TV show revivals are typically a messy business, with very few of them managing to live up to the original runs of their series, particularly in the case of treasured small-screen institutions with mass followings. However, it takes something special for the resurrection of a classic show to completely ruin how it originally ended.
Even if they’re no match for the original, TV revivals tend to do well purely on the strength of their returning characters, who provide cachet and nostalgia value from the moment they reappear onscreen. As long as these revivals honor previous depictions of the characters they’re bringing back, they usually receive a positive reception from both fans and critics.
The best TV show revivals go a step further, introducing new characters into the fold who suit their show’s premise and complement its original characters perfectly. While these cases are in the minority, they prove that reviving a series according to is possible under the right circumstances.
On the other hand, certain small-screen revivals are truly disastrous, precisely because they demonstrate contempt for what came before them. These worst-case TV reboots often ride roughshod over the original endings of their series, betraying major characters and the fans who love them. Such examples should give TV producers food for thought when they’re getting ready to revive classic shows.
NCIS: Los Angeles
JAG’s Harm and Mac Ending Was Ruined
Harmon Rabb Jr. and Sarah MacKenzie in JAG
NCIS: Los Angeles is a spinoff of the original NCIS series, which is itself an offshoot of JAG, a legal drama set in the U.S. Navy that premiered in the late 1990s. JAG famously wrapped up in 2005 by finally resolving one of the biggest will-they-won’t-they storylines on TV at the time.
Its protagonists Harmon “Harm” Rabb, Jr. and Sarah “Mac” MacKenzie got together at long last, providing the happy ending fans had been craving. So, it was devastating when NCIS: Los Angeles revived Harm and Mac’s story 13 years later at the end of its 10th season, only to reveal that the pair had broken off their engagement and ended their relationship.
In addition to breaking up, they were no longer even on speaking terms until a new assignment brought them together as colleagues, all those years later. When Harm actor James Elliott was asked about a further NCIS return, he was right to put any rumors to bed, given the heartbreak his character’s last comeback inflicted on fans of the franchise.
Mad About You
It Was Like The Original Ending Never Happened
Helen Hunt was initially against Mad About You’s reboot, and the actor, who plays Jamie Buchman in the sitcom, should have trusted her first instincts. Its 12-episode revival season acted as though its original finale episode never happened, perplexing viewers and angering diehard fans of the show.
In a double-episode conclusion to the eighth and final season of its original run, Mad About You ended with a flash-forward through the 22 years of Paul and Jamie Buchman’s lives following the events of the show, as narrated by their daughter, Mabel. In a major twist, it was revealed that Paul and Jamie separated during the course of these two decades.
The heart-rending final scene of this episode saw Paul and Jamie reconcile at the premiere of Mabel’s movie, by which point their daughter was in her mid-twenties. Yet, the revival season of Mad About You totally ignored this powerful finale, portraying Paul and Jamie together as they sent Mabel off to college, as if they’d never separated.
Arrested Development
Remixed Or Not, It Just Wasn’t The Cult Sitcom We Loved
Annyong arguing with Lucille in the Arrested Development season 3 finale
Such is the consensus of ill-feeling towards this particular TV revival that even Michael Cera has called Arrested Development a disappointment in its later seasons. The legendary cult sitcom was abruptly canceled by Fox midway through its third season, but the show’s writers still had time to come up with a hilariously chaotic ending.
Three generations of Bluths were heading for international waters on two different boats. Jessica Walter’s acid-tongued matriarch Lucille was fleeing the feds, Michael and his son were fleeing the rest of the family, and Buster was, inevitably, left flailing around in the water opposite his ultimate nemesis, another (unrelated) loose seal.
While it was a crime against comedy that Arrested Development had been cut off in its prime, this premature cancelation – and how superbly it was handled by Mitchell Hurwitz and his writing team – became part of the show’s legend. The sitcom’s belated return on Netflix with convoluted, remixable plotlines, tonal inconsistencies, and subpar retcons fundamentally undermined its legacy.
