In Name Only / Live-Action TV

Live-Action TV adaptations that are In Name Only.

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Examples:

• The 2008 TV adaptation of The Andromeda Strain had very little to do with the original novel, beyond the basic concept of a deadly contagion.
• Bar Rescue: A common theme on the show (like Longshots Sports Bar & Grill) don't have a TV for showing sports games and Taffer even points out many owners think the term "Sports Bar" means it'll succeed.
• Baywatch Nights still starred David Hasselhoff as Mitch Buchannon, as well as having a few other characters from the main series showing up, but that was the only reason to keep the name since he was not a lifeguard anymore.
• Boardwalk Empire is supposedly inspired by Nelson Johnson's non-fiction history book Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times and Corruption of Atlantic City, but is actually a fictional crime drama set in 1920s USA that follows a very fictionalized version of an historical character mentioned in the book.
• The series based off of Betsy Haynes' Bone Chillers books is mostly made of original episodes and the ones based on certain books only retained the basic concept. Additionally, the books were an anthology while the show uses the main characters from the entry Back to School for the entire series.
• Black Noir in The Boys (2019) has practically nothing in common with his counterpart from the source material. While both are silent members of The Seven dressed in black armor that conceals their entire bodies, the Black Noir of the show is a Black man named Earving who was originally part of Payback, and is mute due to brain damage and a lacerated throat, both acquired from a prior mission. Black Noir in the comics is actually a clone of Homelander, is an Elective Mute, and the true Big Bad of the story.
• Very shortly after the long-running prime time Australian soap opera A Country Practice (1981-1993) was canceled, there was an attempt to revive it. This incarnation was filmed in another city, shown on another network and didn't involve most of the cast and crew of the original. It understandably tried to shift the focus to the new characters, but was bogged down trying to explain the disappearances of most of the old ones. The original show attracted a passionate fanbase that the new one tried to exploit, but it turned out most of them knew when to let go. It was axed after six months.
• The Defenders Netflix show is not based off the comic (which was about a secret group of heroes best known for their founding four — Doctor Strange, The Hulk, Namor the Sub-Mariner, and the Silver Surfer). Instead, it features a Ragtag Bunch of Misfits consisting of Luke Cage, Iron Fist, Jessica Jones and Daredevil. In mild fairness, Luke Cage has been a Defender somewhat regularly, and Iron Fist has joined once or twice, but the Defenders as a whole have had a very, very extensive lineup, so this isn't saying much.
• Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency has very little to do with the story of the original book apart from the fact that there is an eccentric 'holistic detective' in both of them and that everything in it is connected to everything else. The previous Dirk Gently series on the BBC was likewise, except that it also had a Richard Macduff who bore little resemblance to the one in the book, and the pilot featured the death of a Gordon Way in completely different circumstances. Both series also featured time travel as a late reveal, again in completely different circumstances to the book.
• DMZ bears little resemblance to the graphic novel series it's based on. The basic setting is the same, and several of the supporting characters come from the comics, but the main character and plot are completely new.
• Donkey Hodie has an episode called "The Cow And Potato Bug Opera", where Donkey writes an opera that's supposed to be a reference to the opera of the same name from Mister Rogers' Neighborhood. All it has in common is the fact that it is a play starring a cow and a potato bug, and unlike the Mister Rogers operas, most of the lines are spoken, and the only singing is at the end.
• NBC's Dracula (2013) is quite literally Dracula in name only. The show was so unconnected to the original novel that you could have changed literally every character's name, even Dracula himself, and lost nothing.
• The Electric Company (2009) has almost nothing in common with its predecessor but its name and having a group of children called the Alphakids. To make things more confusing, they threw in a "they fight crime with superpowers" motif that has little to do with phonics.
• Friday the 13th: The Series was unrelated to the film series, and despite common rumor there were never any plans to have Jason appear on the show or feature his mask as one of the artifacts. The films get a small Shout-Out in the episode "Crippled Inside" though, where the song the rocker chick from Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan plays on her guitar can be heard on the radio.
