Five Shows Looking for a Reboot

Rummaging in the skip on Memory Lane

Cast of 1980s “All Creatures Great and Small” (Shutterstock)

It has recently come to my attention that Channel 5/PBS are showing a remake of the classic BBC comedy-drama All Creatures Great and Small. The series, based upon the semi-autobiographical novels of James Herriot, centres on the lives, loves and misadventures of the partners of a veterinary practice in rural Yorkshire in the 1920s and 30s. All very nice, all very cosy, all very ‘nine o'clock on a Sunday evening’. Not to my taste.

But we seem to live in an age of remake, reboot and retread, don’t we? At least two attempts to revive Miss Marple (Geraldine McEwen and Julia MacKenzie) fell far short of the standards set by the late Joan Hickson. In the same way, despite the best efforts of Alfred Molina, Kenneth Branagh and John Malkovich, David Suchet remains the definitive Poirot. Ditto the Great Detective himself, where neither Benedict Cumberbatch (Sherlock), nor Johnny Lee Miller (Elementary) came close to Jeremy Bretts’ masterful portrayal. Forget about Robert Downey Jr altogether — Sherlock Holmes is not Tony Stark!

At the other end of the scale, we have the Star Trek re-imagining. Not too bad, to be honest, and at least made with some degree of affection and integrity. It helps that Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto required absolutely no effort to be better actors than Shatner…