Why Reboots Don't Work

I sat down with the new Gossip Girl tv show, deciding to give it a chance despite my admitted predisposed notions. I was left with the feeling I usually have when I see the ever-abundant rise of tv shows based on other, older, and far higher acclaimed tv shows. Of course, this isn’t new. The film industry has been doing this for years. Big Bang Theory, with Young Sheldon, Heathers the movie with its TV show of the same name, and Pretty Little Liars with The Perfectionists.

Despite people’s differing opinions on all of these shows, whether they believe they are better than the original or a disgrace to the original’s name, the influx of tv shows with questionable writing continues. While this isn’t some world-ending problem, nor is it a cinema-ending one, it brings into question the future, for both upcoming screenwriters and what this means for the industry in upcoming years. Especially with streaming platforms being where this seems to satiate from.

The Gossip Girl reboot could be described in a colorful amount of ways, my main way just being bad. Of course, getting further into detail, was an attempt at relating to teenagers and issues, without actually putting the effort in to say anything at all. Unlike the original gossip girl, the fatal flaws of the main character are not only, brushed aside, they are treated the same as mistakes. An example of this would be Audrey goading Zoya at dinner with Aki’s father, pushing further to what she considered to be an amusing argument, while Zoya was defending something she, not only believed in but is directly affected by.

It didn’t sit right with me that the screenwriters portrayed the main characters, who are meant to be flawed for our time, similar to the way the original made the same commentaries, treated the severity of current-day situations as some plot point that one could disagree with, and not something that shows morality and character. One could argue that Audrey was in a stressful situation with her mom in the hospital, but this was a situation crafted by the screenwriters themselves, and redemption without an actual push over the edge, to make a change, does nothing. It felt like the writers considered these huge social issues as contrived. and not real-life issues. I found myself throughout the show, trying to find a way to see it in a satirical way, and in that case, it’s a brilliant social commentary, but when every character is almost at the cusp of getting the point and still missing it, without a thematic indicator that it was intentional, I was often just left, confused and angry at situations the screenwriters would jump to for the plot to move forward.

Both Julien’s apology and Audrey and Zoya’s split-second friendly moment in the bathroom, after Audrey outs Aki to his parents, are flat, meaningless, and almost laughable, as Even Zoya and Julien’s pre-canon relationship had no time to show itself properly, so when Julian apologizes you’re left confused as ever on how she so quickly changed her tune and opinion.

I could go on about this show, from its attempts and fails at showing a realistic depiction of a polyamorous relationship to the surface level take on gay-hook up culture that just ends up being contrived and concerning at best, this show repeatedly doesn’t explain itself for why it does anything it does while expecting the audience to follow along and agree. Even if these characters are later in the show presented as flawed people, the show writing is so shallow you don’t have the option to look past it or accept that they’ve changed, as you don’t know enough about the character or their motivations to know if they’re being honest about that change.

I'm not going to act like there aren't good parts. Often throughout watching it, I could see what they were trying to do. Adverting our expectations of what Max and Rafa's relationship would be portrayed as was a good move on their part, though in my opinion poorly executed. Still, I saw the idea and the intent, how even when Max went on to goad Raffa for a relationship, he wasn't at fault when he was taken advantage of. I aprecciate the storyline with Gideon and Roy about gender expression and expectation. Both these issues are important for the LGBTQ+ community, but the way they go about topics of race, relationships, and familial conflict, just isn't well written.

While I wanted to talk about this show and its flaws, I also see the ever-growing pattern of shows like these, the reboots with the original’s name attached and not much else, flooding the media world now more than ever. From a viewer’s perspective, it may not be a big deal, slightly agitating, maybe. But thinking about the way this will affect content in the future, things start to become a little worrisome.

In the entirety of 2020, 25 script specs were bought, in total. The market is declining, and when reboots are being remade instead of creative, young, and original filmmakers being spotlighted and utilized, we can only hope this won’t affect things. And I won’t act like this is new in any way. Script specs sales have been going down. That’s no secret, but I can’t help but wonder if these reboots flooding the film industry is stopping new creatives from getting the recognition and respect they deserve, stifling the creativity the industry started with.

In the industry, tv reboots and sequels are financial security. It’s a way for producers and investors to ensure their investment has a chance of profitability, even if plot quality plummets as a result of that. And the formula works. I won’t tell you to stop watching these shows, hell I hate-watch them enough to write this article, it won’t do any good to convince you to not like something you like. But this article is more introspective for both people wanting to go into the industry and ones in it already. How will this direct the film industry in the future?