Reboots: The New Old Wave
You may not be aware of it, but your favorite old person or friend with the tastes of a nostalgic fifty year old is probably elated or confused because of it. I want to talk about the ongoing trend in television to reboot a show a decade or three after the original series finished airing. This is not about Reboot, the short lived comedy on Hulu with the star studded cast of Judy Greer, Keegan Michael Key, Johnny Knoxivelle, Rachel Bloom, Paul Reiser and many more spectacular actors.
However, I'd be remiss to say that Reboot did a phenomenal job of exploring this recent phenomenon and poking fun at it. The show focused on the chaotic hodgepodge of returning and new cast members and writers returning to reboot a family comedy with the intention to now tailor to an older audience. It looked at how absurd it can be to revisit something and understand the challenges and restrictions of trying to remain true, but also grow and adapt with the times.
The vernacular of television reboots and spinoffs can get convoluted. A spin-off is when a new show is created and centered on characters in a story that brings them to a new setting with a host of new characters; this would be your Laverne and Shirley (spin off of Happy Days), Frasier (Cheers), Better Call Saul (Breaking Bad). A reboot, though, is returning to a show years after a show finished and bringing back the original actors and seeing those same characters x many years later; iCarly, Saved by the Bell, Will & Grace, and so on.
For television, a reboot is a bit more complicated than it would be for a film franchise. If someone was interested in watching a rebooted movie franchise but wanted to familiarize themselves with the background of the world, that could be about three to four movies which could equate to around twelve hours of laborious movie screening. But the reboots for shows we are seeing now have about a seven plus season count with twenty-four episodes in a season; that's at least eighty-four hours. It's amazing for me, I love having something on whenever I'm cooking, but the average viewer is not going to commit that time for a reboot that they may not even enjoy when they already have a wider selection of options.
I'm coming at this from a biased standpoint. I watch a lot of older TV shows, so seeing their return comes with some joy, but also a lot of confusion on my end. Take Night Court for example. A lot of people our age vaguely remember the name because of an episode of 30 Rock, but as a person who's watched all nine seasons of the show, I'm more than shocked at its return. Yes, it's cool to see the shows return in real time, thirty-one years after they last left that courtroom. But on the other hand, it's been THIRTY-ONE YEARS. I wasn't even alive a decade after its last episode. I might be the only person my age that has watched it, beyond a random episode on a sick day. The only people I can talk to about it are about forty years older than me and are confused why I even decided to watch Night Court.
Their original air was at a point in time where networks had a greater allowance of having a show grow into its own,spanning around seven seasons, compared to a current age where it's hard for a show to secure a second or a third. We are seeing the return of shows that are trying to target demographics in a way that doesn’t make sense. They want the youth appeal, but not many people are watching network TV if it's not a celebrated hit. And the older demographic may not appreciate shows returning if it deviates too much from the original. Whether it's some actors deciding not to return, or have even passed away, the writers change. Reboots often suffer a death from the march of time, in their quest trying to reanimate the dead. But instead act similarly to a spin-off, embracing the drastic changes between it and the source (in this case due to time) and creating something wonderful and true in spirit with the unique opportunity it has.