John Lacey

2008 has been a strange old year for pop culture.

• X-Files: Mulder and Scully came out of retirement;
• Get Smart: Maxwell Smart and Ninety-Nine returned to our screens;
• Star Wars: George Lucas’ “trilogy” (with prequels) gets an animated treatment;
• Sex In The City: Carrie and Mr. Big rub shoulders (and other things) once again;
• The Mummy: Brendan Fraser wakes the dead… again;
• Batman: Batman returns… returns;
• The Incredible Hulk: He’s here, he’s green - get used to it!

Part of me - the cynical part - wonders if we aren’t still feeling the effects of the writers’ strikes. But perhaps there are other reasons. Perhaps in times of economic uncertainty it is comforting to return to things we already know.

Last night Australian television dusted off a familiar US zip code - indeed the only one I actually know.

I imagine much to the delight of their agents, the likes of Shannen Doherty, Jennie Garth and Tori Spelling return to the small screen in a reworked, re-imagined Beverly Hills: 90210. (Though the language used in press releases - that the familiar faces will act as ‘guest stars for multiple episodes’ - make me think that their cameos will be short lived and not detract from the show’s newer, more youthful cast.)

Why this strange sense of deja vu?

In The New York Times Magazine, Virginia Heffernan writes:

The average viewer of broadcast television is fully 50 years old. Relaxing in front of the TV has not been a particularly youthful indulgence for a long time. With an aging audience and hardly anyone now “growing up on” the networks, programming seems bound to become creatively moribund — one unstrenuous crime procedural or ritualistic reality show after another, each listlessly created as a diversion for empty-nesters.

Perhaps old media needs its old heroes.

Don’t get me wrong, some of these efforts (Batman, especially) were really well executed, but where are the new characters? Fortunately WALL-E finally gets a mainland Australian release in a week’s time. I guess for the time being that will have to do.

Categories: Culture
Tags: remakes