Careful What You Wish For: Failed TV Reboots & Revivals

[Lily Adler]

Discuss reboots you wish hadn't happened.

 

[Drizzle]

While I wouldn't necessarily call it a reboot as much as a revival, Arrested Development should have stayed cancelled because the Netflix seasons kind of stained its reputation. If anything there should have been a movie released around 2008-2009 to wrap everything up.

 

[Primal Slayer]

Murphy Brown. Would've loved for it to be good but it was just so bad.

 

[Lily Adler]

While I wouldn't necessarily call it a reboot as much as a revival, Arrested Development should have stayed cancelled because the Netflix seasons kind of stained its reputation. If anything there should have been a movie released around 2008-2009 to wrap everything up.

Hell Season 4 could have been condensed down to a movie.

 

[Lily Adler]

I'll add Roseanne for obvious reasons and The Conners not living up to the original (mainly due to inconsistent continuity and the perpetual unhappiness of Lanford).

 

[Primal Slayer]

The Charmed reboot...I watch it. I try to support it. But it's pretty bad. 2 soft reboots, 3 showrunners within 4 seasons..mess.

 

[Lily Adler]

Gilmore Girls, but it did show us what happens to privileged big fishes in little ponds.

 

[Shinobi Shaw]

Chris Carter still deserves to get slapped for giving us that “My Struggle” arc for the X-Files revival.

Murphy Brown. Would've loved for it to be good but it was just so bad.

Funny thing is, I think I remember liking the Murphy Brown reboot, but I can’t remember anything about it except her son was grown now lol.

 

[Lily Adler]

Chris Carter still deserves to get slapped for giving us that “My Struggle” arc for the X-Files revival.



Funny thing is, I think I remember liking the Murphy Brown reboot, but I can’t remember anything about it except her son was grown now lol.

I never watched it cause I had to work when it was on and only had streaming and an antenna. The issue of course was I didn't have a DVR and it was only on CBS All Access.

 

[metaphysician]

Two words: Heroes. Reborn.

*/thread*

 

[Prison Mike]

I never watched it but I heard the Mad About You reboot/sequel was pretty bad.

 

[DarkShadow10]

The X-Files seasons Ten & Eleven

 

[Deck Rickard]

Two words: Heroes. Reborn.

*/thread*

Hahahahaha yep that’s the one. To be fair, anyone who watched the latter seasons of the original show should have known it would be awful but somehow I got duped into watching that revival. Just horrible. Nothing was good about it, NOTHING.

 

[Lily Adler]

I never watched it but I heard the Mad About You reboot/sequel was pretty bad.

Mad About You?!

 

[Lily Adler]

Two words: Heroes. Reborn.

*/thread*

I've never watched Heroes other than the scene with Hayden Panettiere and Zachary Quinto's eyebrows.

 

[Prison Mike]

Mad About You?!

I miss the soft rock music of the 90s

 

[Lily Adler]

I miss the soft rock music of the 90s

I just figured out why I never heard there was a reboot. They stuck it on Spectrum's OnDemand service.

 

[Primal Slayer]

Two words: Heroes. Reborn.

*/thread*

Im still amazed at quickly Heroes burned out and how bad the revival was. Sad.

 

[Lily Adler]

Mad About You and the reboot are on Prime, so now I got an excuse not to study.

 

[Lily Adler]

Im still amazed at quickly Heroes burned out and how bad the revival was. Sad.

I remember how hyped it was when it first came out.

 

[Prison Mike]

Mad About You and the reboot are on Prime, so now I got an excuse not to study.

Hope you like the reboot.

 

[Teelie]

Im still amazed at quickly Heroes burned out and how bad the revival was. Sad.

If Heroes had stuck to the original plan they might have done better. It was originally going to have new heroes/villians every season and no one would be truly safe from death, except maybe the cheerleader who gives Wolverine envy with the healing factor.

 

[Erik20]

Hell Season 4 could have been condensed down to a movie.

Even that "remix" version of season 4 is still a mess, you're mostly just listening to Ron Howard. Every episode feels like you're listening to someone give a summary of a story, way too much narration.

And then season 5 with tons of ADR, and I usually don't even notice that. Also the show just doesn't work without Lindsay. She's not even my favourite character, but you miss all the interactions she had with the rest of the family. (And I hate what they did at the end with Buster)

Also Prison Break and that 24 spin-off... You just can't do 24 without Jack Bauer, or do something really shocking and kill off your lead halfway through to show that anything can happen this time. Maybe they should've focused on a team, you can't replace an iconic character like that and do the same thing again.

 

[metaphysician]

Im still amazed at quickly Heroes burned out and how bad the revival was. Sad.

Yeah. I mean, nobody really expected Heroes Reborn to be good, because Heroes hadn't been good for its own last several seasons. Nonetheless its spectacular and impressive how much worse Heroes Reborn was even compared to those low expectations.

 

[metaphysician]

If Heroes had stuck to the original plan they might have done better. It was originally going to have new heroes/villians every season and no one would be truly safe from death, except maybe the cheerleader who gives Wolverine envy with the healing factor.

Eh... its possible it might have been better, but I kind of doubt it. For one, I'm skeptical how much "new cast each season" would have actually been a virtue. Yes, it means you'd have more freedom to kill off characters, but it also means you'd be sacrificing audience interest every year. "What, you liked Heroes because you were a big fan of Hiro and HRG? Too bad, they don't appear next season." And if you only bring back the really popular characters. . . then you are basically back to what the show as, anyway.

I tend to think the underlying problem was that the writers and showrunners only actually had the *one* good story. Once they burned through that one, they just didn't have anything else worth telling.