The one TV series Quentin Tarantino desperately wanted to direct: “I love that show!”
It’s been 20 years since Quentin Tarantino went out of his way to direct or act in an episode of one of his favourite TV shows, so it feels safe to say that he’s grown out of that phase.
He did come close to helming at least an episode of two of Justified: City Primeval, which would have been fitting in more ways than one. He’s a huge Elmore Leonard fan, a conversation with Timothy Olyphant on the set of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood got the ball rolling, and it’s technically connected to his cinematic universe by way of Paul Calderón’s cameo as Raymond Cruise, reprising the role he played in Out of Sight, which also featured Michael Keaton as Jackie Brown‘s Ray Nicolette.
Even with the advent of prestige TV and streaming, Tarantino has stayed away from the small screen. Many of the industry’s most vaunted filmmakers, including Martin Scorsese, David Fincher, David Lynch, Guillermo del Toro, Steven Soderbergh, M Night Shyamalan, and Alfonso Cuarón, have tackled television, but he’s avoided it since his 2005 two-part CSI series finale.
It might happen in the future, since the two-time Academy Award winner is adamant that he’s retiring from making movies after his next, tenth, and final flick. Technically, there’s nothing stopping him from moving into episodic storytelling, even if there will always be one show that lingers in his mind as the one that got away.
Explaining his brief dalliance with TV to Ain’t It Cool, Tarantino’s reason was simple. “In the case of CSI, that was literally a case of me just doing a show I like, and just stepping in,” he said. “It’s kind of cool, it’s like if you were a kid and you liked Star Trek, and all of a sudden, you could direct a Star Trek episode. I get to do that.”
There was one that he had his eye on more than any other, though, but it wasn’t to be. “If there was gonna be a show that I was gonna do a directing spot on now, it would definitely be Battlestar Galactica,” he revealed. “I love that show!” During its 76-episode run between 2003 and 2009, Tarantino declared it to be the best thing on the airwaves, and it’s now regarded as one of the all-time greats.
He loved ER, so he directed an episode. He loved CSI, so he directed an episode. He loved Alias, so he played a minor part in four episodes. He loved Duck Dodgers, so he voiced Master Moloch in an episode. He loved Battlestar Galactica… and never got the chance to take the reins of the sci-fi spectacular.
Although he no doubt could have moulded himself to the show’s signature aesthetic, Tarantino’s easily identifiable directing style wouldn’t exactly have slotted seamlessly into Battlestar Galactica’s established template. In most cases, one of the industry’s biggest directors voicing their desire to direct an episode would lead to an offer, but in this case, it didn’t, and the series didn’t really enlist any big names at all.
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