{"id":363377,"date":"2025-11-08T00:45:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-08T00:45:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/363377\/"},"modified":"2025-11-08T00:45:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-08T00:45:12","slug":"tv-reboots-scrubs-buffy-malcolm-fueled-by-millennial-nostalgia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/363377\/","title":{"rendered":"TV Reboots ‘Scrubs,’ ‘Buffy,’ ‘Malcolm’ Fueled by Millennial Nostalgia"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tJust when you thought there was nothing left to reboot<\/a>, remake or revive, TV is riding a new wave of nostalgia. And this time, there\u2019s a turn-of-the-century twist.<\/p>\n

\n\tShows from the late 1990s and early 2000s are back in play: \u201cScrubs<\/a>,\u201d which ran from 2001 to 2010, relaunches on ABC on Feb. 25 with new and returning cast members. Sarah Michelle Gellar returns as part of the \u201cBuffy, the Vampire Slayer\u201d (1997-2003) sequel series from Chlo\u00e9 Zhao, expected to premiere on Hulu in 2026. And Disney+ is behind the limited-series reunion of \u201cMalcolm in the Middle<\/a>\u201d (2000-06), expected in the spring and featuring Bryan Cranston, Frankie Muniz and the rest of the original cast. <\/p>\n

\n\tThat\u2019s just the top of the list of reboots and revivals in the works. Hulu just ordered to series a new version of \u201cPrison Break\u201d (2005-09, with a 2017 revisit), from Elgin James and starring Emily Browning. Kerry Washington is developing a new take on \u201cDesperate Housewives,\u201d dubbed \u201cWisteria Lane,\u201d at Onyx Collective. The teams behind \u201cblue sky\u201d series like \u201cWhite Collar\u201d and \u201cRoyal Pains\u201d are also attempting to revive their shows. And a \u201cCommunity\u201d movie has been greenlit by Peacock, though scheduling conflicts have held up production.<\/p>\n

\n\tThese projects all join recent entries including a double shot from TV megaproducer Greg Daniels, whose updated take on \u201cKing of the Hill\u201d (with Mike Judge) was met with rave reviews \u2014 and has just been renewed for two more seasons \u2014 while his \u201cThe Office\u201d offshoot, \u201cThe Paper\u201d (created with Michael Koman) did well for Peacock and premieres on NBC for a linear run this Monday.<\/p>\n

\n\tWhat\u2019s driving this trend, in part, is demographic shifts: As millennials hit middle age, they\u2019re more interested in nostalgia for the shows from their youth. And their Gen Z children, who binged them on streaming, are intrigued too.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMillennials are reaching that age where they\u2019re watching things because they want to pass a lot of them to their kids, and they have a lot more force as a consumer group because of their size, as well as just having nostalgia for these things,\u201d says former The WB president Jordan Levin, who was instrumental in programming for that age group when they were teens.<\/p>\n

\n\tReboots, remakes and revivals have been a part of the TV landscape since the beginning (think of the many iterations of \u201cThe Honeymooners,\u201d \u201cDragnet\u201d or later, \u201cThe Brady Bunch\u201d). The idea of \u201cgetting the band back together\u201d intensified in the multichannel age, as programmers leaned on familiar titles because their built-in awareness made them easier to market in a cluttered landscape.<\/p>\n

\n\tStreaming in its early days was built on the backs of revivals: \u201cArrested Development,\u201d \u201cFuller
House\u201d and \u201cGilmore Girls: A Year in the Life\u201d were early Netflix entries, while Hulu ramped up its slate with \u201cVeronica Mars\u201d and \u201cAnimaniacs\u201d revisits, Peacock launched with \u201cPunky Brewster,\u201d \u201cSaved by the Bell\u201d and \u201cBel-Air\u201d and Paramount+ came out of the gate with \u201cThe Real World\u201d reunion seasons, new \u201cRugrats,\u201d a return to \u201ciCarly\u201d and a new take on \u201cThe Twilight Zone.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBut it\u2019s not easy to recapture the magic of the original \u2014 which is why the majority of these revivals don\u2019t last more than a handful of seasons. The return of \u201cWill & Grace\u201d opened big in 2017 but quickly fizzled, as did attempts to bring back \u201cMurphy Brown\u201d and \u201cMad About You.\u201d \u201cPunky Brewster\u201d and \u201cSaved by the Bell\u201d quickly went away, and more recently, \u201cFrasier,\u201d \u201cThat \u201990s Show\u201d and \u201cNight Court\u201d couldn\u2019t go the distance. (CBS Studios tried to shop \u201cFrasier\u201d to other platforms after the show was canceled at Paramount+, but had no luck.) <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThey\u2019re never as good, and you can\u2019t help but compare it to the original,\u201d says one TV showrunner who has chosen not to reboot their show.<\/p>\n

\n\tSeries that have successfully been revived include \u201cRoseanne,\u201d which continued as \u201cThe Conners\u201d for seven seasons even after Roseanne Barr was fired. In animation, besides the roaring return of \u201cKing of the Hill,\u201d the new seasons of \u201cFuturama\u201d and \u201cPhineas and Ferb\u201d have also made a splash in their comebacks.<\/p>\n

\n\tWith so much stigma on trying to revive long-dormant shows, some stars and showrunners would rather just gather for a reunion special. \u201cFriends\u201d did one on HBO Max in 2021, while CBS just taped a 30th anniversary \u201cEverybody Loves Raymond\u201d event that will air on Nov. 24. And in January, the cast of \u201cMarried \u2026 With Children\u201d is coming together onstage in Los Angeles for a non-televised reunion. Then there are the countless rewatch podcasts hosted by former stars of fan favorite shows.<\/p>\n

\n\tPerhaps there\u2019s a lesson somewhere that not everything needs a revival. \u201cIt fundamentally comes down to, is there a reason for it to be that is artistic?\u201d says Levin. \u201cIs there a purpose? Is there a catalyst for it that goes beyond simply economics and marketing and awareness? We certainly have seen underlying intellectual property that gets rebooted in a fresh way because someone takes it and makes it their own.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just when you thought there was nothing left to reboot, remake or revive, TV is riding a new…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":363378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[28150,171,110542,176131,31516,173,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-363377","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-tv","8":"tag-buffy-the-vampire-slayer","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-malcolm-in-the-middle","11":"tag-reboot","12":"tag-scrubs","13":"tag-tv","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115511317319465849","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}