Failed TV shows? Dead actors? Controversial storylines? No problem, a good TV show will
always find a way to thrive, and one of your favorites may be up for a reboot!
In early 2021, ViacomCBS and Paramount rebranded their little-noticed streaming
service CBS All Access as Paramount+. At launch, they announced an ambitious slate of programs
in development. One of the most significant intellectual properties on that list: Frasier.
According to Deadline, Kelsey Grammer will reprise his role as Frasier Crane, the snobby, arrogant,
serially-dating Seattle radio psychiatrist whom he portrayed from 1993 to 2004 on NBC's Frasier,
as well as a decade's worth of Cheers. The revival is a co-production with Grammer's own Grammnet
Productions; the actor had been trying to get a new Frasier off the ground for at least two years.
"Time is irrelevant, here in the seventh circle of Hell."
Grammer told New York TV station NBC 4 that the first episode of the revival will address the
death of Frasier's father, Martin Crane, since actor John Mahoney died in 2018. No
longer a radio psychiatrist in Seattle, Frasier Crane will head back to Boston,
the character's original home on Cheers, to take a job as a college professor.
Bebe Neuwirth will be back as Frasier's former wife, Lilith Sternin, and their now adult son
Freddy will be portrayed by new cast member Jack Cutmore-Scott. Niles and Daphne's now college-age
son David will also appear, as played by newcomer Anders Keith — however, Niles and Daphne will not.
Ally McBeal arrived on Fox in 1997 and instantly disrupted the whole TV landscape:
It was an hour-length comedy, with elements of drama, soap opera, and fantasy — something
that had never really been done before. Ally McBeal made a star of Calista Flockhart and
won seven Emmy Awards during its five-season run, including one for outstanding comedy series. Even
the theme song, Vonda Shepard's "Searchin' My Soul," became a hit single. In 2018,
creator David E. Kelly said a reboot could happen. He told The Hollywood Reporter:
"But I don't think it should be done by me. If it were going to be done,
it really should be done by a woman."
Twentieth Television began developing an Ally McBeal revival miniseries in March
2021. Flockhart will likely reprise her titular role, while Kelly, as promised, will hand over
creative duties to a female showrunner, instead serving as a consulting executive producer.
In August 2022, Deadline announced an Ally McBeal-adjacent series is also in development
at ABC. Produced and written by Grey's Anatomy and Mixed-ish executive producer Karin Gist,
the new legal comedy will center on the daughter of Renée Raddick,
a district attorney portrayed in the original series by Lisa Nicole Carson.
Debuting in 1987, Married... with Children helped establish Fox's edgy approach to
programming. Originally titled Not the Cosbys,
Married...with Children offered a dark and cynical take on the family sitcom.
"Uh, dad?
I've got a gut feeling they're gonna kill us." "Trying to talk here, son."
Cash-strapped Chicago shoe salesman Al Bundy hated his job, how his once
promising life had turned out, and especially his wife and kids, lazy Peggy, obnoxious Bud,
and ditzy Kelly. The raunchy, provocative sitcom helped establish Fox in the TV game,
and the show produced original episodes right up until 1997.
Over the years, various attempts have been made to bring the Bundys back to TV. In 2014,
a reboot about Bud Bundy moving back into his childhood home didn't make
it past the development stage. Then, in 2022, Deadline reported that Sony
Pictures Television had begun work on an animated reboot of the original series.
Development had been in the works for a year prior to the announcement,
with all four Bundy actors signing contracts agreeing to reprise their roles. While Christina
Applegate's recent health announcements may complicate matters, the re-Married cartoon
remains in the planning stages, and if ordered will likely air on Fox, Hulu, or Peacock.
The 1970s police action drama Starsky and Hutch was one of the definitive
TV series of its era. David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser portrayed
Detective Ken "Hutch" Hutchinson and Detective Dave Starsky, respectively.