• The Goosebumps (1995) episodes "The Haunted House Game" and "Teacher's Pet" kept the concepts of board games and a snake person from the short stories they were based and that's about it.
• Gotham Knights (2023): So far, at least, Jane Doe is an extremely far cry from her comic-book counterpart, a completely skinless woman whose M.O. is to Kill and Replace other people by removing her victims' skin and hair and wearing it over her own body while perfectly mimicking their voices. Here, she's an ordinary woman (if a bit mentally unhinged) and criminal without any special ability or doing anything like this.
• Netflix's The Haunting of Hill House (2018) has nothing in common with the source material aside from character names and the haunted house aspect. Everything else, from relationships to the history of the titular house are tweaked in some way or another. It does adapt some plot points in a Broad Strokes manner, such as Nell's mental health issues and apparent suicide, but it's otherwise a completely different story.
• Halo (2022): Master Chief Petty Officer John 117 is a SPARTAN-II Super-Soldier paired with the Artificial Intelligence Cortana. That's the end of his similarities with his canon-self. His show version is part of an entirely different team of Spartans, he lacks the special closeness with them that he has with Blue Team, and his personality is radically different in the Silver Timeline than it is in canon. The biggest (and most divisive) change would be that John is often shown without his helmet. While he has taken it off in canon, it's usually a rare moment, with Halo 4 Forward Unto Dawn showing that he keeps it on even when other Spartans on his own team remove their helmets. This heavily factors into his different characterization between this series and the games, as John is a Consummate Professional in the games and only makes moves against portions of the UNSC once the Human-Covenant War is over and ONI's paranoia starts becoming a bigger threat to mankind. The Silver Rimeline Chief, meanwhile, carries more doubts about the UNSC and even briefly turns against it toward the end of Season 1.
• Haven is ostensibly an adaptation of Stephen King's novella The Colorado Kid. But other than having a murdered character named "The Colorado Kid" and Vince Teague, who is a reporter, the show took the concept of Adaptation Expansion to heart. Fans would be surprised to hear the Differently Powered Individual premise and the overarching Identity Amnesia story line are exclusive to the show. The book isn't even set in Haven—that's a location borrowed from The Langoliers, another King story. However, the show is very aware it's technically a Stephen King adaptation and love to throw in Mythology Gags referencing his other work.
• The Hexter: Vesemir is the eldest resident of Kaer Morhen and he acts as some sort of paternal figure to Geralt… and that's basically all traits he shares with Vesemir from the books. Instead of being a witcher, he's a member of a Druid-like priest caste that was responsible for creating the mutagens and performing the trials on children to turn them into witchers. In the books, Vesemir was only a fencing instructor and thus did not possess the knowledge necessary to create new mutagens in order to mutate more boys into witchers. Some of the characteristics of Vesemir the witcher were given to the Old Witcher in the series.
• The Horatio Hornblower episode "The Even Chance" bears only a passing resemblance to the first several chapters of 'Mr Midshipman Hornblower''.
  • In the book, the titular even chance is Hornblower arranging for only one pistol to be loaded in his duel with Simpson, with neither knowing which one, giving each a 50:50 chance of winning, far better than Hornblower's odds in a standard duel. Captain Keene stops the duel by having neither pistol loaded, not wanting to lose two midshipmen. Simpson does not reappear in any subsequent story. In the A&E series, it is a standard duel, but Hornblower is knocked unconscious by Clayton, who is killed by Simpson.
  • The rest of the episode features "The Cargo of Rice" and part of "The Penalty of Failure", "Hornblower and the Man Who Felt Queer" and part of "Hornblower and the Man Who Saw God". The first half of "The Man Who Saw God" is put out of order (immediately after his transfer to Indefatigable instead of after the capture of the Papillon) and comprised only two scenes involving Styles rat fighting while omitting the second half: Hornblower and Finch manning a swivel gun in the mizzen topmast, which is hit and topples, forcing them to jump for safety;
  • "The Penalty of Failure" omits his capture by a French privateer, which Hornblower sets on fire to slow down to allow the Indefatigable to capture her.
