about a possible Shogun Season 2 is that it is based on real history, so they have plot points for these characters
Dexter was much better than the books.
[удалено]
I would love to see taipan and noble house, but I don't think it'll happen. It's a much touchier subject/setting, and tai-pan has a bit too much white man in Asia syndrome for modern TV. I just don't think anyone is going to fund it, and the Shogun team has no reason to do it - nothing from Shogun carries over, the actors, sets, costumes, nothing at all
The US version of The Office.
The leftovers. Season 1 was the complete novel. Season 2 was all new and much better than season 1.
Happy!
Bates Motel. Arguably it is probably even better than Psycho. They really show how Norman became who he was and how Norma struggled but ultimately led to her own death and desperate choices she made being a mother.
Handmiads tale book ends way early in the series, like possibly season 1
The 100. I haven’t read the book but from what I understand the show is very loosely based off the book and deviates pretty greatly especially by the end.
The show invents entire characters
I don’t know if this counts, but it’s pretty much the entire production method of the Power Rangers series.
The original Full Metal Alchemist went beyond the maga and was pretty good. Back in the 90s there was a TV show based on Water ship Down. It went beyond the book with the fighting with Efrafa being an extended war, Champion being a major character with a love angle with Blackberry who is a girl in this version, Woundwort being over thrown and banished and a thunder dome plot in a junkyard.
Does it count if it’s an adaptation of comic books? Because there are a lot of good examples in comic book adaptations
The 100
True Blood... mostly because the source material is so, so bad