Charlaine Harris Back on TV

by Oline H. Cogdill

harris charlaine2015
Charlaine Harris
’ Sookie Stackhouse novels made a smooth transition to television in the uber-sexy HBO series True Blood.

This vampire series with its Southern Gothic approach not only benefited from the terrific source material from Harris but also from the leadership of executive producer Alan Ball, an Emmy winner for his HBO series Six Feet Under and an Oscar winner for the screenplay of the 1999 film American Beauty.

And it was a killer cast with Anna Paquin as Sookie Stackhouse, Stephen Moyer as Bill Compton and a slew of other actors who understood the story and brought it every week.  

True Blood also intelligently paralleled real-world problems such as religious and racial intolerance.

But True Blood’s TV run is over—going out on a high note after seven seasons—and Harris also ended her series, again leaving on a high note.

On to new work.

NBC is developing a drama for fall 2016 that will be based on Harris’ best-selling Midnight, Texas series, which focuses on a town in the Lone Star state in which humans and the supernatural co-exist.

And naturally, everyone has a secret.

Harris’ novels in this series are Midnight Crossroad and Day Shift. Night Shift will be published in spring 2016.

harrischarlaine dayshift
Midnight’s residents include a phone psychic, an assassin, and a vampire, among others. As in her Stackhouse novels, Harris’ novels featured plenty of humor, mystery, and, of course, the paranormal.

If NBC greenlights the series, it will be called Midnight, Texas.

According to NBC, the series will be written/executive produced by Monica Owusu-Breen (Lost) and executive produced by David Janollari (Six Feet Under).

"I'm excited by the prospect of being on network television. The journey from my book to the product on the screen is always interesting," said Harris in an email  to Mystery Scene.

Harris’ work translates well to television.

Two of her novels about librarian and mystery maven Aurora Teagarden aired this year on Hallmark Movies & Mysteries. Candace Cameron Bure (Full House) starred as Aurora and the two movies were terrific. I hope there will be more.

And if network executives want another fresh, original series, I hope they will take a look at Harris’ Shakespeare series.

Her five Lily Bard novels, beginning with Shakespeare’s Landlord (1996), focused on a character who was the survivor of a horrific crime. As a result, Lily had chosen a solitary life and was confrontational and obsessed with self defense. Despite a first-rate education, Lily preferred to eke out a living as a cleaning woman.

I loved those novels, and they could translate so well to cable or network TV, or Netflix.

Meanwhile, I am rooting for multiple visits to Midnight, Texas.

Oline Cogdill
2015-11-07 02:10:00