Re: Reimaging Classic TV Shows for the 21st Century

How about?

Dennis The Menace-- Complications ensue when Dennis mixes up his ADHD
medication with Mr. Wilson's prescriptions.

The Honeymooners-- Ralph Kramden plugged 23 times by NYPD after they
take his threat to send Alice to the moon seriously.

The Twilight Zone-- renamed The Green Zone.

Green Acres-- Eva Gabor turns Hooterville into a condo development.

The Wonderful World of Disney-- Nothing but The Song of the South,
just to rub the racism in.

Star Trek-- The Federation's too underfunded to actually go anywhere.

BJ & The Bear-- Plot discovered to be chimp's hallucination in lab
experiment involving the chimp playing Gran Turismo 4.

Head of the Class-- Arvid's braces can't make it through school metal
detectors. He's forced to drop out.

The Facts of Life -- Tootie's a teenage welfare mama.

Dukes of Hazzard-- Daisy has a three headed baby. You know why.

MacGyver-- He can make designer drugs out of toothpaste.

Full House-- Danny and his gay boyfriends raise the Olsen twins to be
lipstick lesbians.

Speed Racer--Tabloid shows the grewsome autopsy photos of Racer X.

Friends-- They live in Jersey, Ross slips Rachel a date rape drug.

The Sopranos-- The show's the same, but ends on a CUT TO: Darker
Black.

Seinfeld-- Ends with Newman going postal over nothing.

Gilligan's Island-- oh, that's already LOST.

In article <zMudnURml5y2-xrVnZ2dnUVZ_vudnZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxx>,
weberm@xxxxxxxxxxx wrote:

One of the latest trends in episodic television is to bring back
classic TV shows and "reimagine" them, which usually means making them
darker, edgier, and more modern. The technique has the virtue of a
known brand name, but with the idea of original story telling.

Reimagined TV has worked pretty well for Battlestar Galactica, a campy
show from the 1970s that has become darker and tenser in the 21st
Century. It did not work very well for The Bionic Woman, which was
clearly brought out before it was ready.

So what classic TV shows would be a good fit for being reimagined for
the modern age?

Combat: Combat was a drama about an American Army rifle squad in France
during World War II staring the late Vic Morrow. The reimagined version
would have to be set in Iraq or Afghanistan. And, to be entertaining,
the project would have to be kept away from anyone in Hollywood with a
political agenda, which is just about everybody. One possible solution.
Recruit some War on Terror veterans, train them in the techniques of
television writing, and then turn them loose.

Mission Impossible: The Sixties were filled with spy dramas, including
I, Spy (with Bill Cosby as the first African American TV action hero),
The Man from Uncle, and so on. But my favorite by far is Mission
Impossible, a show about a team that used deception and misdirection to
destroy the bad guys. The show underwent a new version in the late
1980s with Peter Graves as Mr. Phelps, the Impossible Mission Force
head.

IMF would certainly be a great asset for waging the war on terror,
nabbing up various terror masters, with the occasional drug kingpin,
Mafioso, and corrupt politician to liven things up.

Bewitched: I adored Elizabeth Montgomery as Samantha Stevens, but she
proved to be a most unliberated wife. Darren was a fool for demanding
that she eschew the use of her powers "except in emergencies", which
happened every episode. Let's marry the modern Sam to a guy who
understands that it's easier to clean house by twitching ones nose than
by using a vacuum cleaner, so long as it is done discretely. She should
even have a job, say in the US Department of Magic (yes, a steal from
J.K. Rowling, but one worth the purloining.)

Yes, Mr. President. The British series Yes, Minister and Yes, Prime
Minister were some of the best political satire ever to be aired on TV.
It ought to be brought across the pond and adapted to American
politics. However, since the American White House staff serves at the
pleasure of the President, we need to make "President Hacker's"
antagonist someone with real power to give him headaches. Let's say
that our version of Humphrey Appleby is the Speaker of the House of
the opposite party. True there was a recent attempt along those lines
about the first woman President, but it failed because of over
earnestness and political bias. It needs someone with-say-P. J.
O'Rourke's eye for the absurd.

Gunsmoke: The long running western staring James Arness and Amanda
Blake is aching to be reimagined as a science fiction western in the
same style as Firefly. Marshal Dillon would be the upholder of law
and order on the high frontier, in a space colony on a planet circling
another star. Ms Kitty would certain be the Saloon keeper, which would
also feature a brothel to fit modern sensibilities. Through in some
nasty space aliens, some outlaws, and officious bureaucrats from Earth
and you got yourself a series.

--
It is simply breathtaking to watch the glee and abandon with which
the liberal media and the Angry Left have been attempting to turn
our military victory in Iraq into a second Vietnam quagmire. Too bad
for them, it's failing.



.

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