I am participating in the Get Rec’d: A Movie/TV/Book List Challenge and this is the twentieth week’s entry.  I have decided to be bold and list a response for all three categories; a movie, a television show, and a book.

Week 20: Favorite World Building

Movie: Terminator (1984)

From IMDB: A seemingly indestructible humanoid cyborg is sent from 2029 to 1984 to assassinate a waitress, whose unborn son will lead humanity in a war against the machines, while a soldier from that war is sent to protect her at all costs.  Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Michael Biehn

In the beginning, there wasn’t any plan to make Terminator into a franchise spanning decades. The simple storyline and complex characters laid enough groundwork for sequels as well as a great television series canceled too soon (Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles). Not to mention how it was the beginning of switching over from aliens to technology as the new bad guy.

Television: Carnivàle (2003-2005)

From IMDB: During the Great Depression, an Oklahoma farm boy and a charismatic minister learn that they are key players in a proxy war being fought between Heaven and Hell.  Michael J. Anderson, Adrienne Barbeau, Clancy Brown

Carnivàle burst with potential but only survived two seasons on HBO. The characters, the setting, the other-worldly elements mixed with the harsh realities, and the themes all were ripe to keep going. The series could have switched over to either comic books or novels and not missed a beat. The first two seasons only scratched the surface of what it could have been.

Book: The Eyre Affair [A Thursday Next Series] (2001) by Jasper Fforde

From Goodreads: Great Britain circa 1985: time travel is routine, cloning is a reality (dodos are the resurrected pet of choice), and literature is taken very, very seriously. Baconians are trying to convince the world that Francis Bacon really wrote Shakespeare, there are riots between the Surrealists and Impressionists, and thousands of men are named John Milton, an homage to the real Milton and a very confusing situation for the police. Amidst all this, Acheron Hades, Third Most Wanted Man In the World, steals the original manuscript of Martin Chuzzlewit and kills a minor character, who then disappears from every volume of the novel ever printed!

Enter Thursday Next. She’s the Special Operative’s renowned literary detective, and she drives a Porsche. With the help of her uncle Mycroft’s Prose Portal, Thursday enters the novel to rescue Jane Eyre from a heinous act by Acheron Hades of literary homicide. Can Thursday save Jane Eyre and Bronte’s masterpiece? And what of the Crimean War? Will it ever end? And what about those annoying black holes that pop up now and again, sucking things into time-space voids . . .

The Eyre Affair starts us off on our journey with Thursday Next. Fforde’s world building is fantastic both in creating the world Thursday lives in as well as the world literary characters occupy when they are not being read. The British wit and extensive literary references work whether you know the books or not. Once you meet Mrs. Havershim in the second book, your opinion of her in Great Expectations will change forever.

Coming Up Next

Next week will be “Road Trip!”

What are your picks? Let us know in the comments.