NBC’s Crusoe
I saw a promo for NBC’s new “epic series” called Crusoe a couple of weeks (maybe months?) back, but for some reason it slipped my memory until I saw a magazine featuring it today at the supermarket. I found an extended preview, and it actually looks worthwhile:
I have never read Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe — I know a shipwrecked man finds himself on an island, but that’s the limit of my knowledge. Since this is America, and this is NBC, and they are trying to make money, it probably will not be true to the book to a great extent, but who knows? Certainly not I. I plan to watch it, and if I rave about it (and that’s not terribly likely, as it simply looks like a TV version of Pirates with some Lost thrown in), but it is a terrible representation of the novel, forgive me — I am walking into this completely unbiased and uneducated in Daniel Defoe matters. 
The 2 hour season premier will air on October 17th at 8e/7c, and it runs for 13 Fridays — that’s pretty lengthy. If only such time had been paid to some of those Austen adaptations. Philip Winchester stars as Robinson Crusoe; a Montana native, he has appeared in such films as Thunderbirds, Flyboys, and Shaking Dream Land. Successful Zimbabwean actor Tangayi Chirisa stars as Crusoe’s native friend, Friday. The show also stars Joaquim del Ameida as Santana (captain of the Spanish Guard), Mia Maestro as Olivia, Sam Neill (Jurassic Park!! One of my favorites!) as Jeremiah Blackthorn, and Anna Walton as Susannah.
Daniel Defoe wrote the original novel as The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe in 1719. It is often regarded as the first novel in English, though there are many candidates vying for that title. Defoe wrote it and named it as if Crusoe was writing the tale himself, and it won praise almost universally after its publication. By the end of the 20th century, no other novel had inspired so much fanaticism as Crusoe, and there is even a term for the many spin-offs: Robinsonade. Crusoe is further testament to that accolade, but many would easily argue that Austen’s works are now the most popular classics, with fanfiction, sequels, adaptations, &c. galore.
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