Rizzoli & Isles: Adaptation or Mutilation?

So I decided to take a break from my short lived reading of Franny and Zooey to watch the much anticipated Rizzoli & Isles pilot - anticipated by me three weeks after its premiere on TNT. I finished The Apprentice and I was ready for it. And to be truthful, I didn't know what exactly I should expect. But deep down in my heart I was hoping for a show similar to True Blood or the first season of Dexter, where the plot of the book is used as the series story arc's jumping point. 

What TNT delivered, however, wasn't a story arc based on the second book of the Rizzoli series, but an episode adaptation instead. And, as if to add insult to injury, we are given small flashbacks from The Surgeon. Details were skewed (screwed up) and characters that were secondary or introductory in the novels are shifted to old pals or erased entirely. The pilot was enough to let me know that the TNT series that strays far from the novels might not make it past the first season. And if it somehow did, I'll probably lose interest quickly. 

Rather than getting a show with an arc villain, we're getting a case to case drama that mirrors Angie Harmon's days on Law & Order, rather than Sasha Alexander's days on NCIS. While I'm going to give the series another chance, I had to voice how utterly disappointed I am with the pilot's murder of The Apprentice. Not to mention the magic that Tess Gerritsen puts into her novels. A show that could've brought in drones of fans of the book series, instead leads us astray.  They can't all be hits.

If you are a fan for the book series and are into the show, be sure to check out the website for a weekly chapter to a Rizzoli & Isles short story, Freaks, written by Gerritsen. It's updated every Monday. TNT also has a sweepstakes in which you can win a copy of Tess Gerritsen's novel The Apprentice. Hey, a free book. How can you pass that up?