Netflix wants to let a Doug Stamper series continue the House of Cards brand, but there are plenty of good reasons to go elsewhere.
How surprising is it that Netflix wants to put together something to continue the House of Cards name even after season 6 (although Deadline is now reporting that season 6 has actually stopped filming) wraps the main series up? Not at all. What is slightly more surprising are reports from outlets like Entertainment Weekly that Doug Stamper is on the shortlist to anchor one of these successor shows.
Wait, really? Doug Stamper?
You mean to tell us that Netflix can’t come to an agreement with Robin Wright for Claire Underwood to go sans Frank and really make “My turn” mean something? Perhaps that’s the plan for season 6. We’re not the only ones who have come up with this idea, by the way, although, again, they were talking about season 6 rather than a Claire series:
Spacey dies and Cary Elwes is Wright's new boyfriend
— RyanMcc (@Ryanamcc) October 30, 2017
Granted, EW acknowledges that the Doug plan is just one of many (and we have to wonder if Netflix looked at what HBO is doing with Game of Thrones and thought it a good idea).
Even so, it seems a bit of a waste to come back to Doug, when, even though he’s held down his own individual plotlines before, Wright’s work gets the praise just as often. Doug does exist outside of the Underwoods as a character, but Claire’s been part of it all since the beginning and has shown she can become compelling. Netflix could actually name a series for her in a twist on one of the original books — To Play the Queen as opposed to the King.
But perhaps this is all the attempts of Netflix to try and hold onto at least some part of the property. Is that really necessary, though? Do franchises have to keep running perhaps long past the dates they should have come to a close? As Rotten Tomatoes notes, the general opinion on season 5 was that the world may have passed House of Cards by.
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If a Doug Stamper series comes to fruition, that might become even more apparent.