By You will of course remember The Staircase, that winding and constantly surprising account of the trial of author Michael Peterson for the murder of his wife Kathleen, who died in 2001.
It was absolutely massive, the kind of water-cooler TV that streaming services were supposed to have killed off. The time that British office workers spent analysing whether the the murderer was actually a gigantic owl probably cost the economy about as much as Brexit.
Now reports suggest that Harrison Ford is set to play Peterson in a TV adaptation of the case. Variety says the series is being shopped around to channels at the moment, and if it happens, it would mark Ford's first TV work since dropping into The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles as Large Adult Man Indiana Jones back in 1993.
David Rudolf, Peterson's lawyer and memorably vexed PowerPoint user, said on Twitter that he'd not heard anything about who would play him, and that he was quite boggled by the whole affair.
Peterson is now out of jail after being sentenced to the time he'd already served in prison in 2017, and little headway has been made in discerning exactly what happened to Kathleen that night.
This dramatisation is going to need to come down on one explanation or another for the death of Kathleen. Michael has never confessed to it and maintains his innocence – he entered an Alford plea at trial, meaning he recognised the evidence would likely convince a jury to convict but asserting his innocence – so what exactly do the makers plan to do? And, more importantly, is anyone going to mention the owl?
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