CW is Making Little Women! At Least, That’s the Title

If you have fond memories of curling up to read about Meg, Jo, Amy, and Beth as they learn together, quarrel a little, and reach out to help others, or if you have chosen any of the movies to watch on a quiet evening at home, you may want to tuck all of that out of the way when you approach CW’s new Little Women. Tuck it very firmly and set a large rock on it.

According to Deadline, the show is to be written by Alexis Jolly, and will be:

as a hyper-stylized, gritty adaptation of the 1868 novel by Louisa May Alcott, in which disparate half-sisters Jo, Meg, Beth, and Amy band together in order to survive the dystopic streets of Philadelphia and unravel a conspiracy that stretches far beyond anything they have ever imagined – all while trying not to kill each other in the process.

In other words, this is not your mother’s Little Women. It’s not even your Little Women. It’s something else entirely. Something…gritty. Well, ok–Little Women is set during the Civil War. The girls’ troubles come from there, and their father is away serving as an army chaplain, so, I guess in that sense, there is some similarity.

I can’t think where the “disparate half sisters” comes from though, and I have spent far more time trying to figure it out than I’d like to admit. Unless Marmee has had a busy social calendar–which, in this new dystopia, is possible–there has to be some full- and/or step-sistering going on. Story-wise, I suppose that gives the girls the chance to quarrel over more than who burned whose manuscript. One would think surviving dystopian Philadelphia sufficient drama.

“Hyper-stylized” means–nothing, at this point. It could mean lots of atmospheric smoke, strange camera angles, abrupt cuts, lens flare (or no lens flare), or any number of other things. It sounds snazzy, though. Conspiracies, and dystopias, too, come in many flavors.

This could be a reasonably entertaining show, but why in the world is anyone calling it Little Women? Oh, all right, I know why: It’s because people like me will now be keeping an eye out for trailers and casting information out of sheer disbelief.

Oh, and hey, I just discovered Little Vampire Women, so if you’re looking for grit while you wait, I suppose there’s that. I’ve never read it–or even heard of it before now–so if you are daring enough to do so, let me know what you think!