Why Studios Keep Cranking Out TV Remakes, Despite the Flops
By BILL CARTER
NYT
In the fall of 2000 all the buzz in the television business was about a new drama on CBS on Friday night.
Not “CSI” — that had no buzz at all. All it had was ratings. No, the buzz that fall was about the remake of “The Fugitive,” the classic innocent-man-on-the-run series from the 1960s.
The redo seemed a can’t-miss idea. But it lasted 23 episodes.
And then there was “Bionic Woman.” The NBC remake in 2007 of that sci-fi chestnut from the 1970s started out as the hottest new show of that fall season — and was gone after all of nine episodes.
(More here.)
NYT
In the fall of 2000 all the buzz in the television business was about a new drama on CBS on Friday night.
Not “CSI” — that had no buzz at all. All it had was ratings. No, the buzz that fall was about the remake of “The Fugitive,” the classic innocent-man-on-the-run series from the 1960s.
The redo seemed a can’t-miss idea. But it lasted 23 episodes.
And then there was “Bionic Woman.” The NBC remake in 2007 of that sci-fi chestnut from the 1970s started out as the hottest new show of that fall season — and was gone after all of nine episodes.
(More here.)
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1 Comments:
FYI : The original Fugitive is available on DVD at the Taylor North Mankato Library (Seasons 1 and 2 have been released thus far.) IMO, The Fugitive was the best dramas on television ... and for trivia folks, Richard Kimble was never in Minnesota ... he did an episode set in Wisconsin and Sioux Falls though.
The question is :
Are the networks re-releasing existing characters and settings that viewers know, or reconfiguring the story to a different timeframe ?
For example, the author doesn't mention it but Perry Mason was redone a few years after the Raymond Burr version ended ... with Monty Markham playing the title role ... it lasted a couple of years and then Burr came back to star in the TV movies.
Conversely, the author mentions the Wolf version of Dragnet starring Ed O'Neil ... music theme was updated but so was the storyline ... it was a complete different series with much darker storylines than the Jack Webb version.
Revivals are not new. TV has repeatedly fell back on the “do-over” … which was your favorite Love Boat crew --- the original Gavin McCloud or Robert Urich in LoveBoat-The Next Wave circa 1998? That may have been the turning point year for revivals with Fantasy Island as Ricardo Montaban proprietor’s role was unsuccessfully played by Malcolm McDowell. That was the time that saw the death knoll for Alfred Hitchcock Presents … with the interesting aspect that they took the 1955 era version and colorized Hitchcock to introduce the show … in fact, they even took some episodes and remade them virtually as it was done 30 years before.
When Broadway does a Revival it’s considered to be a tribute to the original … but when television does it, the audience just rejects it.
It’s been often stated that there are no new ideas … so TV may consider it easier to use the same title so that people realize the shows premise … was there much difference between Hawaiian Eye and Magnum PI ?... but if you want a police series based in Hawaii, then Hawaii-Five-O makes sense.
The surprising aspect is that the networks are willing to risk the production costs to redo these shows … it’s a lot cheaper to offer “The Biggest Loser Becomes Hawaii’s Next Top Model” than then the pyrotechnics of a crime drama.
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