'Inception' Would Make a Great Television Series

There have been a lot of film-to-television adaptations. Just last season we had two attempts at finding big-screen gold on the small screen, with 'Eastwick' fizzling and 'Parenthood' eking out a season renewal. But why reach so far back when there's a great big movie in the multiplexes right now that's blowing people's minds, and could do it again on a weekly basis?

'Inception' is a film that works because it's a perfect blend of character and concept. Critics wondered if it was too "smart" for audiences, and it's true that the film doesn't hold your hand as it weaves its way through a multi-layered narrative. But with a $62.7 million dollar opening weekend atop the box office, clearly audiences could handle its big ideas.

And its because of the brilliance of those big ideas that 'Inception' could be the foundation for a fantastic television series.

MASSIVE SPOILER WARNING for this entire article!! We recommend you go see the film and then come back so we can talk properly.

We loved the world James Cameron weaved in 'Avatar,' and the Middle Earth Peter Jackson showed us with 'The Lord of the Rings,' but we're not so foolish as to believe those worlds could sustain a television series. Nor should they. As fully realized as they were, those were stories about characters and their very personal struggles.

What Christopher Nolan accomplished with 'Inception,' was to give us a concept so much bigger than the story he chose to tell within its confines. He handed us the keys to the world of dreams, complete with rules of logic on how both reality and time work within those realms work. As much as we loved the characters of Dom (Leonardo DiCaprio), Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Ariadne (Ellen Page) in the film, we immediately saw beyond them.

High Concept

At its heart, 'Inception' is a very clever heist film. You have a team of crooks who go into people's minds and extract critical information from their dream state. Extraction is almost common practice, while Inception, the notion of planting an idea in someone's mind in such a way that they'll think it's their own, is relatively uncharted territory. Imagine what lobbyists in Washington would do for this ability?

It's unlikely Dom heads up the only extraction team on the planet, so the series would just choose to follow a different group as they take on various clients. And even with the limited budget of television, the multi-layered dreamscape could be something wondrous and magical. In fact, the effects looking a little unrealistic would work within the concept because no matter how ridiculous our dreams may be from time to time, we always believe in them implicitly. The extractors would know it wasn't real, but that wouldn't make it any less dangerous.

Story Potential

What do you do when the mark is a lucid dreamer? What if the Architect doesn't make it into the dream world for some reason and you wind up in the true dreams of the mark? What happens when the dream changes abruptly into something completely different?

What if a rival extraction team hijacks your dreamscape and traps one of your teammates there, or pulls you into their Architect's reality? What if the mark is in a coma? What if everyone wakes up after a case, but one team member just doesn't? Can you go back? What if they're not there?

Our team would be established as the new go-to team for Inception. With Dom out of the game -- no matter how you look at the ending of the film we can say that -- someone else needs to step up and explore this new possibility. Now you can play with moral dilemmas, like when the team doesn't agree with the idea to be implanted. Or, what if the idea is implanted incorrectly, and the mark "comes up" with the wrong idea and starts to move forward with it? It would certainly be a challenge to try and correct it.

Perhaps our professionals could follow the lead of the team on TNT's 'Leverage' and decide to only take jobs that will help people in need, as opposed to just going with the highest bidder. Maybe their leader had a true change of heart, but had to implant the idea of doing good into his team's minds to keep them on board. What happens when the mark realizes he's been the target of an inception after-the-fact and rejects the idea implanted? What happens if someone on the team realizes what's been done and traps the leader in limbo during a mission?

Like Dom's inability to let go of his guilt regarding his wife's death allows his subconscious version of her to step into the dreamscapes, these characters could have equally dangerous emotional baggage. No matter how much time they've spent in dreams, the dreamscape is a world we'll never fully understand.

The movie established the dangers of filling the dream with true memories, but some memories are so strong they can't easily be blocked out. Maybe someone lost a sister or family member to limbo, and they keep seeing them in the dreams, but they're not sure if it's their true sister, or just their subconscious projection of her. Maybe the dreamscape is a repressed memory, so the Architect doesn't even realize the danger their creating for the entire team.

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The possibilities are truly limitless within this world, and can allow shorter done-in-one episodes as well as longer story arcs occurring across a single season -- which still could be the span of an afternoon considering how time is slower the deeper in you go. Christopher Nolan may have told the story he wanted to with 'Inception,' but he left behind these awesome new toys that others could pick up and play with. Whether on a big network or on cable, with the right vision and a fresh batch of characters, 'Inception' could follow in the footsteps of 'Stargate,' by spawning a hugely successful television franchise out of a single film.

With hints of 'Quantum Leap,' 'Leverage' and 'The Matrix,' we could see this appealing to as wide an audience as the film. We know there's the whole issue of securing the rights and pulling together the right talent to make this happen, so we'll give you until the 2011-2012 season. Then we're going to come knocking.