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Sequels to classic TV shows (1 Viewer)

bretmaverick2

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I'm not talking full on reboots or big screen movies recasting old tv shows. I'm talking reunion TV movies or series sequels to classic tv. Think Brdy Brides from The Brady Bunch, Rescue from Gilligan's Island from Gilligan's Island.

Talk about some you enjoyed (or didn't).

I I remember enjoying Still The Beaver way back when it first aired, having watched tons of Leave It To Beaver repeats back in the day.
 

FanCollector

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In terms of reconstituted series, I would say the '88-'89 Mission: Impossible was probably the best I have seen. It was the closest to capturing what made the original series special. Others I find enjoyable, even if they aren't as faithful to the source material, are Burke's Law, Perry Mason (the TV movies), Columbo, Star Trek: The Animated Series, Kojak, and Bret Maverick.

I found Return to Mayberry to be the best single reunion movie I've seen. It seemed like the truest extension of the original material and characters. The first of the Rockford Files reunion movies was also outstanding. (The rest were fine, but the first one was especially perfect.) Another pretty good one no one ever seems to recall is The Return of Frank Cannon.
 

Ron1973

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The Return of The Beverly Hillbillies just didn't do it for me. Cute in a way, but missing Max Baer, Jr., Irene Ryan, and Raymond Bailey. When half of the cast is missing, how in the world do you even make the movie? Okay, you can acknowledge that Granny and Mr. Drysdale passed away, but the ridiculous idea of Granny's mother? Please! Maybe a sister or distant cousin, but mother? Can anyone fault Max Baer, Jr. for wanting nothing to do with it? Colonel Klink as a replacement for Mr. Drysdale didn't work; I kind of kept expecting Colonel Hogan to come up out of a secret tunnel in Jed's cabin!!!!
 

FanCollector

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And depending on how you want to define our terms, I think the hour-long Naked City, which reappeared after a one-year hiatus, is probably the only restarted series that is genuinely better than the original. But I can also see the argument that it's not a new show at all...
 

Jack P

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I wouldn't call it a new show because you had two of the three major cast members returning in McMahon and Bellaver and I think had James Franciscus wanted to return, he would have but he'd relocated to the west coast.

"Get Smart Again" in 1989 was a nice TV-movie reunion that washed away the bad taste of the awful "Nude Bomb" big screen movie that was totally unfaithful to the series. You had the entire surviving cast back (Ed Platt was the only one who had passed away), the style and tone was faithful and to their credit they didn't even forget that 99 had twins in the last season (with a throwaway line that they were in college). I did not see the mid-90s revival series but I feel glad I avoided it.
 

FanCollector

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Yes! Get Smart Again was an excellent reunion. I think the flaw in so many of them is that the studios spend money and effort reassembling the original cast and don't bother to get the writers and directors who understand the material. Get Smart Again feels like the old show because it was made by the same people.
 

FanCollector

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One generalization I'll make is that dramas typically fare better than comedies in these kinds of revivals. To paraphrase Jack Lemmon, you can sort of succeed with drama even when it isn't perfect, but a comedy either works or it doesn't. The tone of most reunions is a little "off" but that hurts the comedies far more than the dramas.

Also, a 2-hour revival of a one-hour series is not as much of a stretch as a 2-hour revival of a half-hour series. Some of those comedy reunions are damaged by the excessive running times.

Some stars, like Bea Arthur, were approached about revivals and they simply refused because they thought it better to leave the originals alone.
 

Rick Thompson

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I rather liked New Perry Mason, where Monte Markham gave us a younger, athletic (Who had played football in college) and more energetic version of the character.
 

bmasters9

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Also, a 2-hour revival of a one-hour series is not as much of a stretch as a 2-hour revival of a half-hour series. Some of those comedy reunions are damaged by the excessive running times.

I think I heard that said before about the Father Knows Best Reunion in 1977 on NBC (don't know the exact details, but I'm sure I've heard something to that effect).
 

jperez

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And depending on how you want to define our terms, I think the hour-long Naked City, which reappeared after a one-year hiatus, is probably the only restarted series that is genuinely better than the original. But I can also see the argument that it's not a new show at all...


In the same sense, the one hour Danger Man that followed, a couple of years later, the 1-2 hour one, was also a superior sequel. The protagonist was the same, John Drake (Patrick McGoohan), but now he worked for a British iIntelligence Agency, instead of NATO, and is British instead of American, so it was not exactly the same series, expanded. And basially the same can be said about The Prisoner, about a former secret agent, although Patrick McGoohan always denied that it as John Drake.
 

bretmaverick2

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I thought the first Gilligan reunion was pretty entertaining. The third was just goofy all around.

One of the worst had to be (a tie really) - The Brady Bunch Variety Hour and the last one, The Bradys - the attempt to turn the characters into a drama..
 

FanCollector

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In the same sense, the one hour Danger Man that followed, a couple of years later, the 1-2 hour one, was also a superior sequel. The protagonist was the same, John Drake (Patrick McGoohan), but now he worked for a British iIntelligence Agency, instead of NATO, and is British instead of American, so it was not exactly the same series, expanded. And basially the same can be said about The Prisoner, about a former secret agent, although Patrick McGoohan always denied that it as John Drake.

Yes, I agree that the stories were better served in the longer version. The Prisoner is a whole other issue, of course. Whether he's John Drake or not, it's a very different show.

