Frankenstein’s Monster is headed to CBS… to solve crimes on a TV procedural pilot from the team that brought you Elementary.
CBS has announced a new crime procedural pilot that, theoretically, could replace “elementary, dear Watson” with “fire bad.” – Well, maybe not. However, the pertinent point here is that the Eye Network is developing a Frankenstein TV series, which will set the lightning-struck, body-stitched reanimated giant in San Francisco to solve crimes. – We’re not joking!
The CBS Frankenstein TV pilot – greenlit along with dramas Republic of Sarah and Courthouse– brandishes an out-there premise that's clearly speaking for itself. The pilot is under the creative direction of Jason Tracey and Rob Doherty, a duo of writers for the network’s long-running, imminently-ending modernized Sherlock Holmes series, Elementary. The ordered CBS Television Studios production will see Tracey pen the pilot and serve as executive producer with Doherty.
The would-be Frankenstein series is, of course, a (super) loose adaptation of Mary Shelley’s 1818 macabre literary classic, which, despite being adapted and/or parodied countless times in every conceivable medium, is still best known from Universal’s 1931 film, directed by James Whale, starring Boris Karloff.
Frankenstein TV Series Cast and Crew
Saidah Arrika Ekulona is the first cast member named for CBS’s Frankenstein, according to Deadline. She will play Capt. Mills, an assertive and in-charge skipper and the boss of the show’s undead detective, Escher, at the SFPD. Described as “intelligent, decisive, tough but not without compassion or humor,” Mills, just as with other friends and family, will be initially stunned upon Escher's return after he was presumed dead for six months [spoiler alert: he really was dead!] after an attack at his house.
Ekulona, an accomplished stage actor, was recently seen in a guest spot on Netflix’s recently-renewed The Haunting of Hill House, known from TV runs on Bull, Kevin Can Wait, Impastor and, years earlier, a run on Law & Order: SVU, with a guest spot on The Sopranos and a role in Wes Anderson’s The Royal Tenenbaums.
In additional Frankenstein news, it appears that the TV project will launch in capable hands, with the appointment of Uta Briesewitz to direct the pilot, working off a script by co-showrunner Jason Tracey. This is hardly the first recent high-profile project procured by Briesewitz, who was recently appointed as director for the first two episodes of Amazon’s grandiose fantasy novel TV series adaption, The Wheel of Time. Besides bringing experience from shows like The Deuce, Westworld, Fear the Walking Dead, Black Sails and Netflix-Marvel shows Jessica Jones, Iron Fist and The Defenders, she’s banked directorial time on Netflix’s upcoming season of Stranger Things and its returning sci-fi series, Altered Carbon.
Frankenstein TV Series Details
Putting the traditional tropes through a stateside lens the Frankenstein show’s story will center on a SFPD homicide detective named Escher, who, after being killed in an attack, is brought back to life by mysterious means. However, his attempt to resume his old life with his wife is complicated by his physical and emotional changes. Thus, he must seek out the individual responsible for the resurrection, the now-missing Dr. Victor Frankenstein, to get the answers he needs – all while solving crimes on a weekly basis.
Interestingly, the idea of a Frankenstein TV series, and even a one under a procedural format, is not exactly unprecedented. In fact, Fox just made its own attempt in early-2016 with its single-season sci-fi crime-solver, Second Chance, a series originally titled The Frankenstein Code, which similarly depicted a police officer (Rob Kazinski) brought back from the dead to solve crimes – with enhanced abilities – by an enigmatic duo of tech mogul siblings. Also, Sean Bean recently starred in his own TV version in the two-season-spanning ITV/Netflix series, The Frankenstein Chronicles, a series set in the 19th century with Bean playing a police inspector who initially investigates the (premise-familiar) theft of corpses until he is killed (because it’s Sean Bean,) and brought back to life as the monster himself, continuing to right wrongs from the shadows.
Of course, we happen to be in a television age in which a TV series, Lucifer, about the Devil himself, who lives in Los Angeles and helps the cops solve crimes, is not only a thing, but a thing that’s popular enough to evade cancellation by Fox for an imminent resurrection on Netflix.
We’ll keep you updated on CBS’s Frankenstein mystery series as the news arrives!
Joseph Baxter is a contributor for Den of Geek and Syfy Wire. You can find his work here. Follow him on Twitter @josbaxter.