  • In "The Man Who Felt Queer", Simpson and the crew of the Justinian are rescued after it is sunk and absorbed into the Indefatigable, leading to Simpson taking part in the raid on the Papillon. Archie Kennedy has a seizure, and Hornblower must knock him unconscious to avoid giving away their presence. Simpson then casts loose the jolly boat and shoots Hornblower. Finch dives overboard to save Hornblower, who takes command of the Papillon in battle against French corvettes. Hornblower later accuses Simpson of trying to murder him and re-opens the duel. In the book, Simpson and the Justinian never reappear, it is a seaman called Hales who has a seizure, the jolly boat is lost in the course of battle and the Papillon is simply captured and not involved in a fight against the French.
• The 2010 Human Target TV show shares the title and the name of the main character. That's about it. Just like in the title sample, you get the feeling that they had a bodyguard show lying around waiting for a name.
• The original Ironside focused on a white cop paralyzed due to a sniper's bullet, who solved crimes in San Francisco. The Ironside revival focused on a black cop paralyzed due to accidentally being shot by a fellow cop, who solved crimes in New York City. In addition to the change in setting, the new version was also darker in tone, didn't use the original theme, nor did any other character from the original carry over. The original lasted 8 seasons, the revival was canned in the middle of its first.
• The television version of iZombie has nothing to do with the comic version of iZombie beyond a zombie who gets visions of how the deceased died from eating their brains. In the comic the "zombie vision" plot line becomes less important as the eponymous zombie, Gwen, gets roped into preventing the apocalypse with a Fantasy Kitchen Sink cast. The show is a Police Procedural where the eponymous zombie, Liv, solves crimes every week with a mostly human cast. The comic version is also very magic heavy while the show is pure science fiction.
• Kamen Rider Hibiki was originally going to be a Continuity Reboot of Henshin Ninja Arashi, another Toku series by creator Shotaro Ishinomori, but during development the idea was abandoned and it became an original (but still ninja-themed) property. However, Bandai insisted that the series still be called "Kamen Rider" for merchandising purposes, forcing the team to adapt the ideas they'd already created. As a result, Hibiki lacks most of the iconic Kamen Rider elements: he doesn't look like an insect, defeats his enemies with music rather than a Rider Kick, and isn't even all that good at riding his Cool Bike (he tends to get around in a Honda Element instead). However, Tropes Are Not Bad since Hibiki became a fan favorite thanks to its unique sense of style and focus on character development...at least, until Executive Meddling kicked in...
• The book Kiss Me First is about Leila, who becomes a shut-in once her mother dies and spends all her time online; after getting roped into a forum called The Red Pill, and falling under the influence of the forum's creator/leader Adrian, Leila is asked by Adrian to impersonate someone online so that they can commit suicide, having been convinced it's the ethically correct thing to do. Through this, she meets Tess, an older woman with bipolar disorder, and they strike up a close online connection. What does this have in common with the Channel 4/Netflix series of the same name? Aside from the characters being named the same and a plot that's roughly about online friendships and the perils of the internet, not much. A lot of the action takes place on a fictional MMO, and many of the characters (and their relationships to each other) were radically changed; most notably, the Queer Baiting that the series was accused of isn't present in the book, where Leila and Tess' friendship is online only and informed by both their age gap and a specific purpose.
• Done with The Labours of Hercules, a book of twelve short stories, each case representing one of the mythical hero's labours. Details from a few were expanded into a single plot. This route was chosen because the series had, by then, ceased producing the hour-long short story adaptations they began with.
• The BBC's Lark Rise to Candleford and The Paradise exported the setting and characters, but not the plot, from Flora Thompson's book and Émile Zola's Ladies' Paradise respectively.
