Nostalgic Shows That Deserve Modern Remakes
This list ranks nostalgic TV series that are ripe for modern TV reboots, ranked from best to worst by user votes, from the 1970s, 80s, and 90s. Some hilariously awful TV shows like Small Wonder and Mork & Mindy would be great remade as gritty, dramatic series, while serious TV shows like Quantum Leap could use an update with some camp and smart jokes.
This initial list features exciting science fiction and comedy and action series because honestly, who wants to see another 90210 or Sex in the City TV reboot? Not me, that's not who. Maybe you do, though? Share your thoughts in the comments below and let us know if these nostalgic TV shows should have modern remakes as dark reimaginings (maybe Vicki from Small Wonder wakes up in a government laboratory and has to fight her way out to find her "family" and her origin story?) or silly, campy satires (the Greatest American Hero could show us everything that's not so great about living in the United States today). The possibilities are endless!
Help us give some good ideas to those desperate TV development executives that look online for new ideas about which TV series to reboot next!
Add all the good reboot ideas we didn't so we can make a definitive list of TV series that should be rebooted.
- 1TV Program
Small Wonder is quite possibly one of the worst TV shows ever to have been created. V.I.C.I. ("Vicky") is a robot that looks just like a little girl and lives with the family of the robotics engineer that designed her. How will Vicky possibly fit in with regular children? She won't, that's how! This sitcom provides horrible laugh tracks so you know when the writers thought it was supposed to be funny. Imagine Vicky karate-chopping her way out of the laboratory and having to come to terms with being artificial in a world of real humans? Just think of the social commentary about AI and social media's warping of our ideas of "reality". Frankly, any change from the original show would be an improvement so this one is probably too easy.
- 2TV Program
Serious, but with lighthearted moments, Quantum Leap is about time-travel. Though hugely popular, the show's worst trait was that the hero only time travels to boring moments in the United States during his own lifetime (think: baseball game, a business deal, a divorce, etc.). A reboot could send him ANYWHERE in the past and put him in much more interesting situations.
Okay hear me out. The star of this 1980s/90s sitcom is Scott Baio. Baio was accused of sexual harassment by Charles in Charge co-star Nicole Eggert during the #meetoo movement. The original show is about a college-aged man babysitting/taking care of children, including two young, attractive girls in their early teens. Do you see where I am going with this? Charles in Charge is a daring reboot about a man who is accused of sexual harassment by the teenage girl he babysits. What ensues is a "did he, didn't he" investigation that respectfully handles the implications of a #metoo accusation on all parties involved.
- 4TV Program
Dark, especially for the time (late 1980s), Alien Nation was a TV series based on a film of the same name that came out in 1988. This was essentially a mis-matched cop police drama, but one of the cops is an alien. A modern retelling could beef up the tragic consequences of being an undesired immigrant in an unwelcoming land.
Campy, silly, and sometimes sexy, Buck Rogers was based on an equally silly 1930s adventure serial so the 1979-1981 TV version was a reboot in and of itself. It was embarassingly fun and had the worst robot sidekick ever invented. Buck is a daring, handsome adventurer from the 20th Century hurled forward through time to the year 2491 where hot women wear silver spandex (just like in the 1970s). What if we took the possibilities of the future *even further* with a reboot? What if we explored the farthest extent of our imagination by sending Buck out into even stranger, sexier, scarier, and spandex-ier situations?
- 6TV Program
This campy 1970s superhero show in the vein of the 1960s Batman series is silly and fun. There was a 2016 film reboot but NO ONE saw it and let's just forget about that because we're talking about TV and I said so. We need more silly, lighthearted campy fun in our science fiction and superhero media. This is one fun way to do that.
