Bring It Back 2019: Should STAR, Daredevil, Gotham, or Lethal Weapon be saved?
Welcome to the second annual Bring It Back Tournament! This is a tradition that we’ve started up last year at CarterMatt with one goal in mind — shining a spotlight on shows that are truly worthy of a second life that we don’t think should’ve ended in the first place. We do this through polls that allow your voice to be heard also! We’re in the month of May, and with that, cancellations are going to be running rampant throughout the month.
We’re going to be announcing entrants in this year’s Bring It Back in waves (so if you don’t see the show you are most disappointed in ending it may still be coming up!), mostly as more cancellations come out over the next week or so. Today marks our third wave, focusing (just as we did in the first two waves) on six shows that have already been canceled/ended on their respective networks. The criteria is simple — we’re focusing here on shows that aired their final episode, or will air their final episode, at some point from September 2018 until September 2019.
How do you vote for which show should come back? You can do that at the bottom of this article! There are more specific voting rules/technical information at the bottom of this article. The two shows with the highest votes in round one will move forward to round two, and voting will remain open here for five days, from now until Thursday, May 16 at 1:00 p.m. Pacific time.
With all of this spelled out, let’s go ahead and get now to the next six shows!
Daredevil – This is one that is still worth being upset about, especially as we see more and more comic-book properties being picked up and it is not even being addressed at all. Just think about — this is one of the best-reviewed comic-book shows out there, especially for its third season, and its departure from the air still feels like the result of terrible business politics more so than anything Daredevil did itself. Even if it is too hardcore for Disney+, we still have a hard time thinking there are zero potential suitors for it out there.
Friends From College – One of Netflix’s bigger comedies in terms of its cast, but also yet another victim of the streaming provider’s purge of well-known shows. Friends From College could’ve turned into something more if there was either A) more investment from a promotional standpoint or B) simply more time for the story to be told. Two seasons, in comedy terms, is often not that long of a time.
Gotham – The good news is that Gotham got a proper ending. The bad news is that it’s not on the air moving forward. Pretty easy to spell out, no? The final season was fantastic fun and we absolutely delivered all of the Batman-related goodness that we’ve been hoping to see for quite some time. Obviously, it’d be tricky trying to find the right story to tell unless it was all in flash-forwards now, but we’re still interested.
Lethal Weapon – Given how season 3 ended with a pretty significant tease for what season 4 could look like, the creative enthusiasm is there … but is it for the fans? This has been one of the most divisive shows of the past year, though we know that there is a legion of fans out there who enjoyed the new version with Seann William Scott.
Life in Pieces – Despite airing for many seasons and having an outstanding cast, you can still argue that CBS never really bothered to give the current iteration of this show all that much of a chance. It only premiered recently, and it felt this year almost doomed from the very start.
STAR – Finally, let’s turn to the most shocking cancellation of the year, a musical drama with pretty-solid ratings and a strong ensemble cast. STAR seems to be mostly a consequence of the Disney acquisition of 20th Century Fox TV, and that ended up making it a little too costly for Fox the network to continue to own. Yet, we do think that there will be some discussions with other possible outlets about acquiring it. Time will tell!