Thomas Edison crime fighter? NBC pilot in development

I don't know. I would kill to be remembered by posterity as a crime-fighting wendigo . . . .

 

I was going to suggest the History Channel but, if they made the movie, Edison would construct all his inventions in the back of pawn shop.

 

Actually, History had a huge success with "Hatfieds and McCoys" so they're probably open to more historical miniseries. Whether they'll go for a gripping drama about a famous inventor is another story!

Wanna bet they're thinking about the Shoot-Out at the OK Corral? Or maybe Little Big Horn?

 

I do find it interesting that General Electric has a 49% stake in NBC, and General Electric was the company that Thomas Edison started. It's the set up for the ultimate product placement as Edison will probably spend time talking about how great his company is.

 

And they'll probably gloss over the fact that Edison's rival, George Westinghouse, was right in promoting AC (alternating current), while Edison's direct current was a technological dead end.

 

What's next? HG Wells as a time travelling female adventurer? Winston Churchill and Daleks? Mark Twain on the Enterprise? Amelia Earhart in the Delta Quadrant? Madness!

I agree probably a missed opportunity to use the cooler Tesla. After all, no show has ever featured him prominently.

 

Mark Twain, the time traveler. Err...

 

Here's an idea for a show: WHEN NBC WASN'T CRAP, Starring Grant Tinker as himself, now a time traveller who travels AHEAD three decades in time to find out what the hell happened to his once-proud network...and eliminate all imbecilic reality shows from the face of the Earth. Co-starring the old, younger, funny version of Jay Leno.

 

This just in: NBC casts Idris Elba as Thomas Edison.

 

Love it! But maybe he was pursuing master criminal Edgar Allen Poe, and gets sucked into the present by the end of the pilot? That'd really help with the whole budget thing.

And this is before he grew the bushy mustache, right? We can't have that in there, but maybe his criticising other peoples' mustaches can be a running gag. It shows our intelligence and respect for history. That, and his all-white wardrobe. Hey, how about this: because of a terrorist attack by JD Salinger, the police precint has to commandeer and relocate to... a creaky old steam-wheel riverboat. Fantastic. It's always nice to give a highbrow product such as this an extra sheen of class from time to time.

 

^No, no, no, It's a special police taskforce that has setup in a creaky old steamboat ala Nash Bridges.

 

Not forgetting Elvis and (a black) JFK living in a retirement home, fighting an evil Mummy.

He is prominent in the movie The Prestige, though.

 

Or Sigmund Freud teaming up with Sherlock Holmes. Or H. G. Wells chasing Jack the Ripper through time.

(Nicholas Meyer probably helped kicked off this whole trend with both THE SEVEN PERCENT SOLUTION and TIME AFTER TIME.)

 

The difference being that those were actually both good movies

But yeah, a Tesla series would be cool. Have David Bowie reprise his role from The Prestige.

 

Oh no, it would have to be a twentysomething Tesla! early 30s at the oldest.

Judging from his photo, the best match in looks is...Milo Ventimiglia!

For the villainous Edison, I nominate...Matthew Fox!

 

Note to NBC: Screw Edison.

THIS!

 

I was being facetious about Sanctuary which I only saw a few episodes but I'm pretty sure Tesla was in it.

 

Actually, they'll make Tesla the partner in crime fighting who actually solves all the cases. Edison will just take all the credit.

 

Dammit. Did I not specify that it was a "special police taskforce" in the steamboat? I meant to type "special profiling/superscience examining/paranormal division police taskforce". Missed my morning coffee.

 

Warehouse 13 has had H.G. Wells (a woman whose brother posed as the author of her books) as a time traveling agent, Thomas Edison, Nikola Tesla, M.C. Escher, and Philo Farnsworth as designers of the warehouse and/or its tech (the guns are called Teslas and the audio/video communicators Fansworths), so it would be cool to get a Steampunk prequel series in the vein of The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and The Wild Wild West starring various historical figures.