Favourite revivals

[rushy]

What are some TV show revivals that you've managed to enjoy? Doesn't have to be a classic, but a respectable continuation that at least adds something interesting to the legacy of the original. 

*Red Dwarf I think is the most popular option around here, as it has largely retained everything that made the show good to begin with whilst providing new and exciting material.

*Twin Peaks is perhaps the weirdest case, as it's less of a revival and more of an excuse for David Lynch to go completely nuts with his artistic experimentations. It's technically not even a TV show anymore, because they wrote and filmed it as a continuous 18-hour movie, so the style/pacing/format is completely different from the original. But there's still lots to love if you can chew through it. Of all the shows, I think Twin Peaks feels the most like 25 years has passed because of the plot device of Cooper being frozen in time. So he comes out and there's just a sadness and exhaustion to him as he emerges into a very different world. (cue an attempt to sell this show to burrunjor because there's demon monsters and hot women)

*Columbo is the opposite of Peaks, it's a show that changed absolutely nothing about itself. That can be disappointing when the original is so classic and has a 70s flavour that's missing from the later ones. But occasionally there is another great episode and it's nice to have more. Peter Falk is still great, and the Patrick McGoohan episodes are fantastic. I also really love "Undercover" and "Columbo Goes to College" (which has a cameo from Robert Culp, a famous 1970s Columbo three-time killer)

[burrunjor]

Red Dwarf and Ash Vs Evil Dead are the two most successful. Both not only retained the spirit of the original but actually added to it. The revival series of Red Dwarf gave the characters a much happier story after all they'd been through from series 5 to 7, (with a more populated universe to live in, Krtyen helping his people get to silicon heaven, and Rimmer getting many heroic moments) and stopped the show from ending on either the worst series in 8, or a meta, schmaltzy lazy parody of Blade Runner via Back To Earth. 

Ash Vs Evil Dead, well the original didn't come to a bad ending, but this nevertheless added to Deadite lore, and gave us some amazing new characters like Ruby and Kelly (who still stands as one of the genres best leading ladies.) 

After these two I'd say maybe Futurama. I'm a bit torn about this, as it does contain the single worst ever episode of any tv show The Late Philip J Fry, that honestly did threaten to single handedly ruin Futurama the way the Timeless Children did DW. It really is that bad. Still the rest of the revival was overall okay (though that Susan Boyle episode was also vile. Honestly it was like f*cking Frankie Boyle wrote that episode. Completely out of step with Futurama's normal brand of humour.) I'd say that's a mixed result. 

I also like the movie Blackadder Back and Forth. It wasn't a classic, but it was quite funny all the same. Loved Rik's egocentric Robin Hood being turned on by his own men. "I'm great and he's not."

Also this exchange still makes me laugh. 

"Why are you so bloody great."

"because I'm me?"

The Mr Bean movies are also reasonably funny and don't f*ck up the original either. 

[rushy]

Drat, I forgot about Ash vs Evil Dead. I suppose I didn't think of it as a revival, more as a spinoff. I'm still annoyed they rebooted Lucy back into a villain for season 3.

[burrunjor]

Nov 8, 2024 19:23:05 GMT rushy said:

Drat, I forgot about Ash vs Evil Dead. I suppose I didn't think of it as a revival, more as a spinoff. I'm still annoyed they rebooted Lucy back into a villain for season 3.

It's very Lucy Lawless to go back and forth from being evil to heroic LOL. She very rarely plays a straight up villain or hero. Almost always something in between, well I suppose apart from My Life Is Murder. Even then though she's a total bitch in that haha, but more of a Sherlock Holmes type of insufferable genius than a villain. 

Meanwhile whilst I liked Ruby as a hero too, and I think her and Ruby would have made an awesome team (and possibly couple.) Perhaps they felt she was too powerful as a hero and would risk overshadowing Ash? It's kind of like Buffy and Angel in that respect too, but where as Angel could get his own show, AVED wasn't popular enough for a Ruby spin off (which I would have LOVED with Kelly as her girlfriend.) Only option therefore was kill her off, or make her evil.  

[rushy]

But she was depowered in season 2. That was the whole point of her arc, she became human, became vulnerable and realised she needed others. They just scrapped her development.

[burrunjor]

Nov 8, 2024 19:39:14 GMT rushy said:

But she was depowered in season 2. That was the whole point of her arc, she became human, became vulnerable and realised she needed others. They just scrapped her development.

Even then with her knowledge gained from hundreds of years, her fighting skills etc, Ash is still a novice compared to her. 

