[bizzybody]

I call it "little housing" when a TV show or movie is based on a book or series of books and the only thing they have in common are the names of the characters and perhaps where the story is set.

Why? Because that's what was done with the Little House on the Prairie TV series. Charles Ingalls always had a beard while Isaiah Edwards was always clean shaven. Albert? The Ingalls never adopted a son. The Oleson family couldn't stand the frontier life and went back east after a short time. The Ingalls did live in Walnut grove but only for a short time. Most of the time in the books they lived in De Smet, Iowa and they had a home in town after living on a farm in a board and batten and tar paper claim shanty for a while on a farm. Mary loses her sight in a different way and other than Laura and Almanzo getting married, their tale is completely changed.

Still a good TV series but the books are much better. There have been some TV movies and attempts to reboot the series but all of them strayed even farther from the books and thankfully failed to get picked up.

If there's any outfit that could do a faithful video adaptation of the Dresden Files series it's the company that has done some of Terry Pratchett's Discworld books. Pratchett said watching their shows is like walking around inside his own head.

Any fans of the CBC's Heartland here? I haven't read the books the series is "based on" but I do know they didn't even bother to keep several of the character's names the same and some relationships have been radically altered. In the books, Lou married the veterinarian, not some oil company guy. 'Course they also relocated the setting to Alberta from the USA. I like the series anyway but to claim it's "based on" a book series is an extreme stretch. Little Housed even more than the Little House series. :P It is to Canadian TV what Downton Abbey and Call the Midwife are to British TV. Most popular series ever.