I love Shameless. Or, rather, I love the first two series of Shameless up until the moment that Fiona and Steve climb in the car and skip town. I thought the third series was okay. And after that I don't really know how I feel about it because I didn't have anyone to
With my warm feelings toward the show in mind, here's a stream-of-consciousness recreation of my reaction when I checked my Twitter feed and saw the news pop up that Showtime has picked up to series the pilot of an American version of Shameless:
Shameless!!! YEAAAA! Are they're doing an American Shameless? They are! Yea! Wait, who's in it? William H. Macy?! What?! As Frank!? William H. Macy as Frank! Are you kidding me? Emmy Rossum is no Anne-Marie Duff. Allison Janney?! Oh noooooo. No, no, no.....
I realize I'm judging without having seen the actual product, and that we should refrain from doing that, but I can't help it. I don't like this cast. Partially because it just seems incorrect and smacks of respectable actors (Macy and Janney) trying to loosen up their images by taking on "fun," "shocking" roles. And partially because I have given a lot of thought to an American version of Shameless over the years, and I'm positive that my cast is better:
(Bear in mind that I picked this cast about three years ago (circa early 2007), so the ages of some of my actors now skew a little too old.)
Fiona: Amanda Seyfried
Steve: Ben McKenzie
Frank: John Corbett
Sheila: Merrin Dungey
Monica: Molly Ringwald (She'd be so much more awesome in this than in Secret Life.)
Lip: Ricky Ullman
Ian: Michael Cera (This role would force him to show a bit more range than usual.)
Debbie: Abigail Breslin
Liam: The kids who played Jamie on Malcolm in the Middle
Veronica: Busy Philipps
Kev: Enrique Murciano (Not sure about this one; Enrique might be too pretty for Shameless.)
Tony: Michael McMillian
Karen: Dana Davis
Craig: Adam Brody (It's stunt casting, but it's hilarious.)
Norma: Queen Latifah
And there you have it. Casting perfection.
I have some other ideas for the American version. Instead of going with an inter-city setting, I'd stage the American version in a trailer park in the South, creating a white trash version of the Gallaghers. Keeping with that theme, I'd change some of the Gallaghers' names to hearken back to the "glory days" of the Old South, as a display of the parents' ridiculous illusions of grandeur. Fiona becomes Scarlett, the boys get the names of Civil War leaders, etc.
My cast has some fairly big names in it, and I have a strategy for how to get them to sign onto a television project. Working off the assertion that the British version was great in the first two series and then fizzled out, I would set a finite number of episodes from the beginning, creating one massive season of about 24-27 episodes, broken into three parts. (A season that long is doable, as The O.C. did 27 episodes in its first year.) That way, the talent can sign onto the project knowing that they will devote only one year to it and won't get sucked into working on the same project for four or five years. New characters won't have to continuously be created to fill in the void left by departing actors. And the plot of the entire series can be mapped out from the beginning, creating a cohesive creative product.
(Would a network go for this model? I don't know. It would certainly cut down on the number of DVDs available to sell. It might make up for that though due to the popularity a well-know cast would likely garner.)
So, yes, I had big plans for an American Shameless. But what was I to do? Start a production company with capital I don't have and try to buy the rights to Shameless? Alas, it was not to be. I guess I can always console myself by watching vintage episodes of the original British version.
(photo: www.channel4.com/programmes/shameless)
