There’s a reason that “the good ol’ days” is a cliche. People seem to be stuck repeating the phrase over and over again. Their perspective on what is good usually lines up with what is old— there is a certain fascination with the past that is almost morbid because we cannot get back to it. Currently, this can be seen in television. A few years ago, the idea of a sequel TV series with the same actors would have made us laugh in the face of whoever was suggesting it. Usually, TV shows ended and that was that. Now, however, there are reboots of our favorite TV shows popping up all over the place. Fuller House, a sequel series for Full House, recently premiered on Netflix. In the coming months, a sequel to Gilmore Girls will be appearing on Netflix as well. The good ol’ days of television are coming back, but none of them are going to be on their original channels— Gilmore Girls, in fact, aired on a channel that doesn’t exist anymore, while Full House was on ABC.
Reboots like these are quickly becoming the most discussed TV on social media because everybody already knows that they are supposed to be good. We cleave to the familiar, which innately changes the way we interact with TV. Instead of looking forward to watching pilots that major networks are airing, people are looking forward to reboots of their favorite series. It’s taking away from the time that people spend in front of their actual televisions, watching new shows with commercials. Platforms like Netflix don’t need commercials because their subscribers end up paying money to get access to content. It is possible that this is connected to the downfall of Nielsen ratings. Though these ratings used to be the primary way a network tracked how well a television show is doing, now these are inaccurate, due to the amount of people who watch on their computers and cell phones instead of their televisions. Without these numbers, there is no way for advertisers to know how well the show is doing or how much to pay for commercials.
According to Michael Wolff in his article ‘Amazon and the Triumph of Television,’ “Television was once exclusively supported by advertising dollars that demanded mass market audiences, and encouraged safe and bland product,” a process which has been completely toppled by service providers like Amazon and Netflix, neither of which are playing it safe currently. Aside from the sequels, another reason that it is becoming increasingly difficult for regular networks to compete with the numbers of Amazon and Netflix is that these companies no longer have to play it safe. They are able to show almost whatever they want and say what they want as long as the actors agree to it— they are no longer constrained to the same guidelines as network TV is. Furthermore, Wolff’s article reminds the reader that this generation has a very short attention span, and therefore isn’t able to focus for as long on one TV show. Therefore, outputting a season’s worth of content in one day and allowing people to binge watch it creates a more accessible platform through which audience can access shows. Plus, Netflix seasons are far shorter than most TV seasons— a normal TV season is 24 episodes, while Netflix usually has 12 episode seasons.
It’s an odd conundrum. People want new, but old. They want more content, but less of it. And they want it to be accessible at all times, instead of having to wait every week to be satisfied by the buildup. It’s strange to consider the fact that the moment TV stopped playing it safe in one place, it turned to safety in a different place. Although television shows can be more vulgar, on one hand, they seem to be doing so with characters that the audience already loves. They can show things that we would have been scandalized to see on television ten years ago, but they’re also doing that with characters who are already established in one universe or another. It has become safer to do a reboot than to actually create brand new television content, because audiences are clamoring to see characters that they miss. If it’s not a reboot of a TV show, Netflix uses characters that are from comic books and have established tie-ins to universes that people like. Even HBO has attempted to follow this train with its show Better Call Saul, which is a spin-off of Breaking Bad that features one of the show’s most popular characters.
It’s difficult to quite understand what the future of TV is, because people’s desperation to cling to the past seems to be directly affecting the types of content that Amazon and Netflix choose to produce. In this ephemeral moment, seeing our favorite shows come back to life is joyous and exciting. But content creators should also consider why this was never a popular choice to make before. Why did this not happen? How does it affect the type of content TV stations are going to begin attempting to produce to become competitive? How do we decide which shows are worth rebooting?
TV is going in a million different directions right now, and it is my opinion that the lane network executives select could possibly be one that contributes more to their wallets than it does the creative fabric of society.