Remember Clueless? The classic ‘90s movie that told a surprisingly thoughtful story about humorously shallow teens and is generally just a good, fun-time flick with some vintage Paul Rudd? Well, CBS TV Studios apparently does not, because it is now developing a new TV version of Clueless that is being pitched as a high school drama that centers on Dionne (the character played by Stacey Dash in the movie) as she investigates the disappearance of her best friend Cher (Alicia Silverstone in the movie). This comes from Deadline, which says it’s “Mean Girls meets Riverdale meets a Lizzo music video,” and also a “baby pink and bisexual blue-tinted, tiny sunglasses-wearing, oat milk latte and Adderall-fueled look” at what happens when the most popular girl in school goes missing and her friend has to both pick up up the social slack and solve a mystery.
We would never, ever judge a TV show based solely on its premise, but this sounds a whole lot like someone had an idea for a show and someone else had the rights to Clueless, so they decided to see what kind of wild shit they could do if they got together. The people in question are Will & Grace writers Jordan Reddout and Gus Hickey, plus No Tomorrow creator Corinne Brinkerhoff and original Clueless producer Robert Lawrence. CBS, meanwhile, has a deal with Brinkerhoff and holds the rights to the 1996 Clueless TV show, so that’s how this happened, and Deadline notes that it’s getting “strong interest from multiple streamers” and The CW—which makes sense, since the only way to make this more of a CW thing would be to add the Green Arrow or a vampire.
Hopefully there’s a grim, Veronica Mars season four-style cover of “Kids In America” for the theme song.