They were friends and mismatched partners who tried to keep the mean streets of Bay
City safe — mostly by rolling around in a classic red Gran Torino. In 2004,
Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson attempted to bring the title back with a movie
adaptation, earning a respectable $88 million at the domestic box office.
In February 2023, The Hollywood Reporter announced that Fox had begun work on a new version of
Starsky and Hutch. Like its predecessors, the series will center on a detective duo;
this time, however, both leading roles will be portrayed by female actors. In the revival,
best friends and police partners Sasha Starsky and Nicole Hutchinson live and
work in an oddball locale called Desert City, fighting crimes and busting bad
guys while also trying to figure out who framed their dads. The show's producers
are set to submit multiple scripts to the network before a final greenlight is given.
In the 1980s, beloved actor Andy Griffith scored another long-running TV classic
with Matlock. He enjoyed a nine-year run as Ben Matlock, a masterful, expensive,
and quintessentially Southern criminal defense attorney who works to exonerate
his accused clients while his staff of investigators track down the real culprit.
Griffith starred in a total of 181 Matlock episodes, but following the star's death in
2012, it became clear that any reboot would require a difficult recasting. Nevertheless,
in 2023, CBS ordered a pilot for a new series, selecting Academy Award winner
Kathy Bates to take over as the crafty, sweet-smiling seventy-something lawyer.
Her character will be Madeline Matlock, who emerges from retirement to join the staff of
a high-end firm. David Del Rio and Leah Lewis are set to play Matlock's law firm associates
Billy and Sarah, while Jason Ritter has signed on to play the son of the law firm's chief partner.
The wholesome family comedy Who's the Boss? was a smash hit for ABC. Airing from 1984 to 1992,
Tony Danza returned to TV as Tony Micelli, a former baseball player and single father who
takes a position as the live-in housekeeper for advertising executive Angela Bower.
"You sent me a man for a housekeeper."
"Oh, don't be sexist. A man can do meaningless, unproductive work just as well as a woman."
In 2020, Sony Pictures Television announced a continuation of Who's
the Boss? with original series stars Danza and Alyssa Milano on board as
stars and executive producers. Set more than 30 years after the end of the 1992 series,
the revival finds Tony retired from his job as a housekeeper and Samantha a single mother
living in her childhood home, the same house in which much of Who's the Boss? took place.
Nearly two years later, in 2022, The Hollywood Reporter revealed that One
Day at a Time reboot writers Mike Royce and Brigitte Muñoz-Liebowitz would pen scripts
for the new show, an exclusive to Amazon's add-supported streaming service Freevee.
Many comedians have built sitcoms around their lives and stand-up routines, but Everybody Hates
Chris was a little different. The 2000s series was set in the 1980s, and dramatized humorous,
heartwarming events from the life of an adolescent Chris Rock, as portrayed by Tyler James Williams.
The life of TV Chris was humorously chaotic, dealing as he did with his wacky family and
trying to fit in at a school where he was one of the few non-white students. In the middle
of its mid-2000s run, Everybody Hates Chris was nominated for best comedy or musical series at
the Golden Globes, making it one of the few UPN shows to ever receive major awards attention.
The title Everybody Hates Chris was an obvious spoof on Everybody Loves Raymond,
and the revival will add another level to that joke and acknowledge that time has passed,
entering production under the name Everybody Still Hates Chris.
In August 2022, Paramount ordered the series — an animated reboot — for its
Paramount+ streaming service, with episodes set to air on Comedy Central as well. Only one cast
member has officially signed on, and it's a key one: Co-creator and narrator Chris Rock,
who will provide voice-overs for more stories inspired by his childhood in Brooklyn.
Following his years with the Monty Python comedy troupe,
John Cleese co-created and starred in the British sitcom Fawlty Towers. He portrayed Basil Fawlty,
the forever angry, exasperated, and inept operator of a small, rundown motel.
"Listen, don't mention the war. I mentioned it once but I think I got away with it alright."
