HBO adapting the dark internet comedy Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

By William Hughes  |  June 5, 2015 | 11:54pm
Aux Features TV

HBO announced today that it’s starting development on an adaptation of Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, David Shafer’s best-selling comic novel about social media and online surveillance. Writer Zev Borow, whose previous geek-oriented projects include a stint as executive story editor for NBC’s Chuck—where “internet surveillance” meant keeping an eye on Zachary Levi’s head, where the internet lived—will be writing the half-hour comedy.

Published to hearty acclaim back in 2014, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot focuses on three friends and their roles in a conspiracy called the Committee, which aims to censor and control the online world. The novel, which has drawn comparisons to the works of William Gibson and Chuck Palahniuk, bounces between the different characters’ perspectives as they work to unravel the plot.

It’ll be interesting to see how Borow and company distill the novel’s pacing and multiple points of view into the half-hour format, especially since several of the book’s negative Amazon reviews cite its “lack of an ending” as a sticking point. Of course, HBO is no stranger to dealing with stories with shifting perspectives and an indeterminate ending, but it remains to be seen if Whiskey Tango Foxtrot the TV show will have staying power that lasts beyond the bounds of the 432-page book.

 
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