“Some people seemed to get all sunshine, and some all shadow…”
–Little Women
The CW Network recently announced the development of a ‘hyper-stylized, gritty adaptation’ of Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women set in dystopian Philadelphia. Here are our suggestions for what that show could look like.
In the year 2266, Contentment has become the most coveted — and expensive — resource in the United Colonies of Amerasia. As the March family toils away, trying to survive in the harsh post-industrial city of Delphia, Father sells five years of his life to Amerasia’s Supreme Family in exchange for food and medicine rations for Marmee and the girls. During his indentured servitude, Father spends his days digging wells outside the palace and his nights being ‘Harvested’ — a scientific procedure through which his memories of happiness and contentment are transplanted to the ailing Supreme Leader.
Jo, the illimitable scribe of the March family, leads the resistance in her own way by anonymously publishing content on the dark net as well as discreetly laundering rationed minutes of online access in hopes of buying out Father’s contract before all his memories can be Harvested. But Jo’s means of saving Father and getting her message to the people is shattered when the youngest March sister, sociopathic social-climber Amy, discovers Jo hacking into the wi-fi grid and destroys her link in a fit of rage.
Jo then sells her one true beauty — one of her green eyes, rare in color and highly coveted in society — and cobbles together a new prosthetic eye formed from junkyard mechanical parts. She gets back into the network and continues her work to try and free Father. Her hours are spent penning a hard copy of events in an attempt to preserve their story for future generations and patrolling the family’s land with her trusty rifle, which she has named ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’
Despite her hardened exterior, Jo is also singlehandedly responsible for keeping her Great-Aunt March, a wealthy but agoraphobic World War IV widow, alive by sneaking her Adrenalife, a medicinal life extender banned for use among commoners. Jo tries to help Great-Aunt March remember where she buried her deceased husband’s stolen government secrets.
Oldest March sister, benevolent Meg, spends her days teaching orphaned children from a family just over the border how to deactivate land mines and trade their parts on the black market for food and medicine rations. When she falls in love with the eldest Supreme Daughter’s tutor, she exchanges her life of rebellion for life in the palace, leaving younger sister Jo to find solace and companionship with the Supreme Daughter Lori herself, a philosophy junkie and secret resistance sympathizer.
Meanwhile, because of her facial symmetry (with the exception of her decidedly un-aristocratic nose) and naturally wide hips, youngest March sister Amy is marked at a young age as a potential mate for the Supreme Sons, and is thus required to attend School — an ongoing training and grooming program for girls aged 13 to 18 that produces all of the future First Wives. At School, Amy develops an addiction to LIME, a synthetic extract produced by the government after the destruction of all natural produce. She is nearly killed when she wanders too close to the Ice Flats which border Delphia, but is begrudgingly saved by Jo and Lori.
Amy strikes up a correspondence and secret relationship with Lori, and both ultimately shirk their responsibilities and political aspirations to run away together. This sparks a six-season love triangle between Jo, Lori, and Amy. In seasons 7 through 9 it becomes a love square involving Jo, Lori, Amy, and Fritz — a penniless teen doctor who dreams of building a communal farming utopia in the borderlands.
Tragically, Beth dies. To revive her, Marmee risks a daring transfusion. It succeeds in bringing Beth back to life, but also creates within her a half-immunity to the virus that killed her — the side effects include occasional premonitory visions as well as a thorough depletion of energy and iron that force Beth to become a sanguinarian, someone who must drink substantial amounts of human blood just to survive. Beth attempts to counter the effects of her visions, and satiate her blood-thirst, by becoming a hooded vigilante known only as ‘the Scarlet Fever.’
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Illustrator: Hallie Bateman is on Twitter and Instagram.
Tags: books, carly lane, emily henry, hallie bateman, little women, sorry not sorry louisa may alcott, television
Yeah, actually this sounds rad as hell, though.
I REALLY want to watch this show and need casting notes.
Finally a Beth I can get behind.
I *love* that Beth has no character development until after death, which, I love Little Women with all my heart but that’s pretty true to the original.
There is no real mention of Bhaer in here; I am thus pleased.
Also, LORI. My little lesbian heart just did about five and a half somersaults.
Bhaer is mentioned as much as Laurie! I am content.
Sigh, you’re getting my hopes up! I don’t think the actual show will live up to these promises, no matter how absurd it turns out to be.
this is for real the best. From the Jo-Lori-Amy-Fritz love square, to LIME being an addictive substance, to Beth becoming a vampire named The Scarlet Fever, every detail is SPOT-ON. Screw making every classic novel protagonist a vampire hunter in modern re-tellings, I NEED this.
I would watch the hell out of this and write endless Amy/Lori fanfic, which would inevitably end in an epic six-month flamewar with Jo/Lori shippers.
want want want want want WANT, or somebody at least start writing fic for this universe pls
This is good, all of this sounds good, I am super excited for this absolutely bonkers CW show, you will never convince me otherwise.
Her hours are spent penning a hard copy of events in an attempt to preserve their story for future generations and patrolling the family’s land with her trusty rifle, which she has named ‘Pilgrim’s Progress.’
Perfection.
This is too good for words. Every line was a delight, and I will spend the rest of my life daydreaming about it.
When I was in grad school, my roommate had to teach “Little Women” to undergrads as part of a history class he was TAing. I re-read the book while he was teaching the class and we spent many enjoyable hours making fun of the schlockyness of it. I think I must send this to him immediately.
Would watch all ten seasons. If I missed an episode, would go online and read viewer reviews of it.
I have green eyes and now I have new hope for my survival in an apocalyptic future because otherwise I possess very few attributes or skills useful in such a world.
I have green eyes and now I have new hope for my survival in an apocalyptic future because otherwise I possess very few attributes or skills useful in such a world.
Anyone watch the Pemberley Digital version of this??? Thoughts???
I wasn’t super thrilled with the acting but they all really grew on me and I love what they did with John/Joan
I tried like 4 times to watch the series but couldn’t do it. I loved Joan and even Meg, but Jo’s garbage movie and everyone else’s poor acting (Jo, Teddy, Amy) just made it impossible to get through.
It’s a bummer it wasn’t very good! Like many people, I loved The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.
Likewise.
I tried like 4 times to watch the series but couldn't do it. I loved Joan and even Meg, but Jo's garbage movie and everyone else's poor acting (Jo, Teddy, Amy) just made it impossible to get through.