Netflix is apparently super close to inking a deal to reboot Full House, everyoneās favorite family-oriented sitcom about a grieving widower, his children, and his fuckup adult permanent houseguests leeching off his benevolence and remarkable real estate in San Francisco. And you know what? Uncles Jesse and Joey arenāt the only leeches in this situation. Netflix has cornered the market on milking 90s nostalgia, and the reboot fever it has inspired in the golden age of TV is bad for the art form and worse for our memories.
Just as the film industry has gravitated towards remakes and reboots because a known quantity is always a safer bet than the unknown, this ballooning roster of resurrected shows is happening because they have built-in audiences, not because the stories are especially compelling or the creators are especially passionate.
Netflix has already ordered reboots of Inspector Gadget and The Magic Schoolbus, so the reintroduction of Kimmy Gibbler into our lives isnāt unprecedented. Far from that, this Full House bid shows that Netflix is seeing how its competitors have recognized how potentially lucrative it can be to be nostalgia vultures, elbowing deeper into the wistful cesspool of sentimentality profiteering.
Netflix isnāt actually producing some of the most highly anticipated upcoming 90s reboots (no, not fucking Coach, though thatās a thing thatās happening). Fox is rebooting The X-Files and Showtime is reviving Twin Peaks, so those networks share some blame. But because Netflix offers a wide variety of older TV shows, like The X-Files and Twin Peaks, it gives these shows a second life and a new audience. And now that television executives realized that Netflix was essentially priming the pump for new decade of reboot material, itās now open season on 90s TV retreads.
The weirdest thing about the remake fever is that itās not even a very good scheme, financially. Remakes are considered fairly safe bets because they have that built-in audience, but more often than not, rebooted TV shows flop. So this is a fairly bizarre trend, one that prioritizes the asset of a known entity than anything else. In 2009, a former NBC programmer cited how well film remakes do to explain why networks are obsessed with reboots. That thinking clearly holds true hereā maybe, just maybe, the rebooted Full House could be like the Jaden Smith remake of The Karate Kid, which pulled in nearly $400 million worldwide.
Iām not saying that these reboots will all be terrible, though I have an abiding fear that Chris Carter will somehow inject even more incomprehensible nonsense into the X-Files mythology and also that Skinner wonāt be hot anymore. Some of them may be good! And in some cases, a reboot can be a chance to finish an incomplete story. But as an overall trend, theyāre bad for the TV business because they peddle echoes of memories, not creativity.
That these reboots are lazy cash grabs is secondary to the most offensive thing about them, which is that they are reviving dead franchises to appease the fans, not to service the story. When youāre making art just to toss a bone to a nostalgic audience, your art is probably going to suck, and it may impact how people feel about the original content they loved in the first place. I have never seen a franchise revival that was actually good. I will go so far to say the Veronica Mars movie was decent. Other than that: the new Arrested Development was the definition of disappointing. The 2008 X-Files sequel was an anemic throwaway. And donāt even fucking get me started on the TRAVESTY that is Sex and the City 2, which took a smart, often thoughtful sitcom about four imperfect friends and turned it into a trashcan caricature about four awful, comically rich assholes.
The bad thing about this is that the fan-service schlock isnāt just that itās badā itās that it is crowding out the possible good. Television studios have finite resources. The more they pour into paying the Olsen twins to cameo on Full House 2.0: DJ Tannerās Revenge or whatever, the less they have to take risks with original programming.
Itās not impossible to make a work of art thatās a reboot or remake. But itās a lot harder. Because nostalgia propels these shows back into existence, thereās a certain expectation of fan service for reboots and remakes that doesnāt exist in original work. Sure, yes, The Office (US) was alchemic. But remember the remakes of Hawaii Five-O, Charlieās Angels, Dallas, 90210, The Bionic Woman, Knight Rider, Get Smart, Love Boat, Melrose Place, or The Fugitive? Thatās ten unambiguously shitty remakes for one good one, and the good one was only good because it veered into its own unique thing.
Movie studios have relied way too heavily on remakes, sequels, and reboots, obsessing over franchising old ideas instead of emphasizing new ones. There are execs who buck that trend, like Megan Ellison, but overall, television has become the new stomping ground for auteur showrunners who want creative control, like Jill Soloway, Louis C.K., and Matthew Weiner. This new fixation on ā90s reboots is troubling because it hints that television studios are jumping on the dubious franchise-obsession gravy train instead of letting dead shows lie and nurturing new ideas.
Whenever I think of nostalgia, I think of Don Draperās famous āCarouselā pitch during the first season finale of Mad Men (which, of course, you can watch on Netflix). Nostalgia is a potent emotion, as the ad man says. But itās important to remember that in Mad Men, heās evoking nostalgia in a sales pitch in order to sell people something. The emotion is secondary. Itās not about the beauty of memories. Itās about making money. Itās unlikely that Mad Men will get a reboot in the near future, since creator Matthew Weiner is famously protective of his work. And thatās a good thing. Most stories donāt need to be told twice, and they especially donāt need to be revived primarily to suck money from the sentimental.
Whatever happened to predictability? Apparently, itās coming back with a vengeance.
Image via Much Music
Contact the author at kate.knibbs@gizmodo.com.
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