TV Show Casting Meme: Mermaid
This meme took forever. Seriously. Still a ton of fun, though.
1. Comment to this post with "I surrender!" and I'll assign you the basis of some tv show idea. (Science fiction show, medical drama, criminal procedure, etc...)
2. Create a cast of characters, including the actors who'd play them
3. Add in any actor photos, character bios and show synopsis that you want.
4. Post to your own journal.
Here's "retell a fairytale of your choosing as a TV show" for lotus0kid:
I chose to retell The Little Mermaid in live-action television format because I think both the Hans Christian Andersen and Disney versions of the story are majorly screwed up, and I thought that since television shows can stretch for multiple seasons with tons of character development, that would be the best place in media to revise the tale. I kept the names and basic character templates from the Disney version because I don't want audiences to get too confused. I was surprised how family-friendly I ended up making this, with positive motifs and lessons embedded into the story, but not didactically (no "Knowing is Half the Battle!" segments). I feel like this has influences from Merlin (even though I've only seen a few episodes), especially one of the characters.
I call this show Mermaid. Because no one can tell her she's little, dammit!
In this retelling, there shall be NO:
- Stalking
- Messages promoting the idea that women should give up everything for a man.
- Messages promoting the idea that women should cling to a man.
- Animated sequences.
- Musical sequences over six minutes long.
- Fake accents (everyone uses their own).
- TALKING ANIMALS.
The story takes place in this fantasy kingdom that is perpetually stuck somewhere in the 1600s-1800s. To t It looks kind of like the cover of this children's fantasy novel (which I highly recommend):
Yeah, like that. Without the floating head.
Major Characters
ARIEL: Karen Gillan
Here's our beautiful, spunky-but-sweet mermaid. She has a positive influence on people around her, but she also doesn't listen when she should, talks back to her father, has very little regard for rules or authority of any kind, and can be a bit bossy sometimes. Yes, she's fascinated with the human world, but no, she's not going to immediately sell her soul for a vagina and a man she doesn't know I love you, Nostalgia Chick.
I want the series to start off with Ariel saving Eric from the shipwreck and going to Ursula to get legs for three days in exchange for her voice. However, while she's on land with the prince, she realizes that he's something of a flirt---she's not giving her whole life up for some guy whose going to chase another skirt the next day. So she lets her three days on land expire without getting the kiss to keep her legs. Eric finds her right as her transforms back in to a mermaid, and they strike up a secret friendship. But she still signed a contract with Ursula, so she has to work as the sea-witch's assistant, and she eventually (maybe at the end of the first season) discovers a new kind of magic that can temporarily give her legs without a horrible price, but she has to sneak around to do that, so she can only go on land very occasionally.
Yes, Ariel will still have The Voice(TM), and if Karen Gillan can't sing, she can always lip synch to someone else's voice (I normally hate that, but I'll make an exception here).
PRINCE ERIC: Jensen Ackles
Eric fancies himself a tough guy and a playboy, and he kind of is. However, he also has no clue how immature he is. Being a pampered Prince will do that. Mostly, he splits his time between flirting with the ladies at court and sailing. And then one stormy night, he nearly drowns and gets rescued by some girl with a beautiful singing voice. Goddamn. He's going to find her, even if everyone says he's crazy---because gets what he wants, reason be damned. And then he finds this gorgeous, mute redhead on the beach. She looks familiar... At first, she hangs on every word he says, but you know, a guy gets distracted, and then suddenly, three days later, she's running away...and now she has fins. And she's not so quiet. In fact, she's pretty loud and argumentative. Ah well, fiery is good, right? Well, hanging around with her is a lot more interesting than listening to courtiers suck up to the king.
I want the relationship between Ariel and Eric to start out as a friendship and escalate with UST in a Will They Or Won't They fashion. Yes, their romance must build---it will not be immediate, and it will not be easy. If it were easy, I'd just be reinforcing those horribly unrealistic Disney stereotypes about love and marriage that I hope to subvert here.
