<caption>Copyright for featured image: Apple TV+</caption>
I was trolling the internet, looking for something amusing to temporarily lighten the devastating blow of Robert Redford’s passing, when I found a bright bit of comedy in a Mashable article. The author, Kristy Puchko, points out that, within the show Platonic starring Rose Byrne and Seth Rogen, there is a TV series that sounds both like a hilarious spoof and a tantalizing television possibility: The Young Darcy Mysteries.
Yes, you heard that right. A TV series where a young Fitzwilliam Darcy solves crimes.
Is this ridiculous? Blasphemous, even? Yes. And yet, Ms. Puchko is VERY CORRECT when she says she needs it to be real. I, too, need it to be real.
Come on, you know you’d find it delightful. Especially if the spoofiness remains intact. I don’t want a Young Darcy Mysteries that thinks it’s on par with P&P adaptations… I want a tongue-in-cheek series that is aware of all the dimensions it’s sending up. A Murder by Death or a Clue, but set in the world of Jane Austen. This is just MY preference, but I did once make a fake trailer for a fake adaptation of Walden in which Henry David Thoreau is a zombie hunter. So, again… I think the series should spoof all the stuff that inspired it, but also to have fun with the subject.
The Young Darcy Mysteries is mentioned in Episode 8 of Season Two. A teenager describes it as “It’s like the biggest show on… it’s a prequel to Pride and Prejudice but from the perspective of Mr. Darcy when he was young. Also, Mr. Darcy is a detective, a fencer, a boxer, a dirigible test pilot, and an amateur chemist.” Milo Manheim plays the actor playing Young Darcy.
The teenager and her father even watch an episode. It seems hilarious. I want more.
So… what’s Platonic going to do about it? Come on. Let’s get the movement going.
