Only a decade ago, it would be a social faux pas to call a book-based television series [1] just as good as its source material. Since we now live in the golden age of television, those days are long gone.
In the last year alone, we've seen critically acclaimed book adaptations like Big Little Lies [2] and The Handmaid's Tale [3] dominate award season. Because book-based shows have become so popular, it's not uncommon for a TV show to expand beyond the scope of the original novel. Television allows characters to grow and plots to thicken when novelists leave endings ambiguous, like in the case of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale [4].
From 13 Reasons Why [5] to Game of Thrones, we've rounded up seven series in which the show bypasses its source material.
13 Reasons Why
Adapted from Jay Asher's young adult novel, Netflix's 13 Reasons Why [6] revolves around Hannah Baker, a teenage girl who commits suicide. Hannah leaves behind a set of tapes addressed to individuals at her school. She instructs the listeners to pass on the tapes in a chain letter style and warns that a separate set will be released to the public if someone breaks the chain.
The series bypasses the novel in its second season as Hannah's case goes to trial. We hear from the tape subjects themselves as they testify in court. The second season ends with a cliffhanger that strongly suggests that there will be a third season. But Katherine Langford, who portrays Hannah, has announced that she will not appear in a third season of 13 Reasons Why [7].
The Handmaid's Tale
Hulu has become a serious contender in the streaming industry thanks in part to its highly lauded adaptation of Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel. The Handmaid's Tale [8] follows the life of Offred (or June, as she is actually named.) June is kidnapped and forced to become a child-bearer for the Waterford family in the fundamentalist republic of Gilead.
The first season roughly ends where Atwood's literary masterpiece concludes — with a little bit more dramatic license, of course. In the show, we know for sure that the protagonist is pregnant. The second season explores what happens after guards take June into a mysterious black van. It also ventures into her past and her pregnancy, as well as life in the Colonies, a toxic wasteland.
Big Little Lies
Based on Liane Moriarty's best-selling novel, the HBO series Big Little Lies is a murder mystery that unfolds the lives of privileged women who reside in Monterey, California. But it's not just a whodunit story. The show also presents a nuanced portrayal of domestic violence that ties in deeply with its plot. Like the book, the first season reveals the identities of the murderer and the murdered.
Although Big Little Lies was originally called a miniseries, HBO renewed the show for a second season due to its popularity. Its cast of A-list actors, which flaunts Nicole Kidman [9], Reese Witherspoon [10], Shailene Woodley, Zoe Kravitz, and Laura Dern, will make room for the one and only Meryl Streep [11] in season two. Besides the fact that it will bypass Moriarty's novel, we don't know much about the show's second season.
According to HBO [12], the second installment of this series will look into the "malignancy of lies, the durability of friendships, the fragility of marriage and, of course, the vicious ferocity of sound parenting."
The Night Manager
The British TV series The Night Manager received critical acclaim for its successful first season, which aired in the US on AMC. Based on John le Carré's spy thriller, the show stars Hugh Laurie, Tom Hiddleston, and Tom Holland [13]. The momentum initiated by these powerhouse actors hasn't gone unnoticed. BBC commissioned a second series in 2017 and as of now, scripts for the second season are in the works [14].
In season one, we meet Jonathan Pine (Tom Hiddleston), a hotel night manager and former British soldier who gets recruited by an intelligence operative to infiltrate a secret arms trade ran by criminal billionaire Richard Roper (Hugh Laurie). The endings of the novel and first season share similar contours, but they're rather different.
In the book, Pine ends up living with Roper's girlfriend Jed, whereas in the TV adaptation, his fate with her is more ambiguous. Roper too meets an uncertain future on screen. He gets carried away in a police van operated by his incensed buyers. When the second season comes, we will find out what happens to the villain as well as Jed and Pine's relationship.
House of Cards
The Netflix series House of Cards takes inspiration from Michael Dobbs's novels and a 1990 BBC miniseries adaptation of those novels. There are important differences between the show and its source material. In the American adaptation, the protagonist Frank Underwood is a South Carolina congressman who becomes president, not a Scottish politician named Francis Urquhart who becomes prime minister. Francis doesn't have a wife in the novels, but Frank's wife Claire plays a vital role in the show.
Last year, Netflix fired Kevin Spacey [15] following his sexual misconduct allegations and announced that it had started the sixth season without him. In the last installment of the novel trilogy, Francis gets shot. In the penultimate season, Frank resigns from his position as POTUS. Whether he lives or dies in the show, this is the first time we'll see the protagonist dethroned.
In the Netflix series, Claire will become president of the united states in the sixth and final season.
The Leftovers
Tom Perrotta helped translate his book The Leftovers onto the TV screen as a cocreator and screenwriter on the HBO adaptation, which stars Justin Theroux, Liv Tyler [16], and Ann Dowd. Perrotta tells an apocalyptic story in which 140 million people suddenly vanish from the Earth in an event called Sudden Departure. Both the first season and novel focus on the Garvey family and their life in the fictional small town of Mapleton.
The second season of The Leftovers imagines stories beyond the novel when the characters move to Jarden, Texas, where no one was affected by the Sudden Departure. By its last and third season, the show had long departed from its original source, and we see the characters in Australia seven years after the massive event.
Game of Thrones
By the end of its fifth season, HBO's Game of Thrones had bypassed its source material, George R.R. Martin's A Song of Fire and Ice series. But the show's writers and producers have definitely still been in communication with the novelist. In fact, many plot points from the fifth season onwards use original material that Martin had outlined for A Song of Fire and Ice's sixth book. According to showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss, there were "three holy sh*t" moments [17] when the show writers chatted with the fantasy author. Those moments include Stannis's sacrifice, Hodor's origin story, and, of course, the very end.
Martin is currently developing the series' sixth (The Winds of Winter) and seventh (A Dream of Spring) books. The final season of the HBO adaptation will come out in 2019, but Martin likely won't publish both books by then. The author has confirmed that The Winds of Winter will not be released in 2018 [18].