Thursday Movie Picks #462: TMP Television Edition - Book Adaptation

Hello there and welcome to Thursday Movie Picks a weekly series where you share your picks each Thursday. The rules are simple: based on the theme of the week pick three to five titles and tell us why you picked them. For further details and the schedule visit the series main page here.

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This week's Thursday Movie Picks is TMP Television Edition - Book Adaptation

 

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These are the last four series I saw and like that were book adaptations.

Mr. Mercedes (2017 - 2019)

Adapted from the Mr Mercedes trilogy by Stephen King about a killer who drives a Mercedes into a crowd and the detective trying to catch him as well as how that incident affects the community. I really like this. Watched the three seasons back to back. The second season is a little weird with more paranormal things going on. King just released a spinoff novel on a character from the trilogy, Holly, so I kinda hope they make a TV series out of it too and bring back the same actress.

 

The Terror (2018 - 2019)

A horror anthology series. The first season is an adaptation off a historical fiction novel based on a real lost Arctic expedition in 1845-1848. I only saw the first season, which I had wanted to watch for some time because I love period dramas set on a ship (Treasure Island, Black Sails, 1899) but had been kinda scared that it was going to be too scary. Glad I finally saw. It's a mix of survival horror and supernatural horror with great atmosphere, it was excellent.

 

The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart (2023)

Limited series about a young woman whose parents died in a tragic fire related incident when she was a girl. Due to the trauma and her youth, she never fully remembered nor understood what actually happened and her grandmother hides aspects of it and their family history from her until it slowly unravels in the present day. I really enjoyed this slow burning family drama full of secrets. The girl's family owns a flower farm, so the flower designs were very beautiful as well as Australia's natural landscapes.

 

Will Trent (2023 - )

Based off Karen Slaughter's Will Trent series of books about a detective who had a tough childhood solving crimes for Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Of the TV series I've listed today, this is the only one that I have read the book, only the first book of the series, which is a spinoff of another book series, Grant County. Karin Slaughter is one of my favourite crime novelists. I've read her Grant County series and a few of her stand alone novels. The thing about her books, including the Will Trent book, is that they are very dark and the crimes are often violent and disturbing. The books spend a lot of time with the police, the victims and the family or community and how physically, emotionally and psychologically devastating a crime affects them for years and years. A more faithful adaptation of the Will Trent books would be a TV series that is likely aired on HBO or Netflix. However, this TV series, is an ABC series, which means...it is quite a PG series, something like FBI, Law and Order...one crime an episode type of series, very surface level exploration of crime, all solved by the end of an episode. That said, it's an okay series, something you can watch when a random episode of it airs on TV.

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