5 Small Screen to Big Screen Film Suggestions

I usually don’t spend a lot of time watching TV, but I have latched on to quite a few shows over the years that I loved. There’s also quite of few that suffered tragic cancellations, and even some that came back from the dead to enjoy many years back on the air. I tend to spend most of my time in the theaters, or throwing a DVD in to enjoy than trying to remember when my favorite show comes on TV. In fact when I watch many of my favorite shows on DVD about the same time the new season airs on cable.

So I sprouted the idea to explore a list of TV shows that I have enjoyed at some point or another that I think would be fun to visit on the big screen, and since Hollywood is green lighting all these TV show based flicks (The A-Team, Sex and the City, Dukes of Hazzard, Aqua Teen Hunger Force etc.), maybe we’ll see some of them in the future. I narrowed the list down to five because I had a few that either had a direct to DVD movie and one that I wasn’t fully ready to admit that I watched.

Dexter: This Showtime series that follows Dexter Morgan, a blood spatter specialist for the Miami Police Department that follows criminals that have escaped the justice system in some way shape or form and murders them, works perfectly as a TV show, in fact, it’s quickly turning into one of my favorite shows of all time. However, as I mentioned I spend more time in the theater, and I do not subscribe to Showtime, so I can’t help but daydream about what a Dexter movie would be like, during the stretches that the show airs and the wait for the new season to arrive on DVD.

Seinfeld: Currently my favorite TV show of all time. I watch the reruns on TV nearly every night before I go to bed, and if I’m not watching them on cable, then I’m popping in the DVD sets and selecting Play All, and listen to the soothing comedic tones of Jerry, George, Elaine and Kramer as I drift off to sleep. It has been a long time since the show’s hay-day, and I never felt fully satisfied with the way the last season concluded, so I think once last hurrah on the big screen would be a more fitting send off.

Pushing Daisies: I just recently watched the only two seasons of this show on Netflix watch instantly. I get confused looks when I mention it to family members and friends when I ask them if they have seen it, which is probably the case for many other people since it is one of the many decent TV shows that suffered a tragic death (like Arrested Development, which is absent from the list since there’s word a movie might be in the works). The abrupt ending is evident in the terrible season finale that tried to sew up all the main characters in a lazy and unfulfilling way, and the even bigger sin was the final cliffhanger that is doomed to never be satisfied. I think a visit to the big screen would be a triumph for the fans of the show begging for a better wrap up.

Weeds: The last two seasons of watching suburban housewife Nancy Botwin struggle with her decisions to sell weed from her rich neighborhood and deal with the consequences has been kind of a chore. The first three seasons were actually a lot of fun to watch and catch up on, since I didn’t discover it until the fifth season was getting set to air on Showtime. The half hour run time is definitely the best format for the show, since it keeps things moving fast. However, since it sounds like the new season that just premiered isn’t keeping up with the awesome first few seasons, that maybe if they worked on a film before they start on a new season, that maybe they could wrap up some of what is making these latest seasons uninteresting and try to recapture the spirit it carried when it first started.

Archer: Ok, I realize that Archer has only aired one season, but that one season had me laughing almost nonstop. It follows a spy organization full of a variety of colorful characters, including the show’s main character, Archer, the wisecracking slacker son of the organization’s leader.  The show fires off jokes in rapid succession and even has some pretty cool action beats to it. If you give it one more season to gain some more fans, I think it could be pretty successful as a more adult oriented cartoon movie. Plus, if they made a movie with as many hilariously quotable lines, people could get swept into an Archer craze.