Ben had the following as his AOL status today:

The Browncoats Prayer

OUR JOSS,
Who art in Hollywood,
Whedon be thy name.

Thy ideas come,
and will be done
On film as they are in Comic Books.

Give us someday a little more Serenity,
And deliver us from Reality Television.
For thine is the Wit, the Wisdom,
And the Imagination

Forever and ever,

AMEN.

And it got me thinking again about the current state of American television.  Yes, there are some new shining bright spots (Pushing Daisies, House, How I Met Your Mother among them), but most of TV is aweful.  It’s been a few years since Joss had a show on TV, and all of the attempted shows by Tim Minear (who worked with Whedon on Angel and Firefly) have managed 6 or less episodes aired on TV (Wonderfalls, The Inside, Drive).  It’s a sad state of affairs for TV.

Recently I was introduced to Blake’s 7, which ran 1978-1981 on the BBC (I’m 1/2 way through series 3 now).  I was introduced to it by Joe, who sold me on the story that Whedon was in the UK when in originally aired.  You can definitely see that Firefly owes quite a bit to Blake’s 7, in a very good way.  Blake’s 7 has no issue in killing off characters, which I suspect may have also influenced Whedon in his writing.

The failure of Minear’s series, all of which had really compelling characters and stories, makes me wonder if there is a place for people like Whedon or Minear in American TV at the moment.  But maybe there is a better place for them, like the BBC.  The BBC is in remake mode now, reviving Dr Who, doing a new Prisoner, so why not bring back Blake’s 7.  And why not bring Whedon over to do it.  Whedon’s take on Servalan, Avon, Blake and the rest would be really interesting, and I think incredibly compelling.

Not that Joss will ever read this, or anyone that could make this happen, but if I had one wish in the whole realm of TV right now it would be to see a Whedon powered remake of Blake’s 7.