Also, Ariel and Eric end up forming a political alliance of sorts to keep the kingdoms of land and sea at peace. One of the season finales features Eric getting a big cart to carry Ariel up to the castle while she sits in a bucket (she couldn't use the magic she discovers at that time, probably due to Ursula's actions) so that she can seek an audience with the king, who won't listen to Eric, in order to prevent a war between land and sea. (We'll meet the king later.)
Now that we've established our two leads, it's time to meet the...
Supporting Characters
KING TRITON: Christopher Eccleston
The King of the Sea, ladies and gentlemen! You see, Triton is a widower who has managed to marry off five of his daughters, but he still has one left---his favorite, Ariel. He's over-protective of her and deep down, he just really doesn't want to let her go. That doesn't mean he's not something of a bigoted asshole, too. He sees those obnoxious landlubbers as hostile invaders who trespass on his dominion to devour his subjects, the fish (never mind that merpeople eat fish, too---it's a territorial issue, not an ethical one). And he's stubborn as hell. He knows that Ariel has always been a mischievous one, and he used to find it endearing, but now he thinks she getting far too old to be roaming around the kingdom like a curious little girl---it's time for her to grow up. So he's not exactly happy to find out that she's been spending time on the surface. And he has a lovely reaction when he finds out about her human friend. Think about the worst fight you've ever had with your parents and multiply that by ten. That said, he does have some touching moments with Ariel at certain points, mostly before he finds out about the whole "Dad, I'm dating outside my species" thing; even then, while their relationship is strained, it won't be completely hostile---it will still have its tender moments. (I'm kind of thinking of HRG and Claire as an example here, but not exactly. I'm also getting Uther and Arthur vibes here.)
Note on the casting: I know I use CE a lot in these things, but honestly, I knew I needed someone who could BOOM, "Have you lost your senses completely?! HE'S A HUMAN!!!!! YOU'RE A MERMAID!!!!", and I thought of CE's tirades during "Dalek" and at the end of "Bad Wolf," and I knew I'd found my Triton. I chose a picture of him as Claude, though, because Triton needs to rock a full beard. A clean-shaven Triton (or one with a thin beard) just doesn't work.
KING PHILIP: Nathan Fillion
Eric's older brother, and King of our nameless fantasy seaside kingdom. He is a completely original character with no basis in any of the versions of The Little Mermaid---in fact, Philip exists precisely because I needed a human foil fo Triton. However, he's more level-headed and understanding than Triton, to a certain degree. He worries about his younger brother, though, mostly for inheritance-related reasons.
Philip is an asexual being who's happy with some light flirting, but love and romance just aren't his thing, so he has never married and he has no children. He didn't really plan it that way, but he just never got around to it. This may seem irresponsible, but he has a younger brother, and as long as nothing happens to Eric, he has a suitable heir. But now he's worried about getting a wife for his playboy brother, and then one evening, he sees that Eric is becoming smitten with some pretty little redhead who goes swimming in nothing but some shells tied together with twine---or is that seaweed? So Philip knows he has to tighten the reigns. But there are also many brotherly bonding moments as well.
Oh, and a neighboring kingdom is threatening invasion through the mountains.
And then there's the BIG EPISODE where the merpeople reveal themselves to the human world. Shit is blown wide open.
So King Philip has a lot of crap to deal with. He will probably die in the penultimate season finale and then final season will deal with Eric as King.
URSULA: Queen Latifah
Ursula is my favorite character. I'm just getting that out of the way. In this retelling, she's not so much blatantly evil as she is morally gray, albeit kind of dark. For instance, she has Ariel sign a contract not to get her soul immediately, but because that's simply how magic works---at least all the magic she has ever encountered personally. Magic always comes at a great price, but if magic gets her power in this male-dominated sea, then she'll do anything to get it. Beauty also equals power, and magic gives her that---she's really upwards of 80, at least. Basically, I really want to use Ursula to explore the nature of power, especially female power, which would be good to contrast with the patriarchal power of Kings Triton and Philip.
