USA TODAY International Edition
Remake mania lets classic TV shows live again
Take it “One Day at a Time” or you’ll be “Lost in Space” by the sheer number of reboots. We rank 17 of them.
Another day, another TV reboot.
❚ Our television screens are filled with revivals and remakes these days, from the GIF-able Fab Five of Netflix’s “Queer Eye” to the short-lived cable-news antics of “Murphy Brown” to Kristen Bell’s return to sleuthing in Hulu’s “Veronica Mars.” More are on the way, starting with Wednesday’s six-episode “BH90210,” which is less a remake than a meta-reunion. New streaming service HBO Max is set to bring back “Gossip Girl”; the “Mad About You” couple are back together for Spectrum cable subscribers; and Freeform plans a new “Party of Five.”
❚ With so many classic TV shows returning, it can be hard to keep track. We’ve definitively ranked the biggest, from the highs of “One Day at a Time” to the lows of “Fuller House.”
17. ‘Fuller House’ (Netflix)
Too corny, too stuck in the ’90s, Netflix’s return to the Tanner family of ABC’s 1987-95 “Full House” is a decent effort that has nothing but nostalgia going for it. And that’s just not enough.
16. ‘Charmed’ (CW)
“Charmed” premiered on CW last fall, just months before “Roswell,” and while “Roswell” was too similar to the original to be interesting, “Charmed” departed so wildly from its source material that it truly shouldn’t have been called “Charmed.” The series is somewhat fun when just taken as a story of three sister witches on a college campus, but it ignores the origins of the original WB series, which is disappointing.
15. ‘American Idol’ (ABC)
Revived just two years after it signed off on Fox, ABC’s version of the once-gigantic singing competition is fluffier, hammier and more Disney-fied. Lionel Richie makes a strong effort on the judging panel, Luke Bryan is mostly harmless, but Katy Perry is a distraction.
14. ‘BH90210’ (Fox)
The most surprising thing about this meta version of beloved 1990s high school drama “Beverly Hills, 90210” (premiering Wednesday, 8 EDT/PDT) is that it’s not a disaster. Most of the original cast, including Tori Spelling, Jennie Garth, Brian Austin Green, Jason Priestley, Gabrielle Carteris, Ian Ziering and even Shannen Doherty, play heightened versions of themselves who come together for a fictional “90210” reboot. Once you get past the weirdness of seeing Tori Spelling play a desperate money-seeking “Tori Spelling,” you realize it’s just a middling soap opera about slightly washed-up celebrities trying to have one last ride.
13. ‘Roswell, New Mexico’ (CW)
One of the more faithful reboots of recent years, CW’s take on aliens-inhiding drama makes only minor tweaks (aging up the characters, adding a few new ones) to the formula, but that doesn’t quite help. Most everything the new series does, the old one did better.
12. ‘Murphy Brown’ (CBS)
The revival of the classic sitcom about a broadcast journalists had great intentions and a political agenda for the modern era, but something about it just didn’t click, and CBS canceled it after one season. It was too on-the-nose and over-the-top to jell into something as wonderful as the original.
11. ‘Roseanne’/‘The Conners’ (ABC)
Separated from the off-screen drama that led to the unceremonious dismissal of Roseanne Barr, both versions of the family sitcom revival connected with audiences. Neither has approached the height of the old “Roseanne,” but there’s something compelling when the series stops posturing and focuses on family.
10. ‘The X-Files’ (Fox)
Fox’s revival of the 1990s sci-fi hit has
been inconsistent. Its first new season in 2016 was lackluster, but in its final outing in 2018, the show found some more exciting, scary stories to tell.
9. ‘Dynasty’ (CW)
Set in Atlanta, the splashy, steamy reboot of ABC’s nighttime soap isn’t as juicy as the original, but still has plenty of family drama and catfights. Its actors, led by former Nickelodeon star Elizabeth Gillies, relish every cheesy line and ounce of melodrama. The series has also benefited from casting actors like “Desperate Housewives” alum Nicollette Sheridan, although she’s exiting.
8. ‘Will & Grace’ (NBC)
Eric McCormack, Debra Messing, Sean Hayes and Megan Mullally easily slid back into their roles as Will, Grace, Jack and Karen on the NBC sitcom. Although it’s often a little dated, their chemistry and timing haven’t lost much since the series went off the air in 2006. A final season will air in 2020.
7. ‘The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina’ (Netflix)
Netflix promised something wicked with this horror-tinged reimagining of the teenage witch, and the series definitely delivered. Soaked in blood and Satan worship, the new “Sabrina,” based on the Archie Comics character, is
nothing like the cutesy 1996-2003 ABC sitcom that starred Melissa Joan Hart. The reboot is beautiful and has a great cast.
6. ‘Lost in Space’ (Netflix)
Will Robinson (Maxwell Jenkins) is still in danger. Netflix’s “Lost” remake is a CGI-filled space epic that turns the cheesy 1960s sci-fi series into a tense, twisty action-adventure.
5. ‘Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life’ (Netflix)
It was lovely to revisit Stars Hollow and check in on Lorelai (Lauren Graham) and Rory (Alexis Bledel), especially after the original finale was so disappointing. The series faced some rough patches as its central mother/daughter duo returned more than a decade older, even if they didn’t always act that way. The revival was sweet, but overall slight.
4. ‘Queer Eye’ (Netflix)
The new Fab Five are fabulous, indeed. Bobby Berk (design), Karamo Brown (culture), Antoni Porowski (food and wine), Jonathan Van Ness (grooming) and Tan France (fashion) have revitalized the early 2000s Bravo staple. The new “Queer Eye” is addictive and moves beyond some of the cartoonish elements of the original series.
3. ‘Twin Peaks’ (Showtime)
Director David Lynch ran with the revival of the 1990s ABC drama to create something weirder, wilder and ultimately more wonderful than what came before. Lynch mixed the eclectic original cast with great actors like Laura Dern and upped the surrealism and slow burn that made the original both tantalizing and frustrating.
2. ‘Veronica Mars’ (Hulu)
Rebooting a TV show like “One Day,” is often easier than reviving one with its original cast years or even decades later. No series has pulled off that trick better than “Veronica,” which came back twice, first for a Kickstarter-funded movie in 2014 and now for an eight-episode fourth season on Hulu. The pulpy, neo-noir setting made Veronica’s (Kristen Bell) return in her 30s make sense, and the series wisely avoided nostalgia and characters that don’t matter anymore.
1. ‘One Day at a Time’ (Pop)
The new take on Norman Lear’s 1970s CBS sitcom is the model all other TV reboots should follow. Fresh but also familiar, with sublime casting and a perfect blend of comedy and tragedy, “One Day” manages to feel as relevant in 2019 as it did in 1975. That Netflix canceled it after just three seasons was devastating, but this little spark of a show managed to land a fourth season on Pop TV, anyway.