Is It Too Soon for Marathon Bombing Miniseries?

You kind of sort of saw this coming, as real-life tragedy often inspires networks to find a monetary gain, and so it is that Fox is looking to make a mini series "event" about the Boston Marathon bombing. The mini series will be an adaptation of the best-selling book, The Long Mile Home by the Boston Globe reporters Scott Helman and Jenna Russell, which follows five real-life characters — a police offer, the marathon's director, a trauma surgeon, and two victims of the bombing — through the course of the tragedy.

The event series will be written and directed by Rod Lurie, who is a former investigative crime journalist and therefore, a solid choice to helm the project. Further, since the series will follow the best-selling book by two reporters who won a Pulitzer Prize for their work covering the tragedy, it's a safe bet to assume that Lurie has a solid road map for the series.

However, it feels like it's going to be rife with controversy — while documenting tragedy for the sake of entertainment purposes is not a new idea in the biz, it certainly is one that needs to be handled delicately. While the book by Russell and Helman illustrates true stories of real figures in the tragedy while offering an insightful look at what happened, an adaptation for television of those stories can — if not handled properly — border on exploitative if it serves to be simply entertaining rather than informative.

On the flip side, any televised or big-screen depiction of tragedy is always full of potential to be truly moving; the 2014 Boston marathon was full of inspiring moments, so this could be another way of expressing "Boston strong."

It's a tough call, but we'll have to see when the miniseries airs.