CarterMatt Extended: Why are networks (and viewers) obsessed with nostalgia?

Is the next big thing really the same old thing?

If you walk up to any major network executive with this question, there is a very good chance that they are going to respond by opening a portfolio stuffed with eight or nine properties that they are looking to revitalize. Advertisers are desperate to cling to familiar characters, and we as viewers and fans are willing to shill out astounding amounts of money or energy to support content we once received for free.

For the sake of this article, let’s boil it all down to one question: Why? Why do we all care so much? Nostalgia has always been around, but why is it so prevalent today? What is this particular generation missing that other generations had? It’s a question that extends far beyond TV, but it is a particularly fascinating discussing to view through this lens.

A simpler time

Anyone who watches “Saturday Night Live” likely knows a thing or two about a certain phenomenon: The show is always a million times better when you first get into it than it is at present. There are people out there who will someday look upon the Colin Jost – Kate McKinnon – Cecily Strong era and claim that the show has never done better. Others will throw tomatoes at such a notion.

Whenever you discover a new experience, there is a certain mixture of emotion that rushes into your brain. It is the feeling that your entire life is being revolutionized, and you will never perceive the world in the same way. In the world of television, these are the tears that you feel for the first time watching a character death, or the time you laugh so hard that you shoot milk out of your nose. Maybe it is the experience you had watching a game show with your family every night. Whatever it may be, you attach an emotion and a memory to each one and no other form of entertainment, no matter the quality, can identically replicate that.

A personal example comes from watching “The Office” as it aired on NBC for the first time. The documentary-style comedy was still new at the time, and regardless of how many other shows implement, none produce that same ridiculous joy as seeing Jim Halpert make faces while mocking Dwight. Are some just as good? Sure, but they’re not Jim.

With nostalgia, the dream for programmers is easy to understand: They want to throw you in a time machine and recreate some of what you loved in the first place, while rolling in Scrooge McDuck money as a result. In some cases like “Heroes: Reborn,” they are bringing back a relatively-recent phenomenon at a time when they feel the genre is hot. In others like a “Doctor Who” or “Girl Meets World,” they are banking on parents wanting to show a part of their childhood a whole new generation.

The resurgence

There are such a wide array of different shows or events you can look towards as the possible origin story for nostalgia as a TV strategy. “Doctor Who” has been going for years since the Christopher Eccleston revival, “Hawaii Five-0” is in syndication for a second time, and “Firefly” managed to get some closure courtesy of “Serenity,” a move that was at the time extremely rare.

We’re going a bit more modern in pinpointing what we feel to be the real turning point for revivals in pop culture: “Veronica Mars” and its still-recent feature film. This is a movie that shattered records on Kickstarter at the time it was funded, and if you were to picture the inside of a network executive’s brain at the time this happened, this is probably what was said:

“Wait, so you’re telling me that people just spent millions of dollars to fund a movie based on a low-rated TV from years ago? If they’re willing to do that, they’re going to want to watch a new version of [insert a million different ideas here]!!”

From the point on, here are just some of the TV and film properties that have been adapted or at least developed: “Minority Report,” “Rush Hour,” “Prison Break,” “The X-Files,” “Girl Meets World” (there may be some bleeding over on the development side here with “Veronica Mars”), a failed “Coach” revival, “Twin Peaks,” “Urban Cowboy,” “Supergirl,” “Fuller House,” “Fatal Attraction,” and many more likely to be named later. These are brands that were once dormant, but clearly someone out there felt like they could product the same level of attention as Kristen Bell and company.

Even beyond the portfolio full of names, there are clamors for more programming in this vein to come out. Questions about a “Chuck” revival persist, viewers (supposedly) want more “24,” and the talk about a “Deadwood” movie is never-ending. Even here at CarterMatt, there have been articles written about how “Dexter” should be given a second shot. Try to tell someone that they are wrong to want more of something they once loved; why would you? You are not thinking so much about what it will be when it aired; you’re instead thinking of what it was, desperately hoping to get that Jim Halpert moment back.