• The 2014 series The Last Ship has a different premise, story, and setting than the original novel. While the name of the destroyer remains the same, the fact that the events take place in the 21st century means that the "Cold War going hot" theme won't play out. The plot is, instead, a global pandemic that wipes out a sizable percentage of the world population, and the destroyer is the location of a lab by a scientist attempting to find the vaccine. With the world governments collapsing, the danger is still real, as the destroyer is soon attacked by a half-a-dozen Russian helicopter gunships (the Russian government has ceased to exist). Commander Chandler, together with his XO, Slattery, has to keep his ship away from civilization, while a doctor tries to figure out the cure.
• The original The Legend of Sleepy Hollow was a comic tale involving a man playing a prank on a romantic rival. The television show Sleepy Hollow is the story of a time-displaced Revolutionary War soldier who teams up with a local cop to fight demons and supernatural entities.
• Aside from the general premise (Lucifer retires from Hell and opens a nigh-club in L.A.) and character names (Lucifer Morningstar, Mazikeen, Amenadiel, Lux) in Lucifer (2016), the show is absolutely nothing like the comics. While the comic book is a sort of Cosmic High-Urban Fantasy story that escalates in stakes and settings, the television series is a Low Fantasy Buddy Cop Show that is Urban Fantasy in the long-run, and a Police Procedural Cop Show with a new serial killer every episode. Lucifer is portrayed as a Lovable Sex Maniac Manchild with a strong sense of right and wrong as opposed to being the second-most powerful Sociopath in the entire universe, Mazikeen is Not So Stoic, Amenadiel is black and more sympathetic, and that is not even going into the various other changes done to the general lore of the series.
• Luke Cage (2016) villain Black Mariah has absolutely nothing in common with her comic book counterpart. While the show takes liberties with all of Luke's rogues gallery, the changes to Mariah are the most drastic. Whereas the comic version is a Brawn Hilda, has always been a crime boss, and is named after the ambulance used to transport dead bodies, in the show she's average-sized, a Non-Action Big Bad, and a city councilwoman who at first only dabbles in corrupt activity before increasingly leaning into her family's criminal heritage. The name "Black Mariah" was changed to an Embarrassing Nickname, and even her real name, Mariah Dillard, is a married name as she's a widow in the show whereas the comic version never married. She's also Related in the Adaptation to the villainess Deadly Nightshade, her daughter from being raped by her great-uncle, a connection and background wholly invented by the show.
• MADtv (1995) bore no resemblance at all to the magazine that is its namesake. For the first few seasons, there were Spy vs Spy cartoons in every episode, but even those were eventually removed.
• The live-action version of Spanish children's books Manolito Gafotas. The eponymous Kid Hero was Demoted to Extra, his popular little brother even more so, and much of the plot centered on his parents and neighbours, most of which were bit players in the novels. In particular, Manolito's dad and godfather became Ascended Extras, getting even more screen time than Manolito himself. Oh, and the plots of the novels were all but ignored. In short, it was basically a generic Spanish Sitcom with the names of the Manolito Gafotas cast slapped on.
• The Maniac Mansion sitcom has basically nothing to do with the LucasArts PC game, beyond the fact that there were a bunch of maniacs living in a mansion and one of them was a Mad Scientist named Dr. Fred.
• Merlin (2008): Take everything you thought you knew about Arthurian Legend and throw it out the window. Arthur is a Prince right from the start, Merlin is Arthur's servant who is around his age, magic is outlawed, Gwen is a Camelot servant (with a Race Lift) rather than a French princess, etc. Things like the dragon under the castle and The Reveal about Morgana come from the legends, but have their contexts significantly changed. Then again, the Arthurian Mythos has been doing this with every iteration of King Arthur since before the written word, so it's tradition.
• In-Universe: In one episode of Murder, She Wrote, some film execs buy the rights to one of Jessica's novels merely so they can use its title for a crappy slasher film.
