ENOUGH NOU ALREADY!
‘Murphy Brown’? Really? It’s time to end this reboot madness
BLAME it on “Will & Grace.”
The unexpected success of NBC’s reboot of its ’90s-era comedy has given license to lazy and frightened network execs to visit the TV graveyard — and see what skeletons might be exhumed and sent to wardrobe for a costume fitting.
The latest: “Murphy Brown.”
There’s no denying the popularity of the Candice Bergen hit, which ran for 10 years on CBS (19881998), slightly beyond its sell-by date. Attacked for its politics, the series was a feminist milestone, particularly during the 1992 presidential campaign, when Vice President Dan Quayle criticized the Murphy character for deciding to become a single mother and “mocking the importance of fathers by bearing a child alone.”
But that was 26 years ago. The TV audience of “Murphy’s” day (36 million viewers watched the Sept. 21, 1992 episode) has scattered to the 12 winds.
The reboot, set to debut on CBS next season — with Bergen once again in the driver’s seat — is going to go one of two ways. We’re either going to have ourselves a “Heeerrre’s Murphy” situation, where a beloved CBS performer of yesteryear, like Lucille Ball — who was recycled in one stale vehicle after another after “I Love Lucy,” with ever more alarming shades of carrot in her hair — is trotted out for an exasperated walk down memory lane. Or Murphy will find out in the premiere episode that her old network, FYI, has been turned into a Web site and, worried about her health insurance, negotiates a buyout with the youngster (“Young Sheldon’s” Iain Armitage) taking over the company. Either scenario sounds painful.
The idea of bringing back “Murphy Brown” or other series from its day, such as NBC’s planned revival of “Mad About You” or ABC’s “Roseanne,” set to debut March 27, is another sign that the networks have surrendered creatively to the combined forces of cable television and streaming services, and don’t mind being completely left out of any kind of cultural conversation. Their slavish devotion to risk-averse advertisers, while lucrative financially, cements their obsolescence.
NBC got lucky with “Will & Grace,” primarily because its cast and writers were ready to rock and roll, and the revival had traction from a 2016 YouTube video the cast made for Election Day. But its followers won’t fare as well. Viewers will realize they’re being conned with one remake after another and abandon them, as they did with the rebooted stink bombs that were “Ironside,” “Charlie’s Angels” and “The
Bionic Woman,” among others to numerous to list here.
With things going the way they are, can it be long before we have a reboot of that 1990s Don Johnson-Cheech Marin buddy show “Nash Bridges”?
I’ve got the perfect title: “Nash Bridgework.”