The result

For the most part, it’s not great. “Minority Report” is the biggest scripted flop of the fall season as of this writing, “Heroes: Reborn” is not faring critically or commercially better than the original, and while “Girl Meets World” has a solid following on the Disney Channel, it’s not the smash it was projected to be when the show was first discussed. “The X-Files” is the revival with the most potential, but its global popularity is almost so extreme that it could be an outlier. It is a show that could have been revived even before a revival trend.

Ever since the “Veronica Mars” movie, ask someone if they have been satisfied with any new version of whatever thing they once enjoyed (other than maybe “Veronica Mars” itself). The most common answer is “it’s okay, but it’s not the same.” Part of the problem is that even if you get the right creative team involved and the actors cast, it’s rare to get the series humming as it once was. This is without even mentioning some of the cynics on social media whose job seems to be to hate anything that tries to create some platinum-plated memory they have or, even worse, canon.

Name a single revival that is at the top of the ratings. “Empire,” a completely original concept, is dominating among major networks. The same goes for “The Big Bang Theory.” “The Walking Dead” was an adaptation, but there was nothing for TV viewers to specifically be nostalgic for at the time it first premiered. The same goes for “Game of Thrones.” Some of the most-discussed dramas on social media are the Shonda Rhimes trio of “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Scandal,” and “How to Get Away with Murder,” and they’re all brand-new. Netflix is becoming a runaway thanks to a “House of Cards” adaptation, “Orange is the New Black,” and a new “Daredevil” nobody was particularly nostalgic to see. Without these, there would be no “Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp.”

The most-successful new show of the season so far is “Blindspot.” Behind that? You can look at “The Muppets” as nostalgia that bucks the trend, but even still we are so early in the run that it is difficult to tell if this is a good idea. In its second episode, it lost nearly a third of its viewership in the 18-49 demographic. Maybe the passion for it was just a one-time thing.

Where we’ve stooped to

Remember the story about The Splat from a few weeks back? Nickelodeon was hyping up a mysterious entity featuring classic shows from the ’90s including “Rugrats” and classic live-action shows, and it received play across almost the entire news cycle … not to mention getting hundreds of thousands of viewers in the process. Eventually, it was discovered that this was a classic programming block coming in October. Basically, you had this much play for repeats of shows that Nick fans had seen 200 times.

Anytime you wonder why networks continue to “re-imagine” classic properties, here’s your evidence why: It gets a ton of attention, and by the time viewers realize that the end result is only occasionally as good as they hoped, the bigwigs are running to the bank. As in the case of The Splat, they don’t have to create new things at all. (For the record, Nick claims to be thinking of ways to bring back some classic shows, but nothing is confirmed.)

Advice for the future

If we were a network executive sifting through an inbox full of former showrunners wanting to bring their product back, the first thing we would do is take social media with a grain of salt. Yes, tweets are important, but 10,000 tweets does not make 10 million viewers. There is no direct correlation between trending on Twitter and having a hit show, even if it never hurts. Therefore, don’t give in just to Twitter campaigns.

Another thing we’d suggest? Maybe actually let some more new ideas enter the conference room. The network we’ll never understand here is Fox, who seem to be greenlighting anything and everything that comes at them that involves an established property, even though Lee Daniels and Danny Strong showed them the light with Lucious Lyon just over a year ago. Yes, new ideas can fail and advertisers can get nervous. Yes, you can also argue that from an advertising perspective, conservative brands are comfortable buying in on a show that they already know. However, shows end for a reason with a few exceptions; bringing them back is not going to cement your legacy as the greatest executive in history.

Finally, remember this: A little nostalgia can go a long way. Smile at the memories, and hope to see a show or two you once loved back on the air. If you go anywhere further than that, you might as well just find that time machine and go live in the past.