• Nancy Drew gets a Riverdale-esque makeover in Nancy Drew (2019). There is the occasional Mythology Gag here and there, but between the different setting, the supernatural aspects, and the fact multiple characters have their backstories and personalities radically changed, it feels like a new property where some characters just happen to share their names with Nancy Drew characters. Or just similar names in some cases, since Nick, Bess, and George all had their names slightly changed from their book counterparts.
  • The Spin-Off series Tom Swift (2022) gets hit with it even harder. It has a far darker and more adult tone, much like the new Drew does. The only characters to carry over to the new series were Tom himself and his father Barton...and not only are their personalities altered far beyond the point of recognition, Barton is killed off almost immediately. Not that that stops him from playing a huge role in the plot, once time travel is introduced...
• The New Monkees. It's a musical/comedy starring a band, made up of four cute boys selected by the shows' creators; the similarities to the classic series end there.
• The Nightmare Room's The Howler only retains the basic concept of a machine that lets you talk to ghosts. Everything else is changed, from the motivation to wanting the device to what the ghosts do.
• Perry Mason (2020): Zigzagged. The series starts out with Perry as a Film Noir P.I. and not even in law school. However, halfway through season 1, he has to step in and defend their client after E.B. dies and no other trustworthy lawyer will take up the case. A letter is faked that makes it look like he apprenticed to E.B. for months. He then passes the bar exam and is sworn in as a lawyer.
• Les petits meurtres d'Agatha Christie very loosely adapts plots from both the Poirot and Miss Marple series, but replaces both of the original detectives with policemen (Larosière in seasons 1-3; Laurence in seasons 4-6), alters storylines considerably, and resets everything in post-WWII France.
• The Poirot adaptation of The Big Four has a very different storyline from the book. Half of the cast from the original was deleted, a new character is introduced and the motivation and actions of the villain is greatly modified. Likely for the best; it was cobbled together from a few short stories that were expanded and given an overarching plot. Christie herself regarded it as one of her least favorite books.
• The series Poltergeist: The Legacy shares nothing in common with its namesake, the Poltergeist films.
• The Princess Wei Young has very little in common with the novel.
  • In the novel Wei Yang is the heroine's real name and she really is part of the Li family. Xin Er's backstory and taking on Wei Young's identity are original to the series.
  • The novel starts with Wei Yang already married to Tuoba Zhen (Tuoba Jun in the series), deposed as empress in favour of Zhang Le/Chang Le, and ordered to commit suicide. After her death she time-travels back to her thirteen-year-old self. None of this happens in the series.
  • Chiyun Nan doesn't exist in the novel. Wei Yang's stepmother does have a nephew, but his name is Gao Jin and he's a minor annoyance instead of a real threat.
• The ITV/AMC The Prisoner (2009) bears only the faintest resemblance to the original — it occurs in a place called The Village, the hero is called Number Six and the villain is called Number Two, and that's about it. The underlying premise is almost totally different.
  • Given how unique the original version was, making an In Name Only version with some of the same inspirations and preoccupations was truer to the original spirit than a slavish remake would have been. Unfortunately, it wasn't awesome enough to deserve to carry the name.
• The French version of Ready Steady Cook was just a straight cookery show. As bemused executive producer Peter Bazalgette later put it, "for four or five years they paid us a format fee to NOT make Ready Steady Cook!"
• ReBoot: The Guardian Code is, on-paper, a Sequel Series to the animated series ReBoot. In execution, however, the show has virtually nothing in common with the show it is based on. All plot threads from the original have been completely abandoned — particularly glaring in that ReBoot infamously ended on a cliffhanger — and have been replaced with a generic plot about a group of human teens and their Robot Girl companion entering cyberspace to fight an evil, hoodie-clad hacker. About the only things it had in common were Megabyte and the ReBoot icon appeared, CGI was used, and that it's a Canadian production.
