Be careful what you wish for from reboots
Reboots, revivals and spinoffs were all the rage in TV about a year ago, but broadcasters are a little less enthusiastic at the moment.
Sure, “BH90210” is coming to Fox next month, but looking at the broadcast networks’ 2019 fall schedules, aside from The CW’s rehashes (“Nancy Drew,” “Batwoman”), there are precious few familiar titles on the way. Even the third round of NBC’s “Will & Grace” revival is on the bench until midseason.
That doesn’t mean there won’t be more, especially on cable (“Party of Five” on Freeform, coming in 2020) and streaming services (“The Twilight Zone” already debuted its first season on CBS All Access).
Just this month, streamer Hulu has two: “Veronica Mars” ( July 26) and “Four Weddings and a Funeral” ( July 31).
With “Four Weddings,” it’s just the title and a concept that are the same — the characters are all new.
But “Veronica Mars” is a continuation of the 2004- 07 UPN/ CW series that already got a second chance as a 2014 Kickstarter- funded movie. For “Mars” fans, a new season is surely news worth cheering. Or is it?
Just because a series is back doesn’t mean it will be back in the same way viewers remember or go in a direction fans will appreciate. Yes, it’s often great to return to the show’s universe and reunite with the characters — but there are also pitfalls.
Just think about Showtime’s “Twin Peaks: The Return” in 2017, which only kinda- sorta resolved the series’ 1991 cliffhanger while failing to address what happened to multiple characters and then ended on a new, equally frustrating cliffhanger.
This new iteration of “Veronica Mars” isn’t nearly as obtuse as “Peaks,” but not all fans will be satisfied by the end of its run.
In what’s essentially the show’s fourth season, viewers find Veronica ( Kristen Bell, “The Good Place”) and her father ( Enrico Colantoni) investigating a string of bombings in their hometown, Neptune, Calif.
The bombing plot takes a page from the 2003 real- world collarbomb death of an Erie pizza delivery man. The show even makes a pizza delivery guy, played by Patton Oswalt, a key figure who wavers back and forth. First he seems like a pitiable troll, then maybe he’s involved, then he’s not, then he is again.
Series executive producers Rob Thomas and Diane RuggieroWright are again showrunners for this Hulu season, which has its moments, but the whole story drags, especially in the first half. There’s just not a good enough mystery at the heart of this season to justify
the heart of this season to justify eight episodes.
The new “Veronica Mars” collects many characters from the show’s original run, although Veronica’s best friend, Mac ( Tina Majorino), is conspicuously absent. Other characters return, but then when major things happen that should impact them, viewers never get to see their reactions.
Fans of Veronica’s romance with psycho- turnednicerguy Logan ( Jason Dohring) will be pleased. And now that the characters are older and no longer teenagers ( and on Hulu) the sex scenes are more revealing and intense.
And while perhaps not all shows should continue coming back again and again, “Veronica Mars” sets itself up for a potential fifth season albeit with significant changes after the events of season four. Stick with it at the risk of tarnishing your appreciation of the original series.
‘ Another Life’
“Do you really think I want to go back into space?” asks astronaut Niko Breckinridge, played by “Battlestar Galactica” veteran Katee Sackhoff, in Netflix’s “Another Life.”
It’s a question you have to wonder if Sackhoff asked herself before signing onto this wan sci- fi drama debuting July 25 on the streamer.
Set sometime in the future when an uncommunicative alien artifact lands on earth, Niko leads a spaceship crew to the aliens’ home planet. But disaster strikes on a regular basis.
In episode one, we learn crew members don’t wear uniforms — wardrobes range from workout attire to nightclub chic — and they like to fight amongst themselves, especially Niko and Ian ( Tyler Hoechlin, “Teen Wolf”), who have a history. He thinks her decisions are too much about her husband ( Justin Chatwin, “Shameless”) and daughter back on Earth; she thinks he’s reckless. He does almost steer them into a star, so, point for Niko.
The United Colors of Benetton crew fights amongst themselves a lot, but viewers get such slight sketches of each character in early episodes, it’s hard to care about many of them.
At least the space stuff is more interesting than the homefront melodrama involving Niko’s scientist husband, who’s trying to communicate with the artifact. Selma Blair livens things up occasionally as a tabloid journalist, but none of the pieces in “Another Life” come together in a particularly satisfying fashion.
Even the title confuses. At first I thought an event in the premiere killed everyone on the spaceship and they were living “Another Life” on another plane of existence, but that didn’t appear to happen, so who knows what the title portends.
Submit to TV Q& A now
Although I write a TV Q& A column year- round, I get my best access to network executives and showrunners during the Television Critics Association press tours in Los Angeles. The summer edition kicks off next week. Now’s a great time to get questions answered.
Ask TV questions by emailing rowen@ post- gazette. com, include your first name and location. I’ll do my best to get a response in an upcoming Friday TV Q& A on the blog.
Channel surfing
Disney Channel’s “Andi Mack,” created by Mt. Lebanon native Terri Minsky, airs its final episode at 8 p. m. July 26. … Filmed- in- Pittsburgh season two of “Mindhunter” debuts Aug. 16 on Netflix. … Subscription service FX+ will shutter Aug. 20 with its content expected to move to Hulu. ... Sinclair Broadcast Group named Richard Cook general manager of Pittsburgh’s WPGHTV and WPNT- TV. He was a general sales manager for the stations beginning in 2005 and became director of sales in 2013. ... This week in carriage battles: Friday is the deadline for CBS and DirecTV to reach a new retransmission deal or CBSowned stations, including Pittsburgh’s KDKA- TV and WPCW- TV, may be dropped from DirecTV, DirecTV Now and AT& T U- Verse systems.