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Though we’re unlikely to see the second season of everyone’s favorite gay hockey romance until 2027, Heated Rivalry creator Jacob Tierney isn’t slowing down at all. He’s already announced his next project, and it’s something of an unexpected swerve for him. (Read: it’s not about Canadians in any way.) Tierney’s focus will shift from fictional NHL teams to Ancient Greece to tell the story of one of the most influential men the world has ever known: Alexander the Great. Netflix has given a straight-to-series order to Alexander, a sprawling epic that explores the little-known story of the young Alexander and his tutor, Aristotle.
For those whose memories of ancient history are poor, Alexander was the son of King Philip II of Macedon and rose to power after his father was assassinated by a member of his personal guard at a wedding banquet. Aristotle is still considered one of the greatest philosophers who ever lived, a polymath who pioneered the scientific disciplines of biology and zoology, and greatly influenced Western thought through his ideas about logic and deductive reasoning. He also spent somewhere around three years as a tutor to Alexander during his teenage years.
That teen would go on to conquer the largest empire in history, which stretched from Greece to northwestern India. He was undefeated in battle, and his military prowess reshaped much of the Middle East and Asia, founding anywhere from 20 to 70 cities, depending on who you read, most of which were named after himself or close friends. (One, in Egypt, still exists today.) He created centers of learning and trade that lasted well beyond his death, and some of his military tactics are still studied today. And he did all of this by the time he was just 30 years old.
Tierney’s series will be based on the novel The Golden Mean by Annabel Lyon, which is narrated by Aristotle and begins just as the philosopher arrives in Macedonia. But since the Netflix series is called Alexander, we likely have to assume that it will focus more heavily on the story of the young prince. Plus, since this show is also apparently a passion project from the same guy who gave us Heated Rivalry, it also seems like a pretty safe bet that it will, at least to some degree, dive into questions of Alexander’s sexuality. Same-sex relationships weren’t uncommon in ancient Macedonia, and though Alexander had multiple wives and fathered an heir, he also had extremely close emotional attachments with men, most notably his childhood friend Hephaestion, who also studied alongside him with Aristotle.
The title of Lyon’s novel refers to the philosophical principle of the same name, a desirable middle between two extremes, an idea that may point to the way that Teirney will approach telling this particular story. (Or maybe it’s just a cool title, who can say?) But either way, it’s going to be an interesting shift for him as a storyteller, and something definitely worth keeping an eye out for.
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