This is fun: there is a proposed TV series for Showtime called “Dope.” It’s ” an hourlong drama about the business of performance-enhancing drugs for athletes and the doctor who popularized it in South Florida.” Attached to it are a couple of reporters who worked on the Biogenesis stories last year.
As friend of HBT and Technology Tell writer Stephen Silver notes, If done right this could be good. They GOTTA play this with some serious comedic and absurdist angles. There is high comedy to be had regarding athletes setting up fake websites to cover their tracks, using personal checks to pay for drugs and having them delivered to the ballpark, reporters asking ballplayers to pee in cups on demand like Rick Reilly did that time, Clemens’ ridiculous p.r. assault after the Mitchell report came out and a billion other angles. Ultra-seriousness could play a part — if you touch on kids and drugs and stuff, sure, go for The Message — but too much of that will make it into some unbearable and unintentionally silly “Reefer Madness” thing.
Also, a suggestion: if you’re going to cast a role for an obnoxious blogger/PED apologist, you could do way worse than hiring Jim Rash:
