The trailer for the cancelled TV adaptation of the Eisner Award winning comic book Locke and Key has been released so fans of the series may wail and lament.
Fox is kind of known for making odd decisions when it comes to its show lineup. A particularly weird one was the decision not to pick up the TV adaptation of Joe Hill (whose full name is actually Joe Hillstrom King, you may have heard of his dad) and Gabriel Rodriguez’s absolutely fantastic comic book series, Locke and Key.
The pilot for the series was screened for attendees at the San Diego Comc-Con 2011. The trailer above, confirmed to be the real thing by producer and writer Josh Friedman, was apparently cobbled together from footage of said pilot as a prototype TV spot for Fox’s advertising department, presumably before Fox decided to say “no thank you.”
When Fox declined to pick up the pilot, producers pitched the show to other channels, but eventually rising costs forced them to abandon the project altogether. This trailer and the pilot it’s based on will be all we’ll ever see of the series. A shame, because judging by the trailer, all the right ingredients are there. Sure, they seem to have replaced happy-go-lucky kiddywink Bode with a nasally goblin, and Kinsey seems to have abandoned her punky stylings in favor of overwhelming blandness (though that does match her character arc in the comics) but the rest of the cast seems dead on. Particularly Tyler, who is suitably surly, and the stunning Ksenia Solo who plays the scheming well-dwelling, mega-bastard Dodge.
For the uninitiated, Locke and Key follows the trials and tribulations of the Locke children, who move into their father’s childhood home after his violent murder at the hands of a teenage psychopath. There, they discover the house holds a series of keys which have numerous, plot twisting powers. One can open any door, another can open a person’s mind allowing people to pluck thoughts and ideas out of them, while others can change their gender or race, or even turn them into giants. The series is endlessly inventive, funny and very tense. Oh, and the art is really pretty.
TV series or no, Locke and Key is still going strong. Issues of Clockworks, the series’ fifth story arc, are available in comic books stores right now.
No word on if or when, we’ll get to see the pilot in its entirety.