While only 12 episodes ran over four years in the late 1970s,
Fawlty Towers is considered by some as one of the best sitcoms ever made,
ranking on IMDb's list of top TV series, twice winning the BAFTA Award for best situation comedy,
and being named as the best British sitcom of all time by the readers of The Radio Times.
In 2009, Cleese said that he wasn't interested in a Fawlty Towers revival, telling the BBC:
"I think everyone would be excited if we did it. The problem is, when you do something
that is generally accepted as being very good, a horrible problem arises, which is:
how do you top it? The expectation of what you will do is so high."
Cleese presumably found a way, though, because, in 2023, he announced a Fawlty Towers revival
is imminent. Cleese and his daughter, Camilla, will write and star in the new show, which will
depict Basil Fawlty and the character's daughter running a small hotel. Writer-director-producer
Rob Reiner will help make the series, via his Castle Rock production company.
Airing at 12 a.m. weeknights on Comedy Central from 2013 to 2017,
@midnight offered a plugged-in alternative to the broadcast networks' late night talk
shows. Presided over by host Chris Hardwick, @midnight mashed improv into a game show format,
with three comedians or actors getting points for the jokes and funny material they created, while
making fun of junky online culture like memes, blog posts, Instagram photos, and celebrity news.
An immediate hit and Emmy winner, @midnight ended its run as the
cultural climate quickly shifted. When Donald Trump became president,
online chatter became dominated by political talk. In 2018, Hardwick told Insider:
"We were not a political show."
With The Late Late Show with James Corden ending its run in April 2023,
CBS found its replacement in a new iteration of @midnight.
According to Deadline, producing a game show instead of a talk show will save CBS
$25 million in annual production costs. Stephen Colbert is set to serve as an executive producer,
while the embattled Hardwick is not expected to be involved with the reboot.
Boasting rapid fire jokes, tons of sight gags, sly sci-fi references, and a vast overarching
mythology, Futurama revolves around the day-to-day exploits of Planet Express,
an interstellar delivery company owned by genius scientist Professor Farnsworth. The
Planet Express ship is crewed by one-eyed mutant Leela, robotic misanthrope Bender, and dumb
slacker Philip J. Fry, who was cryogenically frozen in 1999 and woke up in the year 3000.
Despite the pedigree of creator Matt Groening, the man behind The Simpsons,
Futurama was never a ratings smash; in fact, it has been canceled and revived multiple times.
After Fox ended the initial run in 2003, a series of direct-to-DVD movies followed,
which Comedy Central edited into a season of episodes. After ordering an additional two
seasons, Futurama was given another ending in 2013 — and now it's coming back again.
"Those asinine morons who canceled us were themselves fired for incompetence!"
In 2022, Variety reported that Futurama will return, this time on the Hulu streaming service.
Original cast members Katey Sagal, Billy West, Lauren Tom, Phil LaMarr and others immediately
signed up to reprise their roles, while John DiMaggio — the voice of Bender — joined the
project following a pay dispute. Scripts have been written, the cast has performed table reads,
and production has officially begun with episodes to follow in the near future.
In the last few years, Christopher Miller and Phil Lord have become one of comedy's
most prolific writing-directing-producing teams. They directed the Jump Street movies,
co-wrote and helmed The Lego Movie, and produced Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse,
which won them the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film.
Before all this, back in 2002, Miller and Lord co-created, directed, and voiced characters on
Clone High, a silly animated sci-fi comedy series for MTV that lasted only 13 episodes.
A parody of teen soaps of the era, Clone High takes place at a high school populated entirely
by the clones of historical figures, created by a shadowy organization for devious ends.
Clone High was quickly canceled, but it’s become something of a cult hit in the decades since,
particularly after the ascension of Miller and Lord to comedy greatness.
The pair signed up for a revival in 2020, and in late 2022, Miller revealed on Twitter that
the new Clone High series will likely appear on HBO Max sometime in 2023.