Remember Prime Suspect? Remember what a rich and perfectly meted-out world that was? Remember how, when it ended, you felt like an entire story had been told? Well it’s back, with a sequel set 20 years before the original series. And remember Downton Abbey? Remember how it limped to the finishing line in such bad shape that you were actively glad they weren’t making any more episodes? Well they’re making more episodes, with a proposed prequel set 30 years before the original series.
It’s hard to shake the suspicion that every film and television show you ever loved will eventually become a prequel (hello Taken, Better Call Saul, Fear The Walking Dead and possibly Empire). Worse, the prequels have started to become so formulaic, filling in such minor plot holes so unnecessarily, that you know what they’re going to be like before they even happen. In fact, you could probably play bingo with all the hoary old prequel tropes. In fact, we should.
1. Young WPC Jane Tennison stares longingly at a bottle of whisky.
Prime Suspect 1973.
2. A pre-Saviors Negan is asked by a man in a leather jacket if he’d like to play baseball.
Fear The Walking Dead.
3. Two key characters from the original fail to recognise each other.
4. We see young Bryan Mills enrolling in Particular Skills college.
Taken.
5. Someone says the title of the original show out loud.
6. “A woman detective? You’re having a laugh, ain’t ya?”
Prime Suspect 1973.
7. Someone has a shower.
Bates Motel.
8. The star of the original show turns up, looking inexplicably haggard given the chronology.
9. Someone says “You’ll never die” to Isis the dog.
Downton Abbey prequel.
10. You can hear a producer laughing at a giant pile of money offscreen.
11. Mike Ehrmantraut finds a really good anti-ageing cream in his final scene
Better Call Saul.
