Continuing a development season in which the networks continue to take exciting pitches from the liquidation sale at their local Blockbuster, NBC has picked up a project based on the 2008 movie Marley & Me, easily the funniest dog comedy since Old Yeller. According to Deadline, Sex And The City’s Jenny Bicks will write the series pilot, which is being described as a sequel to the Jennifer Aniston-Owen Wilson film that followed the couple’s relationship with a rambunctious, loveable dog who died—fucking died right there at the end, and this is the harsh, inescapable reality of pet ownership that everyone must face. And hey, who wouldn’t want to watch a movie and now TV series that recreates that intense emotional attachment to—and inevitable pain—for a fictional animal?
The sadism continues with the TV series, which will pick up with the exact same couple and their two boys taking in yet another stray puppy who will only get old and die someday—a puppy they immediately name Marley, “for the fact that they use Marley’s old leash and tags on her.” Yes, why not. Why bother pretending as though this dog or this situation will be any different? Why not just saddle that puppy with the same name and name tags of the beloved pet you lost once already, and literally force it to take its place, so that the void its inevitable absence will someday create will look and feel exactly the same? Why not simply call your puppy Death? You sick fucking bastards.
Anyway, it’s unknown whether Marley & Me will be one of NBC’s many new anthology series, perhaps with the family taking in a new dog they call Marley every season, only to have it die in the finale.