What TV Shows would you Remake?

The Professionals.
And, a one off Lovejoy and Bergerac for Christmas.

I think the current generation REALLY needs a new Buffy. Something to tell girls that relationships aren't everything.

For me personally, I think we should just make it mandatory to make every teen watch the original Buffy. At least, that's #34 on my to do list if I could rule the world. #1 is to give Big Finish the Doctor Who license until the end of the world!

What's the big deal about Buffy?

I wouldn't remake Buffy. It's seminal 90s tv. One of the first shows to set up the big-bad formula that almost all geek culture shows use now. 90s sci-fi and fantasy from the US was by 1997 painfully worthy and sombre. Trek, Babylon 5, Sliders, Stargate...all good shows (Great in Trek's case) but lacking in pure fun and escapist enjoyment. Then Joss Wheddon came along with his tv version of his failed Buffy movie from 1992. It had no right to be as good as it was straight off the bat - it was sassy and funny at a times where teens were only depicted as the morons of Clueless or Dawson's Creek. Buffy and Angel managed to be a couple that sparked fan devotion without "just" being - a la Twilight - about their romance. I was a teen at the time and it galvanised a lot of people my age who would never normally watch one of "our" shows. It got girls out to cons a lot more. Our hero was a kick ass young woman, but she was also a teen that felt like one. Compare that with, say, Ace which was a middle-class BBC version of what "yoof" was. No-ones ever known an Ace, but we - certainly as a 90s kid - all knew a Xander, an Oz and a Willow.

It's not for nothing that RTD's pitch of Who to the BBC in 2003 was mostly "it's Doctor Who like you remember, but filtered through Buffy". With that in mind, it's very easy to imagine Rose in Sunnydale or Willow meeting Tennant.

What SHOULD happen to Buffy though is some remastering work. The first season looks horrendous on DVD. The early X-Files used to look just as bad on disc but the bluray remaster make it look glorious from Day 1. Would love that for Buffy.

Wouldn't be opposed to "Slayer: The Next Generation" though

Arguably one of the best TV series ever made. While decidely never unproblematic (the Thanksgiving episode is a whole lot of ugh and Buffy's relationship with Angel was incredibly counter productive to the show). It gave girls a strong three dimensional reletable protraganist who was flawed and human and that it was okay to be with all the vunerability of a sixteen year old with the fate of the world unfairly residing on her shoulders and an epic emotional journey usually reserved for male characters. The rest of the assemble being just as layed that you couldn't help but fall in love with (except for Xander) and watch grow. It reversed tropes (such as 'the alleged nice guy trying to win over the girl who isn't intrested and uncovered all the ugly entitlement underneath) which needed to be called out on. While it celeberated geek culture, it was never afraid to call out it's misgony and other issues inherent in fandom. Joss and the other writers knew the pain and confusion and general state of adolsensence and never wrote down to it's audience or challenge it's audience. It showcased the joys and hurts of adulthood just as well. It had twists and turns you never saw coming. It protrayed a gay relationship being just as loving, multi-faceted and challenging as a heterosexual relationship. The show was hillarious and the writers knew, pushing it further and further and never failing to one up themselves episode after next. The show nailed that comic book feel down, with all the fevour of a geek excited to add to (and challenge) the superhero landscape.

It was fun, nailing that comic book feeling down so well with all the fevour of a geek excited to add to (and challenge) the superhero landscape.


It's still to my mind, Whedon's best work. Firefly might have been more polished (), but it never matched Buffy's spark and intensity.