After creating two TV shows in which underdogs are pitted against the elite in scenarios involving murder and being rude about catering, Veronica Mars and Party Down’s Rob Thomas is going back to one of the original rich vs. poor vs. food stories with a contemporary TV take on Les Misérables for Fox, one that doesn’t involve Hugh Jackman singing. And—because this is 2013, and Thomas therefore has a choice among making a cop, doctor, or lawyer show—he’ll turn Jean Valjean into a “brilliant lawyer running a legal exoneration program who fights to evade the consequences of his own unjust conviction many years before.” In the modern, sexy lawyer version, presumably he is arrested for stealing a loaf of bread, then having sex with it.
Anyway, much like The Fugitive before it (and much like ABC’s Revenge is to The Count Of Monte Cristo), the show seems only loosely based on Les Misérables, with its Jean Valjean, Attorney At Being Awesome character navigating “high society” while also eluding his Javert stand-in, a ruthless U.S. Attorney, while also also dealing with “his tumultuous family and romantic life.” Nevertheless, it will still be associated with Les Misérables, a title that remains very popular.