9 1990s TV Shows Most Likely to Be Rebooted Next
Will the ’90s ever go out of fashion? Not if the recent reboot of A Different World, the upcoming Baywatch update, and the proposed Coach re-do have anything to say about it.
Now we’re imagining which Nineties TV shows might get reboots next. There are some ideas that just seem like no-gos — a new Seinfeld would never live up to the original, for example, and a Friends revamp would just remind us of what we’ve lost — but we think networks and streamers are already eying these other shows from the 1990s.
Cheers
Making your way in the world today takes everything you’ve got, and sometimes you wanna go back where everybody knows your name, right? Some of this hit sitcom’s cast members have bellied up to the great bar in the sky, but we can imagine a streamer shelling out big bucks to get the surviving stars back for another round of comedy, perhaps alongside a new generation of silly swillers. (At least the pub setting would be a cost savings.)
The Drew Carey Show
Drew Carey told TV Insider he thinks his 1990s comedy would still resonate with modern-day viewers. “It’s pretty funny, and a lot of it’s kind of timeless. It was weird, [too],” he told us. On the sitcom, Carey played an everyman of a Clevelander surrounded by funny folks played by the likes of Diedrich Bader, Kathy Kinney, Ryan Stiles, and Christa Miller. We’re fans of all those TV stars, and we have to think TV execs are, too.
ER
The Pitt is practically an ER reboot — or an ER ripoff, in the opinion of the lawsuit Michael Crichton’s estate filed — but it’s not like we can expect George Clooney, Julianna Margulies, or Eriq La Salle to stride in from the ambulance bay. Thanks to those cast members and all the others, ER was a massive hit, so TV executives must be desperate to revive the format. Luckily for them, the medical-drama genre still has a healthy pulse.
Family Matters
Yes, we declared Family Matters one of the TV sitcoms that should never be revived. But the long-running show was successful enough that producer Bob Boyett approached actor Jaleel White with plans for a reboot in 2016, as the Urkel portrayer revealed in his memoir, per Entertainment Weekly. White turned down that idea but said he’d be game for a more meta storyline, one with a young actor playing a young Jaleel as he navigates childhood fame in the 1990s. Sounds good to us!
The Golden Girls
The prospect of a Golden Girls reboot might sound just as sacrilegious, but there’s no denying the sitcom’s enduring appeal. Who among us hasn’t wanted to rewatch those four Miami broads living out their best years together? We could actually see a new version become just as golden if the right stars are aligned. We’re thinking Jean Smart, Judith Light, Jenifer Lewis, Blythe Danner…
Grace Under Fire
Created by Chuck Lorre and starring Brett Butler as a single mother and recovering alcoholic, Grace Under Fire launched at No. 5 in the 1993–1994 TV season and hit No. 4 a season later. The show eventually ended amid Butler’s real-life addiction struggles, but everyone loves a comeback story. A TV reboot could follow Butler reprising her role as Grace Kelly, now a grandmother to son Patrick’s kids, with Dylan or Cole Sprouse returning to play a Patrick adjusting to fatherhood.
Martin
The runner-up in our ranking of the best Black sitcoms of the 1990s, Martin starred Martin Lawrence as a Detroit deejay balancing his brash radio alter-ego with his home life with girlfriend, played by Tisha Campbell. Lawrence and Campbell had a falling-out during the original show’s production, but they’ve since reconciled. And with spinoff The Varnell Hill Show recently debuting, we figure it’s only a matter of time before the franchise’s mainline entry returns.
Murder, She Wrote
Success, she wrote. Murder was still a Top 10 series for much of its 1990s era, as viewers continued tuning in to watch amateur detective Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) solving Cabot Cove crime. We missed out on a proposed update starring Octavia Spencer, but now Jamie Lee Curtis is headlining a film version slated for release in 2028. And we have a suspicion Curtis or some other actor will pick up Jessica’s magnifying glass on TV, too.
NYPD Blue
Police procedurals are still a major draw on broadcast TV, just as they were in the 1990s, when Dennis Franz won four Emmys for his role as Detective Andy Sipowicz on this series. Like Murder, She Wrote, NYPD Blue nearly got a reboot in the 2010s, one starring Fabien Frankel as Sipowicz’s son. We bet TV writers are getting blue in the face trying to get another reboot to our screens, perhaps one that wouldn’t shy away from recent issues of brutality and other woes of modern-day policing.
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