CRISPR, short for “clustered regularly-interspaced short palindromic repeats,” has changed the world. Basically, it’s DNA that, when paired with the right proteins, allows biologists to insert or remove genes into organisms to see what will happen, like making yeast churn out snake venom. Of course, that can have some uncomfortable implications, which is what Jennifer Lopez’s strange-sounding new SF police procedural is all about.
We’re just going to let The Hollywood Reporter‘s plot summary carry the load of explaining this series, which Lopez is producing for NBC and will hopefully play the bad guy on, because there’s just no other way to do it justice.
C.R.I.S.P.R.— aka ” clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats” — is a procedural thriller set five minutes into the future that explores the next generation of terror: DNA hacking. If the project moves forward, each episode will explore a bio-attack and crime — from a genetic assassination attempt on the president to the framing of an unborn child for murder. The drama will see mentor and protégé battle for control over the human genome in a game of cat and mouse in which the future of our species may rest and all disease could one day be eradicated.
Yes, you read that right, NBC is seriously looking at a show where somebody tries to blame a fetus for a homicide. We guess Death Fetus wouldn’t have gotten past standards and practices and/or a black metal band has already taken the name.
Scientifically, of course, this is ridiculous: CRISPR isn’t a genetic scalpel so much as a more precise blunt object geneticists are using to figure out just what the hell all these genes do in the first place. But then again, CBS has a show which is The Walking Dead but with animals and vastly more insane, and that’s gotten three seasons so far. So maybe NBC is onto something. If nothing else, scientists will get a good laugh out of it, and they can always use a good laugh.
(via The Hollywood Reporter)