The X-Files
Inconsistencies & Retconning Galore
If Arrested Development’s revival lacked consistency, then The X-Files took things to a whole other level. The show returned in 2016, 14 years after its original finale, with a bizarre sense of business-as-usual that flew in the face of how it had previously ended.
The X-Files season 9 received the worst reviews of the show’s initial run, but it still more-or-less followed the overarching narrative trajectory of the entire series. The revival seasons contrasted starkly with everything that had come before, especially in their portrayals of protagonists Fox Mulder and Dana Scully.
What’s more, right from the very beginning, the revival retconned key aspects of the season 9 finale. Mulder was effectively rehired by the FBI as though the organization pursuing him for murder was just water under the bridge, while the X-files unit was reopened as if Mulder and Scully had never been away.
Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life
It Betrayed Rory As A Character
The 2016 miniseries Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life undid several years of character development which had helped make Rory Gilmore one of the best young protagonists on television. She ended the original series as a thoroughly decent, well-rounded young go-getter, who’d graduated from Yale and turned down Logan’s proposal to focus on her journalistic career.
Yet, in the revival episodes Rory was a wayward and selfish idler with whom Logan cheated on his fiancée. She seemed content to live off her relative privilege, and more concerned with her relationship than anything else. Almost inevitably, her careless attitude had unexpected consequences, as she became pregnant with Logan’s baby.
Such a complete about-face in Rory’s personality felt like a slap in the face to all the Gilmore Girls fans who’d watched her grow into the brilliant young woman she was, with much of her success and self-possession earnt the hard way throughout the show. Rarely has a central character been betrayed so badly by a TV revival.
Prison Break
Michael Scofield Came Back From The Dead
Michael smirking in Prison Break
Prison Break had jumped the shark long before its revival season. But even in the context of the show’s erratic third and fourth seasons, its 2017 return was spectacularly off-the-wall. Having gone to great pains to kill him off, Prison Break then revealed Michael Scofield’s death had been a ruse all along.
The show’s central antihero was suddenly alive and well, in a Yemeni prison. As much as Netflix might have seen it as a coup to bring actor Wentworth Miller back for Prison Break’s revival, the move was enough to make even those who’d stuck with the series through thick and thin up to that point consider switching off.
While Michael faking his own death was explained away as an act of blackmail by the revival season’s chief villain, Poseidon, the whole plot reversal feels utterly contrived. Prison Break might not set the bar for suspending disbelief especially high, but this season still fails to clear it.
Only Fools And Horses
The Trotters Lost Their Millions
“This time next year, we’ll be millionaires.” The immortal words of Derek “Del Boy” Trotter finally came true in 1996, watched by a record audience for a comedy series in the UK, as Del and his brother, Rodney, hit the jackpot via the sale of a rare timepiece at auction.
It was the perfect ending for Britain’s favorite underdog, with one of the best final lines of any TV show. Unfortunately, though, it wasn’t actually the end. The Trotters returned for three more TV specials between 2001 and 2003, during which it was revealed that they’d lost their millions, and were back living in their old Peckham council house.
The balloon had been well and truly burst for British TV’s most heartwarming ending to a long-running series. For many fans, “Time on Our Hands” will always be the final episode of Only Fools and Horses.
As spectacularly daring retcons go, the decision of Will & Grace writers to turn the entirety of the show’s original finale into something dreamt by one of its characters is difficult to top. Unsurprisingly, the decision didn’t pay off, and led to a considerable backlash from its fanbase. It’s no wonder that Debra Messing has ruled out another Will & Grace revival.
It’s not as though the storylines being retconned were minor subplots, either. The double-episode finale of Will & Grace had revealed that the two title characters had fallen out, before each having children, who subsequently married one another.
Such major life events are hard to explain away as “just a dream”, especially once they become ingrained in the minds of a fanbase for 10 years. In terms of TV show revivals that ruined their original endings, it doesn’t get bigger than this one.
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