A couple of decades back, before Ariel was even thought of, Triton overthrew Ursula, who'd been ruling for a long time. Discovering whether or not she was a bad ruler and what exactly went down will probably be an important subplot. Anyway, she has been exiled to a cave. Ariel met Ursula when she was still a little girl---she'd gotten lost while exploring for human artifacts, and Ursula took pity on Ariel and took care of her until she could find her way back. Since then, Ariel has kept sneaking off to see Ursula, and the sea-witch is the closest thing to a mother Ariel has ever had. Ursula does care about her, but she also enjoys having an unwiting spy into the palace's goings-on. I could explain this forever, but this is getting really long. TL; DR Ursula is complex and morally gray.
One last thing: I don't know if this would ever be mentioned in the show proper, since I want it to be family-friendly, but I think that Triton lost his virginity to Ursula when he was a young man, before he overthrew her. Who seduced whom is debatable. I think my brain just really wants to ship Triton/Ursula.
Ursula may or may not have CGI eels (who do not talk). I have issues with Flotsam and Jetsam, so I haven't fully decided yet.
SEBASTIAN: Jimmy Jean-Louis
Sebastian is now a merman. Because I never liked that obnoxious crab. Not even as a child. Also, as I said before: no talking animals.
Sebastian is Triton's closest advisor. No, he's not evil---in fact, he tries to reign the Sea King in when he goes on one of his anti-human tirades. Sebastian is not a big fan of humans, but he's also not a big fan of all-out war, either. He finds out about Ariel's friendship (and growing potential-courtship-thing) with Eric, and he urges her to end the relationship---more than once. Overall, he's strong-but-firm and very resilient, but not heartless. He's a person now, not an annoying attempt at comic relief.
FLOUNDER: Noah Gray-Cabey
Isn't he adorable? :D
His real name is Floondrilyishmishoofrianishmurf, but no one has the time or energy to say (or even memorize) all of that, so he's just Flounder. He's an orphaned mer-child who works as a servant in the palace kitchens, but he's become something of a surrogate little brother to Ariel, and even Triton takes the kid under his wing (that's one of the perks of being simply adorable). Flounder is very, very smart, but he's also a naive, tagalong kid who overestimates his own abilities sometimes. After a while, he insists on following Ariel to the surface, and he ends up admiring Eric. Flounder is the one who accidentally tells Triton about Ariel's adventures on the surface. Oops.
SCUTTLE: An Actual Seagull
Only because I pitched this show to my brother, and he asked who would play Scuttle. So this happened. He does not talk. He squawks (or calls or whatever), and the merpeople can understand him. Because he's special. I don't know. I just want my brother to be happy.
Big Plot Threads
- Ariel's mute surface adventure and her subsequent transformation back into a mermaid, which launches her friendship with Eric.
- Ariel and Eric's UST.
- Ariel discovering a new kind of magic that lets her temporarily walk on land without losing her voice.
- Triton's growing frustration with the human world.
- Ursula's machinations against Triton vs. her maternal feelings for Ariel.
- Philip trying to prepare Eric to assume the throne, should the need arise.
- Ariel and Triton's growing father/daughter problems not like that, you perverts.
Big Moments
- The whole transformation thing. Yeah, I think I need to stop reiterating that.
- Triton discovering Ariel's fetish for humanity.
- Eric goes off to war against that rival human kingdom I mentioned earlier because he wants to prove himself to his older brother. Ariel knows this is a bad idea, so she follows him by swimming upstream so she can stop him.
- The merpeople revealing their existence to the humans.
- Ariel being carried via cart-and-bucket to seek an audience with King Philip to prevent a human-merpeople war.
- King Philip's death and Eric's subsequent rise to the throne.
- Eric and Ariel's dynastic marriage in the series finale.
If this had a fandom, people would ship:
- Ariel/Eric
- Eric/Philip
- Ariel/Triton (fandom loves incest)
- Ariel/Ursula
- Ursula/Triton
- Triton/Philip (fandom loves Foe Yay)
- Triton/Sebastian
- Ariel/Flounder
- Eric/Flounder (fandom...is fandom)
And that's it. Wow, this is so much more detailed than the last show I developed. I could probably pitch it to a network. ...Maybe not.