We all know that everything has been done since the Greeks. That we repeat themes, too. We all know that Tarantino pays homage to all the B series in the world and one day he may surprise us with a
remake
of
Hands: The Hands of Destiny
. We all know that the Twitter user The Blonde Neighbor “adapts” tweets to Spanish. No one is aware that
Doctor Mateo
is the Spanish version of
Doctor in Alaska
or that
Corsarios del chip
was
Hackers
in Spanish and without having any idea about computing. We have all told the story of the chainsaw and the groom's tie as if our neighbor had seen it. To create
The Simpsons
, Matt Groening was inspired by
The Monsters
and
The Flintstones
. To write
Lord of the Flies
, William Golding based himself on
Coral Island
, by Robert Michael Ballantyine. And, if you tell me that JK Rowling didn't read Neil Gaiman's
The Books of Magic
to create
Harry Potter
, I won't believe it. We have all adapted, with more or less shamelessness, whether in our daily lives or in some text.
Sometimes the copying is involuntary... for example, George Harrison had heard The Chiffons'
He's so Fine
at some point. It stuck in his head and he unknowingly reproduced it when writing
My Sweet Lord
.
In Spanish television, inspiration is, let's say, frequent. I have always wondered if in the meetings no one points out that the new project is a carbon copy of another series that is not only much better, but that we have all seen. Perhaps the very idea of copying another product to make it worse is applauded.
When
The Ministry of Time
came out , many
Doctor Who
fans said that the Ministry and the Tardis were the same thing. In reality, the differences between both series are enough to separate them completely. The same does not happen with the BBC, which has announced a series (based on a book) that shares the plot and title with the Olivares brothers' series:
Ministry of Time
. It is not the first time it happens. Kaliane Bradley, author of the novel, says that she does not know the Spanish series at all: “It is an unfortunate coincidence.” I'm looking forward to seeing what this turns out to be. If Bradley told the truth, we would be facing a plot straight out of the (science fiction) novel
VALIS
(or
SIVAINVI
) by Philip K. Dick. And if life is capable of plagiarizing Dick, then we are indeed lost.
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