I've seen it many, many times. Angel was the same. Physically he wasn't a match for Buffy, given she's the slayer, but the fact he has been around for 200 years, has knowledge of vampires and demons etc, means that Buffy will always have to be his novice. Supernatural did the same thing with Castiel. He was an Angel and was such a good character they had to keep him around, so they depowered him, but even with that, Cas still had knowledge of magics, spells, demons etc that the Winchester boys at times felt irrelevant, so they had to have Cas always go rogue, or temporarily die etc. Eventually they just forgot he was an Angel it seemed and made him vulnerable as can be. 

That's always the drawback with these characters sadly. 

[rushy]

And Ash had to keep saving her neck. Ash's big advantage IS the fact that he doesn't look at the bigger picture.

In any case, they could've written ways around it. It's not like shows haven't featured sidekicks with greater powers/intelligence before. Look at Once Upon a Time. Emma has no magic and barely knows anything about the magical world.

[burrunjor]

Nov 8, 2024 20:04:17 GMT rushy said:

And Ash had to keep saving her neck. Ash's big advantage IS the fact that he doesn't look at the bigger picture.

In any case, they could've written ways around it. It's not like shows haven't featured sidekicks with greater powers/intelligence before. Look at Once Upon a Time. Emma has no magic and barely knows anything about the magical world.

Oh they could have, but I think given the show wasn't long for this world at that point sadly, they probably thought why bother, and let's just make use of Lucy as a mad bitch, which is always entertaining haha.

[rushy]

It's a pity, because I just stopped caring about her at that point. At least season 3 has Ash's daughter, she was cute. And I really loved the series finale. It felt like there was actual stakes again, which I hadn't honestly felt in Evil Dead since the second movie.

[iank]

Columbo was probably the best, though it was revived in the 80s, so that makes sense. Dwarf ia alright but none of them are as good as the first 6 series.
In general I don't like them. There's something tired and depressing about them even when not outright shit.

[Cherry Pepsi Maxil]

Cobra Kai is the best and beats out Dave Dwarf simply because it takes the source material and improves upon it in every way. I love the original trilogy, but the show has taken the characters and the premise into new territory. The whole thing should be used to as a template for how to successfully resurrect something from the past with love and respect while adding to the legacy.

[burrunjor]

Nov 10, 2024 10:46:41 GMT Cherry Pepsi Maxil said:

Cobra Kai is the best and beats out Dave Dwarf simply because it takes the source material and improves upon it in every way. I love the original trilogy, but the show has taken the characters and the premise into new territory. The whole thing should be used to as a template for how to successfully resurrect something from the past with love and respect while adding to the legacy.

Completely unfamiliar with the franchise, but I've heard a lot of people say that. Always nice to see a franchise that doesn't shit on its fans and respects the source material. 

[burrunjor]

Oh I also forgot, the Star Trek movies obviously. Not only is the trilogy of Wrath of Khan-Voyage Home one of the all time best, but it really did elevate Star Trek into being a mega franchise. To be honest even though I'm more of an Evil Dead fan and a Red Dwarf fan than a Trekkie I think objectively the Trek revival via the movies is the best and accomplished the most.

[rushy]

I love the Trek movies as lovingly crafted blockbusters, and for what they do for the cast. But when you watch them right after TOS, you can definitely see why Roddenberry disliked them. They lacked a visionary's touch. There was no seeking out new life and new civilizations etc.

And I'm not saying they ALL have to be like that, there's lots of Star Trek episodes that are just about having a great time, or learning more about the characters. But that's not really what defines Star Trek to me, and I just think it's a shame that the films so rarely had any ambition to be hard sci-fi.

They had one go at it with the Motion Picture, which I hugely admire, but that movie was let down by some poor choices. Shatner had a swing and a miss with the Final Frontier. Between and after those two films, nothing. None of the other Trek films aim high. They go for revenge flick, time travel flick, political flick. And they do it well, but I just want a movie where they encounter some truly alien life and learn from it the way they do in some of the most classic episodes.

Like Balance of Terror has a similar naval atmosphere to Wrath of Khan, but it also educates us on Romulan culture, on racism within Starfleet in regards to the Romulan/Vulcan connection, on the way Kirk and the Romulan commander are able to find some common ground despite being on opposite sides.

The Cage, Where No Man Has Gone Before, the Corbomite Maneuver, the Devil in the Dark, Metamorphosis, these are TOS at its most imaginative and daring, and the films don't really come close.

[rushy]

On the plus side, Roddenberry's dissatisfaction with losing control of the film franchise led directly to TNG, which became essentially a second golden era of Star Trek.