TV shows that need a reboot

This fall, fans will be delighted at the return of fan favorites like MacGyver, Star Trek and the Gilmore Girls. However, that leaves viewers with a burning question: What are some other TV shows that deserve some sort of reboot or regeneration?

Yes, it might be too soon to request The Good Wife to come back…

These resurrections could be bringing back all or some of the original cast, or possibly just using the initial themes and starting over again as a chapter two type of situation. Some may even be able to pick up years later just where they left off. With so many channels and streaming options, many of these favorite shows could come back in a plethora of ways including full series, limited series, or taking a cue from Joss Whedon, even movies like Serenity (Firefly), can delight both old and new audiences.

There are some types of shows that don’t really need a resurgence because there is usually something similar to take its place.  Think life-before-kids programs of twentysomethings like Friends and How I Met Your Mother.  Those will always come back in new forms. Some could say that Brooklyn 99 got its start from Barney Miller which stemmed from Car 54 Where Are You? and other earlier cop comedies.

There will always be family sitcoms featuring functionally dysfunctional people, buddy comedies, growing up is hard, single women and workplace.  More common tropes include law shows, procedural cop, hospital dramas, something supernatural, adventures in space and bildungsroman stories. I Love Lucy, Gunsmoke, The Honeymooners, The Fugitive, The Brady Bunch, All in the Family, Newhart, Hill Street Blues, Hart to Hart, China Beach, Moonlighting,  E.R., Roseanne, Murphy Brown, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The Sopranos and Sex and the City may be some of the best examples of certain types of shows, but there will always be similar premises out there. We just hope some are as good, if not better than their earlier, popular counterparts.

Most TV watchers were saddened when a favorite show was cancelled too soon and they were left with a hole in their hearts where they always wondered what happened next?

Spinoffs are possibilities for many hit shows, but with those there is always a risk that the new distracts from what made the original so good, but think Better Call Saul as an example of a new spinoff that works.

Some shows are too stand-alone for recreation like Lost, Six Feet Under, Mork and Mindy, Seinfeld or Mad Men (though the possibility of spinoffs could be good with that cast — especially seeing how Peggy or Joan fare in the big shoulder pads of the 1980s),  but others could have a chapter two.

Now some TV stalwarts like Steven Bochco, David E. Kelley, Donald P. Bellisario, Aaron Sorkin and Joss Whedon are always creating new projects, but maybe some of their older creations are due for a reboot.  Now the formats for these reboots can be new full series, limited series, or even movies.

Recently Arrested Development, Dallas, 24 and X-Files have returned in new and interesting ways. It makes you wonder if your favorite show could come back?