Reboots rely on nostalgia over content
Reboots have surged, shows like Queer Eye, Roseanne and Full House came back on-screen with an appealing sense of nostalgia for viewers everywhere.
Many reboots succeed in coming back and bringing in viewers, but many others fail to do so.
The 2019 reboot of The Twilight Zone had an average 40 percent audience score according to rottentomatoes.com. I am not denying that many reboots receive high praise, but that they often leave fans dissatisfied.
Will & Grace rebooted and received a 60 percent audience score in rottentomatoes.com. It is more often than not that shows become popular because of their relevance to current times; thus, if they reboot, they have already lost the cultural relevance from before and are opening to not only their previous audience, but a new audience of the younger generations.
A show’s popularity tends to depend on how original their ideas are. Audiences are brought in by showing something new that might not have been seen before. However, a reboot does not usually show any new ideas. It is a continuation of what was previously new content and can sometimes be stuck on appealing to nostalgia or appealing to a new audience with a lot of pop culture references. This aged aspect leaves fans dissatisfied as it was with the Will & Grace reboot.
Despite a few successes, reboots tend to receive low audience ratings because they no longer appeal to their audience and leave fans dissatisfied.