• Resident Evil (2022) manages to outdo even the Paul W.S. Anderson film franchise in this regard when it comes to the source material. Rather than following Chris, Leon, Jill or Claire the characters from the games and their stories, the Netflix show instead follows Jade and Billie the Canon Foreigner daughters of Wesker in a Dystopia Coming of Age and Meanwhile, in the Future… story set After the End. Wesker instead of being a platinum blonde Aryan-looking Mad Scientist who died in a volcano in 2009, is a black British man living alive and healthy in 2022 with Umbrella being a global threat in the post-apocalypse, unlike the games where they were brought down not too long after they caused a single outbreak that was limited to one town rather than the whole world. Besides the zombies (which they call "Zeroes"), Lickers, zombie dogs, big insect/arachnid monsters, a typewriter in a safe room and the names of "Wesker", "Raccoon City" and "Umbrella", the show has nothing in common with the games and if Resident Evil wasn't the title, you'd be forgiven for assuming that the show was a take-off of The Maze Runner Series or some other Young Adult Literature adaptation.
• The 2015 Live-Action Richie Rich Series basically has nothing in common with the the original comics. Most of the comic's supporting cast such as Gloria, Dollar, Cadbury, and Professor Keenbean were Adapted Out, with only Richie's dad and Irona the Robot Maid appearing. Also, instead of Richie being from a well established wealthy family, he got his fortune from making a reusable energy source.
• A European series called Katz And Dog turned into this when it was aired in America. It was renamed Rin Tin Tin: K-9 Cop, presumably because the distributors hoped it'd sell better, but it had nothing to do with the original Rin Tin Tin franchise.
• As Riverdale's detractors note, the series is completely different in tone and content from the Archie Comics that they're derived from—aside from being a Darker and Edgier Dysfunction Junction, it makes some creative choices that would just confuse fans of the franchise, like having Jughead and Betty start dating.
• As the series went on Robin Hood kept moving further and further away from its source material. By the time Tuck shows up (black, fit, not a Friar and pontificating on the "idea of Robin Hood" instead of spiritual matters) and Robin Hood is paired up with a whiny village girl called Kate instead of Maid Marian, you begin to wonder what the point was.
• The 1954-55 version of Sherlock Holmes had little in common with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's works beyond Holmes, Dr. Watson and Inspector Lestrade (whose name is pronounced such that it rhymes with "paid" as opposed to "pod"), makes use of only one Conan Doyle story (The Red Headed League) and alters another ("The Greek Interpreter" became "The French Interpreter") and frequently features a Canon Foreigner named Sgt. Wilkins. Mind you, this is not the only version that bears little resemblance to Conan Doyle's works — an American radio program based on the stories did the same thing.
• In Spider-Man (Japan), the eponymous hero looks like Spider-Man and has the same powers, but he is more a tokusatsu superhero (in fact being the predecessor for Super Sentai's Humongous Mecha elements) than a comic book superhero. He has a wrist-worn transformation device (although it merely stores the Spider-Man suit in this case), a Spider-Car (technically the comic had one too, but it was totally different and short-lived), his webshooters are voice-activated (he would shout Spider String!) and last but not least, he has a Humongous Mecha. Yeah. Imagine Peter "constantly strapped for cash" Parker being able to buy, repair, refuel and run general maintenance on a robot the size of a skyscraper. This Spider - man and Leopardon later play a role in Spider-Verse.
  
  Nevertheless, Stan Lee was actually involved in the production, and has said several times that he thought the series was excellent, even praising its creativity (and thus its deviance from the character he created). There's an interview with him on the Japanese DVD box set. Apparently, Lee is not too familiar with Japanese media. While the battle mechas would be seen as creative at the time, seeing how Spider-Man was the first to do that, everything else, from the transformation device to most of the plot, seems to be copied straight from Himitsu Sentai Gorenger and J.A.K.Q. Dengekitai, two shows which were already released at the time. This was likely Lee's first exposure to Japanese Tokusatsu, as Marvel would later produce Battle Fever J and Lee would later attempt to unsuccessfully bring Super Sentai to America.
