I have generally resisted the massive TV trend toward remaking old hits: As the Arrested Development revival on Netflix showed us, even the best shows rarely live up to your memory of their heyday. Plus, all these remakes crowd out new, creative shows that could be great. And god knows Fuller House, if judged on pure quality, represented the absolute nadir in this trend: a remake of what was not a particularly artful show to begin with is not destined for greatness. If you watched that behind-the-scenes Full House TV movie a while back, which I’m sure was a grittily accurate portrayal of history, you know even Danny Tanner himself, Bob Saget, realized he was on a terrible show at the time. I’m not saying anything we don’t all know.
But it’s easy for Gen X TV critics to eviscerate Fuller House. We were old enough when Full House originally aired not to have so many nostalgic feelings about it. But we’d fall all over ourselves on the way to view, say, a Facts of Life reboot. (Um, idea alert, TV gods!) The point of these revivals is not quality, but feeling. I resist this trend, yet I will watch every minute of the upcoming Gilmore Girls revival on Netflix. I am in for the Greek reunion movie coming. I loved both of those shows and love the idea of tapping back into that love. I would also watch the hell out of, say, a reunion for The O.C.
Maybe I’m just rationalizing now, but I’m starting to think there’s room for both, especially in our million-ways-to-watch-TV world. Perhaps we can have our creative content, and our nostalgia, too.