12 of the best TV reboots and revivals
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The bar for a well-executed reboot or revival is incredibly high in television, and yet despite this challenge, artists are always willing to return to beloved characters and stories despite the high risk of failure. For every successful revival, there are even more titles like Get Smart (which only lasted seven episodes in its return), Melrose Place (one low-rated return season in 2009), and Singled Out (wasn't even saved by Roku during Quibi's demise). This means the following series have beaten the odds and created something magical and rare in television, for these shows represent the best TV reboots and revivals. Beloved sci-fi adventures to reality TV stalwarts — and maybe a couple of animated series along the way — all make EW's list.
<em>The Karate Kid</em> (1984) and Cobra Kai</em> (2018)
You could mince words arguing the Netflix sensation is less of a revival than a small-screen continuation of a movie franchise. But one clever conceit in this upside-down legacy sequel is how Cobra Kai treats the Karate Kid movies like one ongoing story, incorporating all the cheesy-glamorous '80s melodrama into a generational story of San Fernando Valley karate soul-duels. Who knew '80s monster Johnny Lawrence (William Zabka) was a wrecked-yet-striving hero for our time?
<em>Battlestar Galactica</em> (1978) and <em>Battlestar: Galactica</em> (2004)
The greatest gritty reboot and the best argument the Sci-Fi Channel ever made for itself, Ronald D. Moore's Battlestar Galactica honored the cheesy original series by taking it seriously. Neo-Galactica refracted post-9/11 paranoia through a cosmic melodrama about refugee humans and God-loving robots.
Related: How the Battlestar Galactica plot to kill Starbuck 'spiraled completely out of control'
<em>Beverly Hills 90210</em> (1990), <em>90210</em> (2008), and <em>BH90210</em> (2019)
The CW revival never achieved the supernova status of Fox's teen soap, but give the new kids credit for a decent five-season run. And never forget Fox's own unclassifiable meta-revival, with the original 90210 cast gamely playing themselves as desperate nostalgia victims.
Related: BH90210 will make you confront your mortality (in a good way)
<em>The Comeback</em> (2005) and <em>The Comeback</em> (2014)
Lisa Kudrow returned to her other most famous role when HBO revived this mockumentary satire of Hollywood vanity.
Related: The Comeback: Why I was wrong the first time around
<em>Doctor Who</em> (1963) and <em>Doctor Who</em> (2005)
The legendary British saga about a time-traveling adventurer stopped producing regular episodes in 1989. Sixteen years later, Russell T. Davies relaunched the series with a rueful new-millennium edge. The new Who honors the mythology even as it challenges it, with Jodie Whittaker's female doctor uncovering transformative secrets of Time Lord lore.
Related: The 50 best Doctor Who episodes of the modern era, ranked
<em>DuckTales</em> (1987) and <em>DuckTales</em> (2017)
Nobody expected the talking-duck reboot to become a wildly compelling serialized saga. But showrunners Matt Youngberg and Francisco Angones incorporated far-flung influences into their family cartoon, making this the rare Disney product to simultaneously justify comparisons to Community and Lost.
Related: DuckTales is ending, so it's the time for you to start watching DuckTales
<em>One Day at a Time</em> (1975) and <em>One Day at a Time</em> (2017)
Norman Lear rebooted his own long-running CBS sitcom, but the only old-fashioned thing about Netflix's Time was the laugh track. Justina Machado and Rita Moreno led the Latinx cast in a family sitcom that confronted topical issues with sharp wit.
Related: One Day at a Time executive producers reveal the stories you never got to see
<em>Queer Eye for the Straight Guy</em> (2003) and <em>Queer Eye</em> (2018)
Bravo built one of the great cable brands off the original Queer Eye, a cheeky yet pioneering lifestyle-improvement series. Netflix's reboot expanded beyond the straight-gay cultural crossover — and offered a generously humane counterpoint to a much bleaker American landscape.
Related: Queer Eye hosts dish out self-care advice in Fab Friday series
<em>She-Ra: Princess of Power</em> (1985) and <em>She-Ra and the Princesses of Power</em> (2018)
Producer Noelle Stevenson managed a rare trick with the new She-Ra. The Netflix series evoked glittery color-blasted nostalgia for the original He-Man spin-off, but also told a boldly progressive tale about powerful women in a gloriously techno-magical world of dark wonder.
Related: She-Ra showrunner answers all our burning questions about the final season
<em>Twin Peaks</em> (1990) and <em>Twin Peaks: The Return</em> (2017)
Creators Mark Frost and David Lynch turned the original Twin Peaks into a defining, if short-lived, phenomenon of the 1990s. Their revival radicalized the surrealist small-town mystery into a relentlessly trippy, surprisingly emotional, merrily dimension-hopping portrait of a world gone mad.
Related: The 30 best things about the Twin Peaks pilot
<em>The X-Files</em> (1993) and <em>The X-Files</em> (2016)
Actually, the return of Fox's paranormal procedural was mostly an abomination. But the nearly silent episode where Scully (Gillian Anderson) and Mulder (David Duchovny) fight artificial intelligence? That's pure TV magic.
Related: The X-Files pilot turns 25, less scary but still very funny
<em>Jersey Shore</em> (2009) and <em>Jersey Shore: Family Vacation</em> (2018)
MTV's boozy club-hopping docusoap Jersey Shore was an outrageous phenomenon. Years later, the gym-tan-laundry crew returned somewhat grown up: Kids, marriages, divorces, the stray conviction for tax evasion. Against all odds, the revival has its own low-key appeal, as the gang take occasional awkward vacations between social media spats. (Bonus points awarded for Vinny and Pauly D's Double Shot at Love spin-off, the rare dating competition that actually resulted in true wuv.)
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