With shows being remade and shows coming back like Beverly Hills 90210, Charlie’s Angels, Beavis & Butt-head, even In Living Color is coming back for two shows next year, I was thinking what old shows I would like to see come back or be remade.
At the top of my list would be The Critic. It’s easy to bring back a cartoon and this show was so underrated. I own the complete series on DVD and still laugh my ass off at most of the shows. I’d love to see some of the shitty movies that come out nowadays get spoofed.
Next I’d like to see The Job. It’s the old Denis Leary/Peter Tolan show that was on ABC for two seasons in 2001/2002. I thought that show was very underrated as well. Now that Rescue Me is over I’d love to see them bring this back and do it on FX.
Rescue Me pretty much was a remake of The Job (which was great, mind), and it outstayed its welcome, so I can pass on that one.
The congregation says amen, brother.
If the worst comes to pass, I propose they cut costs on bringing them both back by having Party Down cater Greendale’s graduation ceremony. I don’t give a damn if they have to retcon the school into being in LA.
Veronica Mars was great, and despite being heavily tied into the teenage aspect, the strength of the characters is such that I wouldn’t mind at all checking in with them 5-10 years down the line.
Did The Playboy Club already get canceled? I feel like it debuted last week.
Hell no. While I don’t doubt Whedon could’ve come up with something I would’ve enjoyed, a perfect finale is a rare and wonderful thing. I say leave that one right the hell alone.
If I were in charge of HBO for a day, I would bring back the entire cast of Carnivale and contract them to shoot another 3-4 seasons. And to smooth out the decade of aging and cut down on the effects/costumes/sets budget, I’d rotoscope the whole thing. Make it into a sort of psuedo-anime/live action comic.
See, I think The Wire’s narrative wrapped up well and conclusively, and further seasons would only lead to diminishing returns.
But what I would like is a Homicide reboot in full continuity with The Wire. That way you sidestep the most direct comparisons and can do a smaller scale procedural centered around The Bunk. Who the hell wouldn’t watch that?
Holy shit, I was just about to write this. I’d like to see Pembleton as the new G & Bayliss as the grizzled veteran detective who helps to break in new, young detectives. The show was 10 years ahead of it’s time & a reboot would fit right in on FX or HBO.
Do you mean bring back everyone involved with the show and continue the same storylines? Because I assume, in some cases, that would require some… magic?
If we’re talking full-on reboot, though, I think the world is ready for a return visit to…
I’m going to have to disagree with you about the very end of the end.
There was planned material and a theme for a Season 6 which would have gone ahead if it hadn’t been cancelled, which I’m sure you already knew.
However, the cancellation (tragically avoidable I still think) probably made the finale better in many ways (what happened to Wesley wouldn’t have otherwise , and how that all played out with him was really, really good, Fred was dead for good, Gunn was on his way out - all of this wouldn’t have happened) than if it had just been the final episode of Season 5 intrinsically in itself.
Lorne and Lindsey got the perfect exits for their characters (I was getting a bit tired of what seemed like everyone being saved and redeemed in the end as in BTVS) and there was a feeling of unavoidable impending doom that just kept building as the episode went on. Their opponents in themselves aren’t that physically powerful compared to previous ones but the fact that’s now clear that it’s the system itself that they can’t ever beat which makes it so much more insidious and really adds to the funereal atmosphere of the episode.
Up to the very end where they meet in the alley is close to perfect. Just the bit where it goes just that bit further and a bunch of demons appear and charge, with the end being literally cut off in mid swing - well, I hate things being left in literal mid air like that. I guess for me, it was the difference between that and the ending of Blake’s 7, not hugely different but just enough more certainty to mark an ending of sorts.
For example the end of BTVS, or the end of Lexx or a number of other shows, it’s obvious that many of the characters will continue to exist and go on but it’s an ending. In BTVS, it’s Sunnydale being sucked into a hole in the ground. Everyone who survived that will go on doing other stuff but I felt that the end to an era is marked.
I guess I’m parsing a very fine distinction here but that’s just my opinion.
Short version, the cancellation of Angel made the last 2 episodes/finale better than they would have been in themselves but for the overall show, I found the abrupt ending not quite as good as something just a bit more conclusive.
The only old Homicide characters I’d care to see back are Pembleton, Bayliss, Munch, & Melissa Leo’s Howard. Munch is on SVU & Leo is on Treme. Everyone else is either dead, boring, or Ned Beatty.
I’d love to see the BBC do a high-profile Doctor Who-like reboot of The Avengers starring Jude “fading career” Law & Eva Green or Gemma Arterton. Hire Grant Morrison as head writer & BOOM.
I also kind of think, no offense, but you’re kinda being a brat if you want more from a show that lasted more than three seasons or so. Requesting more Angel and Buffy? You’ve had enough sir. Especially when the world is littered with promising shows that didn’t live past a few weeks.
I think it was in 1999 where pretty much every show I watched that year was canceled, some quicker than others. Two I’d like to see rise from the dead:
“Wonderland” - Six episodes, and I believe only two aired. Created by Peter Berg, it was another medical show, yes. But it was about employees working at a halfway house, a very dangerous, understaffed one. I don’t think ABC was cool with the pregnant doctor being stabbed in the belly with a syringe in episode one. First episode was paired against ER, of all things, and it did well against a repeat of that show. Next episode was MURDERED in the ratings. I was eager to see episode three (Jeremy Piven* guest stars as a former standup comedian with mental issues!) and then, YANK, off the schedule. The episodes that aired were intense, strong, adult television. Far too hard edged for ABC.
“The Beat” - Tom Fontana-created cop show, set amidst the backdrop of the NYPD. Probably the best show ever to air on UPN. It was a midseason replacement, and it played out the rest of the season before dying. Early work from Mark Ruffalo as one of two cops. The show was an hourlong drama, but it captured both the mundane, boring elements of cop work as well as the comedically surreal. And, hey, an appearance by Detective Munch!
*This whole resurrected old show thing certainly backfired with “Cupid” didn’t it? The scripts were almost IDENTICAL, but Piven was goofy and funny, Bobby Cannavale was just… creepy.