When “Malcolm in the Middle” went off the air in 2006, Taylor Swift was recording her first album, Twitter was soon to accelerate the social media takeover of our lives, and the world was more than a decade away from Donald Trump’s first presidency.
In the dumpster fire that is 2026, when Trump is back with a vengeance, social media is acknowledged as a time-sucking monstrosity, and Swift is the globe’s biggest if most overexposed pop artist, do television audiences really need a second dose of “Malcolm in the Middle”?
Yes, definitely, according to star Bryan Cranston.
“Comedy is essential right now … Because it’s a break from the bombardment of non-stop information,” he told the Guardian.
Cranston, in fact, is an absolute hoot in “Malcolm in the Middle: Life’s Still Unfair,” which might have “Breaking Bad” fans who didn’t know about his sitcom past wondering when he got so funny.
The reboot’s conceit is that the titular Malcolm, played by Frankie Muniz, has built a happy life by avoiding contact with his infuriating family for the last couple of decades, until his parents’ 40th anniversary party puts him back in their orbit.
Its four episodes, a mix of laugh-out-loud comedy and tear-inducing sentiment, debut on Disney Plus on Friday (April 10).
Besides Muniz and Cranston, original stars Jane Kaczmarek, Christopher Masterson and Justin Berfield have also returned, along with the series’ writers and director.
That type of familiarity is part of the undeniable comfort factor of TV reboots — a term we’re stretching to include revivals and remakes — which are nearly inescapable these days. Consider these other examples:
Early-aughts medical comedy “Scrubs” returned with a new season in February; season 3 of “Wednesday,” essentially a reboot of “The Addams Family,” is currently in production; an update of 1970s family drama “Little House on the Prairie” is shooting in Winnipeg; Emmy winner Paul Walter Hauser recently joined a live-action Netflix remake of ’70s cartoon “Scooby-Doo”; and a new “Baywatch” is already shooting (featuring Toronto’s own Stephen Amell).
Still in development are reboots of “Prison Break,” “Bewitched” and “The X-Files” (from Oscar winner Ryan Coogler). A “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” redo is up in the air, meanwhile, with Hulu pulling the plug after a pilot, directed by Oscar winner Chloë Zhao, had already been shot, according to an announcement last month by annoyed star Sarah Michelle Gellar.
Then there are past successes, like “Queer Eye,” “Cobra Kai” (a sequel to the “Karate Kid” films), “One Day at a Time” and “The Conners” (an update of “Roseanne”), and TV-to-film reboots like “Miami Vice,” with a new one rumoured to star Oscar winner Michael B. Jordan.
So what’s the appeal?
It’s no secret that nostalgia sells. Just ask any actor from a long-ago movie or show who supplements their income by hawking photos and autographs at fan conventions.
And while there are no sure things in today’s volatile TV ecosystem, revisiting a well-known property can shorten the odds for both producers and viewers in search of hits.
There’s always a risk, of course, in going back to the well. For every “The Flash” or “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina,” there’s a “Murphy Brown” or “Punky Brewster.” And a 2023 revival of “Frasier” lasted only two seasons.
But the human appetite for the familiar — and industry intolerance for risk — means we’re unlikely to run out of reboots, remakes and revivals any time soon. We offer some guidelines for what makes them work.
Bring back beloved characters
Obviously, the new “Malcolm in the Middle” wouldn’t fly without the original wacky family at its centre, and almost all of the main cast agreed to reprise their roles. And could there have been a fourth “Veronica Mars” season in 2019, polarizing as it was, without Kristen Bell in the lead? You never want a showrunner to just pander to nostalgia, but viewers fall in love with shows because of the characters. The “Star Trek: The Next Generation” update “Picard” didn’t really click until its lead, Patrick Stewart, was joined by his old ship mates in the third season.
But allow those characters to grow
I detested “And Just Like That …” (technically a sequel to “Sex and the City,” but let’s call it a reboot) mainly because the characters never behaved like actual 50-something women, while the writers concocted plot developments that only mimicked maturation. On the other hand, the newly imagined “Lost in Space” in 2018 made its characters well-rounded and complex rather than cartoonish, especially women like mom Maureen (Molly Parker) and daughter Penny (Mina Sundwall). Characters can’t be trapped in amber, particularly when a reboot takes them years into their futures.
Bring back the creative team
The “Twin Peaks” revival, dubbed “The Return” by Showtime, divided viewers, with some finding it incomprehensible and others brilliant, but it wouldn’t have been the thought-provoking, head-scratching TV event that it was without creators David Lynch and Mark Frost at the helm. “The Paper,” a sequel of sorts to the American version of “The Office,” introduced new characters but maintained the cringe-comedy DNA of the original with the input of creator Greg Daniels. Who makes the reboot can be as important as who’s in the cast.
Respect the original dynamic
Remakes can work well when they capitalize on the tone or premise of what came before. The anthology series “Fargo” was never a replica of the 1996 film that inspired it, but it owes much of its success to what they have in common, including its Midwestern setting, quirky characters and blend of dark comedy and violent crime. “The Office” took the beats of its U.K. predecessor — the paper company setting, the mockumentary crew, a bumbling boss, a thwarted office romance, an officious workplace bully — and ran with them, becoming one of the most beloved sitcoms of all time.
But make the show your own
Some of the best reboots use the originals not so much as templates but as stepping-stones to dynamic new paths. Take “Shogun,” which improved on its 1980 predecessor by leaning hard into the perspectives of its Japanese characters, becoming the best TV show of 2024 in the process. Science fiction, meanwhile, has given us some stellar reboots and revivals that deliver sharply ambitious modernizations of what came before, such as “Battlestar Galactica,” “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Doctor Who.”
