Are TV viewers always looking back, swooning in a bittersweet spiral of nostalgia, hungry for the return of old titles such as “MacGyver’’ and “Twin Peaks’’? Or are TV executives the ones who are always looking back, plotting Nielsen hits in a giddy spiral of presold product, resurrecting titles that have audience name recognition before they even hit the market?
Who, WHO, is to blame for “Fuller House’’?
The answer regarding the current glut of TV revivals — both the updates of oldies such as CBS’s upcoming “Star Trek’’ and the return of oldies with their original casts, such as Netflix’s upcoming “Gilmore Girls’’ — is probably a concurrence of audience and network desires. We’re all tempted by the past. Not that these reborn shows usually succeed. Often, they’re more like zombies than living things, both creatively and ratings-wise. But that hasn’t stopped the flow, which has recently included “The X-Files,’’ “Hawaii Five-0,’’ “24,’’ “Bionic Woman,’’ “Melrose Place,’’ “90210,’’ “Dallas,’’ “Heroes,’’ “Arrested Development,’’ “Ironside,’’ and “Prime Suspect,’’ to name only a few. We’re addicted to rehash, and don’t get me started on the countless forgettable movie-to-series adaptations.
I’d like to set a few rules, though, about which shows absolutely may not be remade, rebooted, redone, or revivified under any circumstances, no matter what, come hell, high water, heaven, or low water. For example, “Hogan’s Heroes’’ may never be revisited as a fluffy sitcom. It is verboten. Oh sure, “Hogan’s Heroes’’ featured memorable work by Werner Klemperer and John Banner as Colonel Klink and Sergeant Schultz during its six-season run from 1965-1971 (both actors were Jews who’d fled the Nazis, by the way). But yeah, making the rapport between Nazis and their Allied prisoners into a cutesy laugh riot just doesn’t work in today’s world, as we’ve broken through most — if not all — of the Holocaust denial out there. We understand the enormity, and trivializing it would be a fool’s errand.
“All in the Family,’’ which ran through the 1970s, is also off-limits, for a few reasons. 1) The writing was perfect and couldn’t possibly be improved upon. 2) The actors were perfect and couldn’t possibly be improved upon, especially Carroll O’Connor as Archie Bunker. 3) It was a series so deeply rooted in its era, in the revolutions of the 1960s and the generation gap, that it wouldn’t bear updating with a boomer-millennial spin. 4) As a period piece, it would be of value primarily to the people who were cognizant in the 1960s and ’70s and who’d probably already seen the original. They could just as easily rewatch the original episodes. So don’t. Just don’t.
Also, don’t go near “Sex and the City’’ please. Step away from the Manolos. Why? The series has already been redone many, many times, only with different titles — including “Lipstick Jungle,’’ “Cashmere Mafia,’’ and, to some extent, “Girls.’’ Just as “Seinfeld’’ and “Friends’’ made the ensemble-in-the-city format popular, “Sex and the City’’ inspired a number of shows about clusters of urban women. And then we’ve had our noses rubbed in the show since it ended its 1998-2004 run, by a pair of awful big-screen movies and one mediocre prequel series called “The Carrie Diaries.’’ Enough is enough.
Is someone out there pondering a return to “Freaks and Geeks’’? I understand the temptation. After all, the 1999-2000 series — like a few other classics, including “The Wire’’ — didn’t make it into the limelight until after it was canceled and its cast and producers, including James Franco, Seth Rogen, Judd Apatow, and Jason Segel, hit the big time. Now, maybe there would be enough of an interested audience to give the show a longer, more watched run. But: No can do. That single season of “Freaks and Geeks’’ is a bit of magic, and part of that magic is the way it leaves us wanting more. Let it find immortality as a one-season wonder, instead of disgrace as yet another lousy reboot. Same goes for the one-and-done “My So-Called Life.’’
Someone asked me recently what I thought the fantastic Eric and Tami Taylor from “Friday Night Lights’’ were up to these days. It was a fun conversation, as any number of developments seemed possible (except divorce; definitely not divorce). But really and truly, I don’t want to know. I don’t want to keep up with them or any of the extraordinary “FNL’’ teens, just as I don’t want to keep up with Rory or Lorelai from “Gilmore Girls.’’ Sometimes, a specific scenario is less interesting than open-endedness, where your imagination can play around with various futures for these characters without being right or wrong.
Did you see “Mary and Rhoda,’’ a 2000 made-for-TV movie that brought us up-to-date with Mary Richards and Rhoda Morgenstern from “The Mary Tyler Moore Show’’? In one fell swoop, it ruined all the fantasies I’d had about the fates of two of TV’s best characters. It wasn’t a reboot or a remake or a revisitation or whatever term you want to use; it was just a crying shame.
Matthew Gilbert can be reached at gilbert@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @MatthewGilbert.
