IP Picks🔎: A True-Life Battlefield Saint
➕ A trio of very different procedurals and a good old-fashioned Western
Welcome to The Optionist. Thanks for reading along.
We’re in the busy stretch right now when a young Optionist’s eye turns to summer (books). As always, Beach Read Season is especially packed with the kind of books that lend themselves to being adapted. That was true of last week’s picks, it’s true of this week’s, and it’ll be true for a few more weeks after that. So let’s jump right in without too much introduction.
But first, my favorite story of the week. It may not have much adaptation potential beyond maybe a chuckle-worthy doc, but it’s so much fun I just have to mention it. Maybe someone else sees something here that I’m missing.
Of course, I’m talking about the Wonka version of the Fyre Festival. Basically, a Willy Wonka-themed fan experience in Glasgow, Scotland, promised all sorts of extravagant fun based on its AI-generated promo art. The reality was . . . sad. We’re talking folding chairs, a bounce house, a ration of three measly jelly beans per kid and the most glum-looking Oompa Loompa ever. This was not “a world of pure imagination,” it was just a pathetic-beyond-words scam that left kids in tears and their parents seeing so red that they called the cops. The event’s organizers, House of Illuminati, had promised an afternoon that would “create lasting memories.” And I guess in a way they did. They created the kind of lasting memories you end up paying a child therapist to forget.
The Scottish Sun broke the news, which went viral around the world — everyone from The New York Times to The Canberra Times picked it up. New York mag’s The Cut and Vulture had some of my favorite coverage, including an interview with the sad Oompa Loompa. (FYI, here’s a great piece on how The Cut has became one of the rare success stories in journalism.) The Daily Mail is already hyping the Fyre Festival possibilities, having caught Karen Gillan (Guardians of the Galaxy) pitching herself for the movie on Twitter. I’m not sure I even see the doc — the Fyre Festival unfolded over days, not a single morning like this — but if nothing else the story is a fun read.
On to this week’s picks, which include a period Western, a faith-based project and three stories with procedural series potential.
An ‘80s-set procedural featuring a mixed-race PI partnership investigating crimes in the rural South
A drama about the first explorers of the West set in the early 1800s with Revenant vibes
An inspirational, true-life drama about a heroic Army Chaplain up for sainthood (really!)
A true-crime interrogation procedural centered on a small town female detective who gets a suspect to confess to the murders of five women
A procedural about a hippie mom turned innocence project investigator
