LogFAQs > #979532391

ai123 posted...

I saw some blurb for this show saying it was about 'five friends' (all young and telegenic) using their gifts to fight an existential threat.

And I thought: is there some kind of shitty YA version of the novel that they are adapting instead?

While I have no doubt that some of the casting decisions were to more broadly increase audience appeal, part of it was to address a genuine logistical issue arising from a first person book to a TV series. The books have quite a bit of internal monologing. This just doesn't translate to TV well. Especially if the monologing is about mathematics, physics and philosophy. Splitting the book roles to make the cast to make it bigger allows for the characters to actually talk out these ideas among each other. Which typically works a lot better than having a voice over monologs.

That said I do have issues with how they linked up the main characters of each novel and made them all friends. That just makes things feel unnecessarily small.