In case you haven’t seen it, there is a new television show out there more terrifying than anything that has ever made it to TV before (yes, even more than Thursday night’s GOP debate). It is a horror-fest beyond imagining, brought to fruition by perhaps the most twisted mind in Hollywood, with a full season of 13 disturbing episodes available for on demand viewing since its release last week on Netflix.
I am speaking, of course, of the blood-curdling, spine-chilling, nightmare-inducing, Full House sequel series, Fuller House, brought to horrifying life by obvious Satan-worshipper and Full House creator Jeff Franklin.
That’s right. The Tanner Family, after a 21 year absence from our television sets, is back. All their group hugs, and corny jokes, and obnoxious catch phrases (“Cut! It! Out!”) are on full display, and some new ones have been added (“Holy Chalupas!” Seriously, that’s one of the new catchphrases).
The plot of the show is not worth discussing at length. Suffice to say, the Tanner kids and pal Kimmy Gibbler, now grown, move in together with their kids, and hijinks and family values ensue. Watching Fuller House is like travelling back in time, the style and values of the show being so discordant with the blithe postmodernism that swept over TV comedy in the early 2000s. In theory this could be refreshing; in practice, it is just plain disorienting.
And while the show itself is not actually frightening, what its success means for the future of television is. You see, the show is a hit! At least, it is a social media hit. Netflix doesn’t release viewer ratings, but the social media response to the show was immense, and less than a week after Fuller House‘s debut, the streaming company announced that the show had picked up for a second season. Which means that The Reboot, one of the trends in Hollywood filmmaking that has helped to ruin (creatively, if not financially) the film industry, has now migrated to television and succeeded. And in Hollywood, when something succeeds, it is copied. By everyone. That’s why Fox is now doing live musicals, and why Marvel comic book shows are everywhere.
The reboot is not a new concept in TV, but now that Fuller House has made it, with all its zeitgeisty, nostalgia-based stupidity that people love to tweet about, the next few years promise even more kitschy, social-driven reboots of terrible shows that Millennials loved when they were 9. So get ready for Alf: Illegal Alien, and Saved by the Bell: Back at Bayside, and maybe even Family Matters: The Urkel Triplets. How’s that for terrifying?
