TV Revivals: Should ‘Rizzoli & Isles’ return with a season 8 down the road?

There are many shows from 2016 that we’re already starting to miss, but one of the best ones was “Rizzoli & Isles” over on TNT. We’ve stated many times over at this point that this is the sort of show that we love — one that mixes some intense mysteries and crime-fighting with fun characters, humor, and relationships we come to care about deeply. It’s a genre that never goes out of style.

Also, this is a show that never lost the message of friendship that was at the heart of the story. No matter what happened to Jane Rizzoli and Maura Isles over the course of the journey, the series was always about their relationship, and how they managed to grow so close over this chapter of their lives.

If you recall, the series finale this past summer ended with the two characters starting to go their separate ways. However, Jane did ultimately decide prior to going to Quantico for her new job that she’d spend a few weeks with Maura in Paris. This opened the door to a wide array of possibilities for the series’ future … and it is also the focus in today’s chapter of our month-long TV Revivals series.

How to bring it back – Showrunner Jan Nash perfectly set up what a season 8 would be: The story of Rizzoli and Isles in Paris, experiencing this new place and building memories. Eventually, you figure that they would probably end up discovering a dead body or two somewhere, and maybe they end up as a result meeting some French authorities. They can work remotely with their old friends in Boston, solve a case or two, and awkwardly and hilariously explore some French traditions. Even if Jane does end up departing for Quantico at the end of the revival, at least you’re giving the duo one last hurrah in the field. Who knows? Maybe after starting her new job Rizzoli will realize that she misses her old gig and she’ll find a way to collaborate with Maura once more.

As for how to work this out structurally, you wouldn’t need too many episodes to tell this story — that way, Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander could still have the freedom to do other things. Think along the lines of a six-episode season that airs over one summer. You could probably also make it work in a two-hour movie, though personally we’d like to see it last a tad longer than that. This is a format that we love, and we’d love to see more and more other shows from the past explore it. If you want to keep a revival going, all you have to do is reunite every couple of years, tell new stories, and then have another break.

Could it actually happen? – Never say never, right? We know that there’s at least some interest on a production side in doing more “Rizzoli & Isles” episodes, and given that this was one of TNT’s most-popular shows during its run, it’s easy to imagine that network executives would be open to the possibility.

With that said, it’s hard to see it happening anytime soon. The show only ended last year, and that’s not much of a break for anyone. Maybe this is something that could be explored in 2018 or 2019; we’ll keep our fingers crossed, but as a reminder everything we’ve said here is mere speculation. We just feel like the interest would be there, and in a difficult, depressing time for many people, this show is a great source of community and joy. TV has a wonderful way of binding us together.

Do you want to see a revival for “Rizzoli & Isles” in the future? Let us know in the poll, and be sure to check out some of the other entries in our TV Revivals series right now. (Photo: TNT.)