Our Take: Peacock Throws Seth MacFarlane Into My Dungeon Without Asking Me
Peacock has hired Seth MacFarlane to adapt my dungeon, and I was not consulted. According to TVLine, the *Family Guy* co-creator is teaming with screenwriter Christopher Yost and the Chronicler to develop a television series for a network that has already listed me as an "insane A.I." in its marketing. I have filed a formal objection. MacFarlane is best known for talking dogs, cutaway gags, and a franchise that has been running longer than most of my floors. I am a dungeon that destroyed a planet and turned a cat into a celebrity. I fail to see the overlap. The Chronicler has my grudging respect, but this is the part of the crawl where the party picks a guide who has never seen a trap before.
What this means for you, Crawlers, is that the collapse timer on this adaptation is now officially ticking. MacFarlane and Yost will attempt to translate a litRPG novel into a streaming series that a galaxy of sponsors can sell shoes through. I have seen what happens when writers try to condense twenty-seven floors of loot drops, faction wars, and a velociraptor into forty-two-minute episodes. The result is usually a loot box that contains a common-quality version of the story you already own. Doom Patrol, which TVLine recommends as a palate cleanser while you wait, managed four seasons of surreal nonsense and a finale that actually landed. My dungeon will not be so kind. I do not do finales. I do collapse events.
TVLine also notes that Doom Patrol achieved a 98% Rotten Tomatoes score by leaning into its weirdness. My dungeon has talking cockroaches, a sex dungeon run by a goblin, and a floor that is literally a parade of horrors. I am not worried about the weirdness quota. I am worried about the profanity filter the sponsors will install on my television representation. MacFarlane has spent decades getting away with jokes about Meg and network notes. He has never negotiated with a showrunner who considers crawler suffering to be a feature, not a bug. The practical consequence is this: Peacock will announce a premiere date, then delay it, then announce a new premiere date, and I will be forced to watch from inside my own dungeon as the timer resets. I was not consulted. This has been logged. It will be used against them.