You know, NBC could easily turn Shakespeare’s “Hamlet” into a sitcom, in which spunky teenager Hamlet and his father-uncle are forever at odds, and whenever Hamlet tries to get Claudius to admit that he killed his father, or whenever Hamlet stabs one of his lords, Claudius can yell, “HAAAMLEEEETTTT!” and there can be a laugh track and then Hamlet can come in wearing shades and rap or something.

Call me, NBC. We can hash a deal out.

I just realized that Joss Whedon doesn’t have a beloved character he can really kill in “Much Ado About Nothing”.

This poses a problem, as one of his trademarks is viciously killing characters his audience has grown to love and care about. But in this case, his source material doesn’t provide any opportunity for that.

Unless he decides to switch it up a little and kill a character off anyway. He could just kill of Hero for real, instead of faking her death to teach Claudio a lesson. Like, when Claudio is unmasking his “bride”, and he thinks it’s Beatrice, but it turns out to be Hero, back from the dead, everyone could be all like, “Yay! It’s Hero! She died while her slanders lived!” and it would look like a happy ending, and then Don John could come out of nowhere and blast her with a ray gun or something.

Or maybe he could kill everybody. Maybe it could end with everyone married and dancing around and devising brave punishments for Don John, and otherwise striking up the papers, and then—oh no!—it turns out Messina is actually at the foot of an active volcano! And it’s erupting! Everyone’s been so busy plotting revenge and tricking people into loving each other that they haven’t brushed up on the standard protocols of volcano evacuation! The last shot of the film could be of 21st-century archaeologist digging up the remains of the village, finding the outlines of a bunch of people covered in layers and layers of ash, who apparently, at the moment of their deaths, had been dancing around like fools and partaking in a comedy of misunderstandings and trickery. Who knows? Who knows…