Nancy Drew reunites with old friends in new series

Image: Nancy Drew via AFP Relaxnews

Was Nancy Drew always the mystery-solving heroine that Carolyn Keene’s crime novels always made her out to be?

Not according to a new series coming from NBC, which suggests the teenage sleuth exaggerated her own genius at the expense of her two closest friends.

Those best friends were just as important when it came to cracking cases, and now that Nancy is getting back into crime solving, those friendships need to be repaired as well.

Tony Phelan and Joan Rater, producers on “Grey’s Anatomy” and co-creators of “Doubt”, came up with the idea after a different network, CBS, decided not to turn their 2016 Nancy Drew pilot into a full series.

CBS chose to go with “Doubt” but Phelan and Rater kept working away at the Nancy Drew opportunity, switching from the main character as a 30-year-old NYPD detective to having her be an older woman with several bridges to rebuild.

Remakes of late 20th century favorites have proven fertile ground for TV networks, with Netflix mining “One Day At A Time”, “W/ Bob & David” and “Fuller House”, all based on hit shows from the 1980s and 1990s.

Nancy Drew herself emerged in a trio of 1930 Edward Stratemeyer novels, who from the beginning wrote under what would become a collective pseudonym, Carolyn Keene.

Publication of new stories has continued until the present day, with output exploding in the 1980s and 1990s after Simon & Schuster, now owned by CBS, became involved.

Stratemeyer, using the pen-name of Franklin W. Dixon, also created another youthful detective fiction series starring two brothers, Frank and Joe, better known as The Hardy Boys. JB

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