• Stargate Universe is very different from the previous two series in the Stargate-verse, swapping out the Genre Savvy characters, theme of exploration, and Cool Gate for Angst, grit, and a million year old space ship that's ready to fall apart at the seams. Half the time, the gate on the Destiny seems to serve only as a reminder that yes, this is Stargate (no matter how much SG1 and SGA fans disagree.) Basically, it's a Soap Opera.
• Super Sentai in Korea is called Power Rangers there, instead of Super Sentai.
  • Especially Bakuryuu Sentai Abaranger and Tokusou Sentai Dekaranger which aired as Power Rangers: Dino Thunder and Power Rangers S.P.D. (the same name as their Power Rangers counterparts), despite not actually being those series.
  • Especially especially Dino Thunder. SPD can be considered an adaptation of Dekaranger, but PRDT took only the fight footage from Abaranger and is a radically different show.
• Aside from its title, the series Teen Wolf goes well out of its way to be completely different from the original film, specifically tone wise and going for a style similar to The Vampire Diaries.
• The 1997 BBC adaptation of The Woman in White follows the book, more or less, until just before the end of Walter Hartright's first narrative (perhaps a fifth of the way in). After that the plot becomes so different that a letter to the Radio Times wondered why the author of the adaptation had bothered to keep the same title.
• In 2011, NBC made a pilot for a Wonder Woman TV series. Their version of Wondy had more in common with Batman than Wonder Woman, being a rich corporate executive who moonlights as a superhero. Little is made of her Amazon upbringing. Her Lasso of Truth is used only to snag enemies, and never to reveal the truth from anyone, since she does that in a more mundane manner. The concept of using the Wonder Woman persona as a company symbol for the public also mirrors the premise of Batman Incorporated.
  • Also true of the 1967 demo reel for Wonder Woman which was a some kind of bizarre combination of fairy tale, fantasy, camp, and sit-com.
  • Once again true of Wonder Woman (1974) starring Cathy Lee Crosby. She didn't have super powers and wore a red dress, blue leggings, and star spangled...sleeves.
  • Wonderfully averted in 1975's pilot movie New, Original Wonder Woman starring Lynda Carter with a title that only makes sense once one learns about the previous strange attempts to bring the character to live action.
• NBC, at some point, planned a "sexy, contemporary" version of Oliver Twist. The story would have been about a 20-something young woman who “finally finds a true sense of family in a strange group of talented outcasts who use their unique skills to take down wealthy criminals.” For some reason, nothing ever came of it.
• The Vampire Diaries is very loosely based on the book series by L. J. Smith; aside from the basic premise of a human teenage girl caught in a dangerous love triangle between two vampire brothers, the plots of the show and books differ greatly. Many of the characters also only superficially resemble their book counterparts beyond sharing the same names, especially as the series goes on.
• The Watch (2021) is "Inspired by… the works of Terry Pratchett". It somehow manages to be both Darker and Edgier and Denser and Wackier than the books, with an Ankh-Morpork filled with 21st century technology including perfectly ordinary looking payphones, while Vetinari's "legalised crime" initiative is presented as making Ankh-Morpork a more dangerous place to live, when the paradox in the novels is that it actually works (and it extends to dealers in dangerous drugs such as Slab, which it definitely didn't in the books — also this is apparently the purview of the Alchemists' Guild, who in the novels are far too unworldly for that kind of thing). Despite keeping the gag about the six-foot Carrot being a "dwarf by adoption", the main biological dwarf, Cheery Littlebottom, is actually taller than him. Colon and Nobby are Adapted Out. Vimes is given a new angsty backstory where he had ulterior motives for joining the Watch. And Lady Sybil has gone from a middle-aged dragon-breeder whose main asset in a fight is a Compelling Voice to a young vigilante Action Girl. The plot is a weird mashup of Guards! Guards! and Night Watch, stitched together with elements from other books and entirely new material. Notably, the official Keepers of Discworld (Rob Wilikins and Rhianna Pratchett) have distanced themselves from the whole thing.

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