Step right up, lovers of awesome historical ladies and female-led TV shows. We have something for you. Two things, in fact.
Werner Herzog has been working for quite some time on Queen of the Desert, a biopic of the early 20th century explorer/politician/archaeologist Gertrude Bell. Now it’s looking like the movie might actually happen, since it’s found a new star in Nicole Kidman. Previously Naomi Watts was on-board to play Bell, who was born to a rich British family and decided that instead of getting married and having babies she’d really like to spend her money exploring the world, kthx. Often called “the female Lawrence of Arabia,” she was actually a friend and ally of T.E. Lawrence. Throughout the teens and twenties she was integral in British imperial policy in the Middle East. Basically, she lived one heck of an interesting life, and I’m excited to see it on the big screen.
The other bit of news is that Friday Night Lights producers Jason Katims and Kerry Ehrin are developing a female buddy cop dramedy for NBC. Via Deadline:
“the untitled project tells the darkly comedic story of two unlikely female partners in the Boston PD — one a fortysomething single mom with a ton of baggage, the other an ambitious Latina twentysomething wannabe-hotshot with a lot to learn. It’s a cat-and-mouse game of who-can-you-trust told through the lens of two high-spirited, slightly insane professionals.”
Hmm. Sounds a little blah to me, to be honest, but there’s not much you can tell from one sentence, and perhaps if I’d ever gotten around to watching Friday Night Lights I’d be over the moon about this. Regardless, the fact that it’ll bring more gender and racial diversity to network television is a definite plus.
Have networks finally started to realize that people actually want to—gasp—see shows with female leads?
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Published: Sep 12, 2013 02:45 pm