"Reboot" seems to be a dirty word among media fans of all stripes and for good reasons. Plenty of them have either started off well and fallen apart or just been terrible from the beginning. But for some franchises, a reboot is a way to clean the slate and take advantage of squandered potential. In general, science fiction franchises have a higher chance of benefiting from a reboot than other properties, thanks to modern production techniques making it easier to create high quality special effects on a TV budget. Not only that, but genre fiction has benefited from the entertainment industry being a bit more willing to experiment with ideas in order to find the next big thing (as long as it's not too expensive). So here are four franchises that could benefit from a reboot.
4. seaQuest DSV/2032
Back in the early 1990s, someone had the idea to make a series about submarine patrolling the oceans of the near future, keeping pirates from raiding colonies and keeping aggressive nations in check in a post-World War III world. Then, if the stories are to be believed, Steven Spielberg became a producer, chucked the military angle for 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea in the future, and got the show on NBC. After the ratings came in for the first season, NBC began making changes to cut costs and add more action, which involved moving the show's sets and cast to Florida and forcing aliens, mythological gods, and other bad scifi ideas into the show. With ratings tanking, NBC gave seaQuest one last shot, casting Michael Ironside as the new lead and focusing on a military storyline involving a cold war. While this was a massive improvement, NBC was determined to write the show off and often preempted it for sports, which further screwed with its ratings and gave the executives the excuse to cancel it. So why reboot it now? Contemporary and near future science fiction is in a strong position right now, thanks to the fact that you don't need to spend as much money on making locations look futuristic. seaQuest's near future setting (originally 2018, which obviously has to be adjusted unless they go the alternate history route) grants them that ability, while also giving them the ability to come up with cool sci-fi tech to give the action component some extra pizzaz compared to thousands of gun fights we see on TV these days. Then there's the novelty factor a properly executed military sci-fi show centered on a submarine will standout, even as a reboot. As long as the writing's more competent and coherent than Last Resort's, there's a good chance people will be hooked.