In Entertainment Weekly's Power Issue, the magazine threw out a casual idea I actually think is rather brilliant: Claire Danes for the Prime Suspect remake. It must be said that I am opposed to the idea of a Prime Suspect remake is a poor idea, since the original is quite brilliant (a side note: I'm about to embark on a big British and Canadian Crime Television project, about which more to come). But if it must be done at all, Danes is not a bad suggestion at all.
And it's a great reason for the primary reason Entertainment Weekly suggests it couldn't happen. "Too bad NBC's attempt to remake Prime Suspect requires an older actress," the magazine wrote. "Or does it?" I actually think remaking a 20-year-old series about a woman's struggle to gain control of a detective squad suspicious of her gender in a volatile urban environment needs to have a younger main character in order to recreate the core tensions. We live in a more sophisticated environment than the Britain of 1991, and American audiences are used to seeing women in key roles on detective squads in police procedurals. But if the series made Jane Tennison younger, there could be legitimate questions about her experience that are inflected by her gender.
That tension can't be feigned; it's the whole reason the series, grim and wonderful as it is, stands out. The crimes are just as gruesome as an SVU episode, but the stakes extend far beyond the crime scene. If Jane Tennison fails, British policing will too: