Maybe Don’t Revive Sitcoms If You Can’t Stream Them?

I love revivals. If I had an unlimited amount of resources and an unlimited amount of time, I would eagerly fund revivals of every show I love and build a time-controlling device that would give me enough hours in the day to watch my works. Do not take anything I’m about to say as an indictment of revival culture, because I’m a perfectly content citizen of this new TV world. But still, even an acolyte like myself is perplexed by one thing that networks just don’t seem phased by: why revive a show when its back catalogue hasn’t been on any streaming service?

This seems like a no-brainer to me, a bit of advice so obvious that I shouldn’t have to write a whole article about it. That’s because when a show is revived, there are two audiences the show has to play for. It has to spark interest from the old fans, the ones that tuned in at a set time every week because VCRs were fickle and streaming and even DVD box sets weren’t a thing. Revivals also need to pad out that audience with all the new fans a to-be-revived show gained in the years (or decades) since it originally ended. The TV audience of the 2010s is fractured AF and ratings that are considered a hit today wouldn’t even break the top 50 back in the day. These revivals, which come with tons of pre-awareness as well as an audience old and young, are one surefire way to target a large audience.

That is, unless the show has spent the last ten years sitting on the bench while its peers played in the streaming major leagues. At the very least, revived shows need to have been in the minor leagues (a.k.a. syndication on cable).

Shouldn’t this be painfully obvious to networks? Everyone knows this is how TV shows are watched nowadays, in 12-hour chunks, day in, day out, as background noise to our farting around online. That’s why millions of kids who were born after Ross and Rachel took a break are freaking out about Friends leaving Netflix next year. The show isn’t just a weekly commitment like it was to my generation. To them, it’s literally the sound of being at home. That’s why Friends, and similarly The Office and Parks and Recreation, would be prime candidates for a revival. People are still obsessed with them.

Just look at how all of the sitcom revivals have fared, specifically Fuller House, Will & Grace, Roseanne, Murphy Brown, and the soon-to-return Mad About You. Between them, you get a nice sampling of shows that were in heavy syndication (Full House, Will & Grace), available to stream (Roseanne), and nowhere to be found (Mad About You, Murphy Brown).

While Full House and Will & Grace weren’t available to stream before their revivals hit, they’ve been major players in the local and cable syndication game since they went off-air. That’s definitely true of Full House, which I’m convinced has been running 24/7 nonstop for 25 years across hundreds of local affiliates and cable networks. Those shows were able to build younger audiences; Full House amassed at least two generations of kids-turned-adults who eagerly tuned in when Fuller House popped up on Netflix, a service they were most likely already paying for. Will & Grace, which is now in its third and final season of its revival, had the advantage of only being off-air for 11 years as opposed to 20+ when it came back in 2017. It was still fresh, and the show’s addition to Hulu only helped.

Roseanne was similarly omnipresent in reruns for decades, and it also had the bonus of being a Netflix mainstay during the streaming service’s early streaming days. And ahead of the revival, the entire series moved to Amazon’s Prime Video, in addition to the hours and hours of reruns aired on TV Land every day. Sure, having a firebrand Twitter maniac as a star helped the show grab a lot of attention, but its that fostered feeling of familiarity that’s kept audiences around for two seasons of The Conners.

And then there’s Murphy Brown, a show that shouldn’t have been revived–and I say that as someone that liked the revival! But I also say that as someone that didn’t get the chance to watch Murphy Brown when it was on the first time and has still never seen the vast majority of the show’s run… because it’s not on streaming or even DVD. It’s barely in reruns! Murphy Brown was a major part of the early ’90s zeitgeist, but it’s been prevented from being a 21st century nostalgia binge due to complicated music rights.

The thing is, CBS knew this when they ordered the revival, and they knew that the show needed to be on streaming in order for a new audience to care. That’s why they hand-picked a handful of episodes, ones presumably void of Motown songs, and offered them on CBS All Access for a limited time. But that was literally too little, too late. The show came back to mediocre ratings and didn’t improve on that. The interest wasn’t there because there’s been no way for new audiences to get interested over the past 20 years.

That’s what has me worried about Mad About You. Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt are still at the top of their game and the show’s fast-paced chemistry is still there. It’s a fun revival, one that I imagine will satisfy everyone who has fond memories of watching the show during the heyday of Must See TV. But… that might be it.

Mad About You has never been as big a syndication hit as its peers. Unlike Friends, Seinfeld, and Frasier, all of which stream on Hulu or Netflix or both, Mad About You has been relegated to streaming on STARZ of all places. Previous seasons are now available to binge on the revival’s streaming home, Spectrum TV, but I have to wonder if the interest is still there. Fortunately for Mad About You, it won’t have to live up to the harsh metrics of success that Murphy Brown struggled against. As a Spectrum streaming series, it won’t be expected to perform against network TV juggernaut singing competitions or sports events.

I get why revivals are a thing. As I’ll reiterate, I’d gladly watch nothing but legendary TV performers resurrect their iconic roles every single night. But I want these revivals to be successful, and that means being selective. Either put them on streaming services where they can be binged and the expectations are lowered, or just bring back the real heavy-hitters of yesterday. With that in mind, might I suggest Fresh Prince of Bel-Air or Family Matters…?

Stream Mad About You on Spectrum TV