My least favorite follow-up might be Return to Green Acres. The series reflected such a unified vision--with nearly every episode written by Dick Chevillat and creator/producer Jay Sommers, and directed by Richard L. Bare--that the reunion movie felt even more generic and misguided than most.
 

MatthewA

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The Green Acres reunion really misjudged the tone of the original; all the surreal humor was gone and replaced by a heavy-handed anti-development message.

The Facts of Life Reunion had its moments, but it tried to cram 9 years of tonal shifts into 90 minutes, and the sorely-missed Nancy McKeon's absence wasn't even the worst part of it, and nor was the idea of two guys fighting over Natalie; it was the fact that the women who did come back acted so blithely about the closing of Eastland. Seriously, Blair risked her law career to save that school, and it's the reason they all met in the first place.

One revival that kind-of-sort-of worked was What's Happening Now, at least at first. I actually like the first season of that better than the final season of the original, where Mabel King was gone and a bunch of less interesting new peripheral characters were added. But then Rerun left over a salary dispute (again, but for smaller stakes since it was first-run syndication) and it wasn't the same.

I think I heard that said before about the Father Knows Best Reunion in 1977 on NBC (don't know the exact details, but I'm sure I've heard something to that effect).

IIRC for some reason My Three Sons had to share a reunion with The Partridge Family around the same time.

One of the worst had to be (a tie really) - The Brady Bunch Variety Hour and the last one, The Bradys - the attempt to turn the characters into a drama..

If nothing else, The Brady Bunch Hour spawned what is probably the most entertaining book about an eight-week flop I've ever read: Love to Love You Bradys. And I'm honestly surprised that this only got a 2-episode single disc release while the abomination that was Pink Lady got a complete series set (yeah, I know, music rights). But honestly, IMO, the absolute worst of the Brady revivals was the White House TV movie, written by Lloyd Schwartz and his sister but following the 1990s movie continuity*, where Mike became President and tried to Make America Nice Again.

*Though recasting the kids yet again for the fourth time if you count the very well-done TV-movie based on Growing Up Brady.
 

Jack P

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And basially the same can be said about The Prisoner, about a former secret agent, although Patrick McGoohan always denied that it as John Drake.

McGoohan *had* to deny it was Drake or else that would have entitled the creator of "Danger Man" to royalties and proceeds from "The Prisoner". I think its pretty obvious it is supposed to be the same character if you just use a little imagination and if you use your imagination a little further you could watch "Danger Man" and then "Ice Station Zebra" and see that as the mission that leads to the "resignation" and then "The Prisoner"! :) (Yes, I know "Ice Station Zebra" was filmed after "Prisoner" began, but think of how the story as filmed involves McGoohan committing a royal screwup ultimately that is going to sour him on his profession and you've got the answer for why "Number 6" resigned).
 

Bob Gu

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I always liked to think McGoohan was really John Drake, in "Ice Station Zebra".

Ralph Smart, the producer/writer of Danger Man, also was involved in the ITC Robin Hood and William Tell series and often used an actor named John Drake. An episode of William Tell called, "The Prisoner" featured Michael Caine as a character called Number 6.
 

B-ROLL

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"Make Room for Grandaddy" anyone ?...
MV5BMTQ4OTI3MTQ0NV5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwODU5MDIwNw@@._V1_UY1200_CR82,0,630,1200_AL_.jpg


"Son a topless bar is a bar without a ROOF!"
 

FanCollector

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It pains me to say it, but the 1966-1970 Honeymooners may be the worst follow-up series I have seen. Certainly it represents the greatest decline in quality from the original. There is a seemingly infinite list of problems with them, but the insurmountable one is that they lack the undercurrent of truth and sadness that made the series unique in the first place.
 

jperez

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McGoohan *had* to deny it was Drake or else that would have entitled the creator of "Danger Man" to royalties and proceeds from "The Prisoner". I think its pretty obvious it is supposed to be the same character if you just use a little imagination and if you use your imagination a little further you could watch "Danger Man" and then "Ice Station Zebra" and see that as the mission that leads to the "resignation" and then "The Prisoner"! :) (Yes, I know "Ice Station Zebra" was filmed after "Prisoner" began, but think of how the story as filmed involves McGoohan committing a royal screwup ultimately that is going to sour him on his profession and you've got the answer for why "Number 6" resigned).


Yes, I'm aware of that explanation about the royalties. In any case, I think The Prisoner can be interpreted as a true sequel to Danger Man: not a remake, but a new series that takes a new path. I would say the same, for example, about Lou Grant (as a sequel of sorts from the Mary Tyler Moore show, not just an outgrowth, like The Jeffersons from All in the Family)..
Your placing of Ice Station Zebra in the Danger Man-Prisoner continuum is very creative, but unrealistic:as far as I know, McGoohan, although again a spy, was just a featured secondary actor to Rock Hudson in Ice Station, and kind of a villain, while the creators of Danger Man and The Prisoner had no involvement with it.
 

Jack P

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I never said there was any actual connection, I just said with a little imagination you can see "Ice Station Zebra" fitting into the same universe because the movie version of "Ice Station Zebra" changes McGoohan's character from the book so that we never hear his real name. McGoohan is not a villain, he's a spy who ends up committing a screwup during the proceedigns because he gets led astray by Ernest Borgnine and ends up shooting dead an innocent man in Jim Brown because he trusted Borgnine when he shouldn't have. There is of course no actual connection in the writing/producing, but its a fascinating case how the viewer can easily *interpret* the three as running together.
 

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