okay so i just finished the noughts & crosses tv show and i have many things to say that are all going to sound along the grain of the elitist “the book is better” tone

FIRST OF ALL, i wanna commend them on the visual world building, i don’t think they had a massive budget for this show but the effort put in regardless was truly incredible, it was vivid and well done

SECONDLY i also wanna commend them on their casting choices because the entire cast acted so well

when i heard my favourite book series ever was getting a tv adaptation i truly wanted it to be verbatim from the book bc idk if anybody you’ve read the noughts & crosses series by malorie blackman but it truly is the most impactful YA fiction i have ever read

okay now then the next part is gonna include MAJOR SPOILERS so if you wanna watch the show or read the book, do that before you come read this thread (seriously, go into the book not knowing anything about what it is)

primarily i was most concerned with the tv show’s intense micro-level fixation on callum and sephy’s love story. i’m not saying the story isn’t about love (it definitely is). i just think the introduction of lekan’s character was unnecessary.

i understand it in the context of the characters being much older in the show than the book, but the time of the show spent on the whole lekan/callum feud was time that could have been used to develop callum’s character later in the series when he joins the LM

at the same time, paradoxically, i also find that the effort blackman put into building up the love story (their childhood friendship, the secrecy of their meetings, the beach, etc.) was kind of wasted in the show. he saw her at her house after a few years and ??? seemed rushed