The television spinoff. It’s hard to pull off. For every Frasier, which successfully moved Dr. Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammer) from the cozy confines of the Boston bar Cheers to Seattle, there’s a laundry list of failed TV continuations. Joey couldn’t pick up the slack in the wake of Friends.We all loved 21 Jump Street (and even the movie that spoofed it), but no one needed Richard Greico to keep going with Booker. And now that it has been confirmed that the popular Prime Video thriller Reacher is getting a spinoff show for supporting character Frances Neagley, I’m personally worrying that we are heading down the path toward The Ropers, and not a necessary continuation like Better Call Saul.
Deadline now confirms what they initially reported, that Reacher co-star Maria Sten will take her character Frances Neagley to her own show, tentatively titled Neagley. The brains behind the Reacher show are developing Neagley, with executive producer and showrunner Nick Santora teaming with his Prison Break colleague Nicholas Wootton to bring this new show to Prime Video. It’s noted in the story that Alan Ritchson is expected to appear in Neagley. They even go so far as to say that the upcoming Reacher Season 3, which adapts a Lee Child book that Neagley’s not a part of, could be used to set up the spinoff.
That’s where I, as a diehard fan of the Lee Child series of Jack Reacher books, start to grow a tiny bit concerned. Persuader, the book on which Reacher Season 3 will be based, is an airtight thriller set off the coast of Maine, with Jack Reacher (Alan Ritchson) infiltrating a criminal organization to help locate and possibly retrieve a kidnapped federal agent. It’s a textbook example of Reacher having to lone-wolf it. Shoe-horning Neagley into the story because you want to set up a spinoff is the first sign of artistic compromise, instead of doing what’s right for the story.
It was this response, as part of the Deadline article, that made me worry that Neagley is working against the impact of the character. Speaking about the opportunity to play Frances Neagley in a spinoff show, Maria Sten said:
I’m beyond thrilled to further explore the world of Neagley and her somewhat mysterious background. She’s such a wonderful character to play and I’m very excited for everyone to get to know her a little better.
Here’s the thing, though. As much as I like Maria Sten in the part – and I do think she’s an excellent choice to play Neagley on screen – the character of Frances Neagly works best as an enigma. She appears when Reacher needs her, efficiently kicks tons of ass, and glides back into the shadows. I’m not fully saying that there’s no way to make an interesting show around Neagley. But I’ve always seen her (and most of the side characters in Reacher’s universe) as, “The less we know about them, the more effective they are as assets.” Peeling back the surface on a character like Neagley almost negates her impact.
I promise to go into Neagley with an open mind. I like Maria Sten in the role. When given the chance to interview her, she has shown enormous respect for Lee Child’s source materials, so I hope that Santora and Wootton cook up a storyline that’s worthy of the spinoff. Because there are countless Child books that can carry additional seasons of Reacher, so a lackluster spinoff will just have me questioning why that time wasn’t spent on more Reacher seasons, while Alan Ritchson is still willing to suit up as the wandering spirit of vengeance.
More on Reacher Season 3, and the Neagley spinoff, as they develop.
