A&E remaking the French series The Returned for Americans who don't speak no French

By Sean O'Neal | September 27, 2013 | 9:21pm

Aux Features TV

Sundance won’t premiere the French supernatural drama Les Revenants (The Returned) until October 31, but already A&E has announced plans for an English-language remake—so nuts to you, Frenchy. America will just engineer its own version of the show created by Fabrice Gobert (itself based on the 2004 film from Robin Campillo), using big trucks and old-fashioned American know-how. Or, in the event American know-how is unavailable, possibly Carlton Cuse, who’s already collaborated before with the network on turning established horror properties into TV shows by running Bates Motel, and who, with his work on Lost, is similarly well-versed in series where dead people suddenly show up, looking just like they used to and unaware that they’re dead—all without explanation. (And then the explanation all but ruins it.)

The Returned not only has parallels to the French show it’s based on, it’s also reminiscent of ABC’s upcoming Resurrection—which, to make matters even more confusing, is based on a novel called The Returned. These will now all struggle to coexist, like the living and the no-longer-dead on that one show about the resurrected people who returned. No, the other one.