Bring It Back 2019: Timeless, Gotham, Whiskey Cavalier, One Day at a Time compete in round 2!
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. May just so happens to be a month of heartbreak for many TV fans, and we like to think that these polls help to offer a chance to have your voice heard. It’s also a nice signal boost to networks and interested parties that there are definitely shows in need of saving.
Earlier this month, we presented four waves of six shows each, and allowed you to vote on whichever ones you felt were most deserving of getting another live on TV. Of those shows, there are now officially eight semifinalists! Four of those shows are squaring off in this article in One Day at a Time, Gotham, Timeless, and Whiskey Cavalier — meanwhile, the next four (Daredevil, Shadowhunters, Santa Clarita Diet, and The Passage) will be squaring off in their own semifinal showdown starting tomorrow.
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 the final round, and voting will remain open here for five days, from now until Wednesday, May 22 at 1:00 p.m. Pacific time. The final round will begin on May 24, with the eventual winner being crowned on May 31.
With all of this spelled out, let’s go ahead and spotlight the first four semifinalists!
Gotham – Even though Gotham may have had a proper series finale, one of the things that we clearly learned from its round 1 showdown is that the enthusiasm for more of this world and its characters is still very much here — and we certainly get why. Gotham delivered arguably one of the best TV/movie adaptations of the Batman comics ever, at least in terms of balancing out both the dark nature of the city and the somewhat-comedic qualities that many of the characters have. It’s a show that is a tad more complicated, perhaps, than many gave it credit for — and emotionally, it ran the gamut from emotionally poignant to downright insane. We miss it already.
One Day at a Time – The comedy has been canceled for a few months now by Netflix but the sting of it is very much there still. There just aren’t many other comedies out there that are both so fantastically fun and also earthy and real. These characters depicted an often-overlooked way of life and brought real issues and conflicts to the table. It may have never had the largest audience, but we do think that it had one of the biggest hearts and we’re still hoping that someone finds a way to take a chance on it.
Timeless – Like with Gotham, Timeless had a series finale — though in this case, a movie to tie the story together. Yet, there was certainly enough story still out there in this world, even with some of its characters in a totally new place. The ending is almost a little bit reminiscent of Serenity, the finale movie for Firefly — we got an ending, but that doesn’t diminish the desire for more. It’s just such a rich, imaginative world and you have to think that there is so much more of this tapestry that could be explored.
Whiskey Cavalier – Finally, we turn to a cancellation that, in the past week, has generated perhaps more attention than almost any other. There are already petitions out there, in addition to hashtags and various movements to try to land the ABC series somewhere else. We know that studio Warner Bros. TV is considering other options, and we really just hope that there is another viable one out there that can work for all parties. We’ll keep you posted if we hear anything along the way.