What works, what doesn’t and what’s due for a reboot? Scott Malia, associate professor of theatre and chair of the Department of Theatre & Dance, has some thoughts.
We love our villains (preferably quiet and cold).
Think of Anthony Hopkins’ Hannibal Lecter (“The Silence of the Lambs”), Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestly (“The Devil Wears Prada”), Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber (“Die Hard”), or Jeremy Irons’ Scar (“The Lion King”). What we love is how they underplay their villainy, Malia says. He recites, verbatim, Miranda Priestley’s takedown of Andy Sachs, known to fans as “The Cerulean Monologue.”
“When you’re really in power, you don’t have to yell,” Malia says. “You let people scurry around you and you just hold control.”
We like the familiar (especially in uncertain times).
Uncertainty has us yearning for predictability, especially for a good underdog story, Malia says. The “Top Gun” and “The Devil Wears Prada” sequels are, at their core, underdog tales.
“They’re about people others don’t believe in who then discover something in themselves that wasn’t there at the beginning,” he says. “I don’t think we ever get tired of that. I certainly don’t.”
But we don’t want the same-old, same-old, not exactly.
There are challenges in the twice-told story, especially when it’s a fan favorite, Malia says. Consider “The Conners,” ABC’s reboot of the Emmy-winning sitcom “Roseanne,” in which Dan Conner, played by John Goodman, is resurrected by a revised storyline, known in the business as a retcon: retroactively changing established story events.
“Andy Sachs [“The Devil Wears Prada”] can’t be an ingénue working for a monster again,” Malia says. “So they have to give us something new while also giving us what we want.”
And we’re tough on women of a certain age (unless it’s “The Golden Girls”).
In 2026, both “Scrubs” and “Malcolm in the Middle” returned to television with the original casts reprising their roles. Malia would love to see a reboot of “The Golden Girls” with a gay cast this time. Reassembling original casts, even fan favorites, is not without its hazards, though. When fans turn critics, things can get ugly. For example, when three of the four stars of “Sex and the City” returned to television in “And Just Like That . . .,” they faced criticism as much for how they looked as for how they performed, Malia observes: “I remember particularly the criticism of Kristen Davis, which was, ‘Don’t age, but also we shouldn't be able to tell that she's done anything to not age. But also don’t age. Or, maybe, if you hit 40, go and die somewhere.’”
Though sometimes a thing is better off dead.
In 2025, after elements of the fourth season of HBO’s “True Detective” suggested it was a sequel to the critically acclaimed season one, Woody Harrelson was asked whether he and co-star Matthew McConaughey could be coaxed into reprising their roles. Harrelson was a hard no, saying to do that was to risk diminishing the first season’s impact. Malia approves. The end of a story can be a rehearsal of grief, he says.
“In real life, you have to carry your grief around with you, and you have to be able to let things go. And I think it’s okay — and often a good idea — to do that with stories, as well.”
