Star and co-creator Paul Reiser is seeking to bring back Mad About You as a revival TV series, along with his former costar Helen Hunt. The last couple of years have been crowded with revivals of popular TV shows of the past. The X-Files returned last year (and is soon coming back for more), while 24, Twin Peaks, Curb Your Enthusiasm, Prison Break and Will & Grace were among the long-gone TV series that returned to TV screens in 2017.
Some of these revivals have been more successful than others. Some of those shows were very specifically products of their own time and didn’t translate especially well to the present day, while others simply didn’t have enough ideas for a satisfying continuation of their series. Only Twin Peaks, the show that was gone longest of all, (arguably) unquestionably justified its existence. Now, however, we may be getting the continuation of yet another once-popular show.
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Mad About You, the story of a (mostly) happy married couple in New York City that aired on NBC throughout the 1990s, may get a revival with original stars Paul Reiser and Helen Hunt. According to TV Line, Sony is in talks with both stars, with Reiser “leading the charge” to bring back the show as a limited series, which would tell the story of Paul and Jamie as empty-nesters after the departure of their daughter to college.
Mad About You, which Reiser co-created with Danny Jacobson, ran from 1992 to 1999, and while it usually aired on Monday or Tuesday, away from the “Must See TV” block, it was one of the higher-rated sitcoms of its era. NBC, according to TV Line, is not part of the discussions for the show. Reiser first raised the possibility of reviving Mad About You earlier this year.
Is bringing back Mad About You a good idea? It’s got a pretty durable premise that seems likely to translate well to the present day, as well as a pair of stars who are likeable but not seen on screen nearly enough these days (Reiser’s role on the second season of Stranger Things excepted). Hunt raked in awards nominations for the film The Sessions five years ago, but her only roles of note lately are on the TV series Shots Fired and a small part in the cancelled Louis CK movie I Love You Daddy.
That said, Mad About You has been gone for a very long time, nearly 20 years, and it’s unclear how many viewers have been carrying a torch for it for all this time. Also, the show has a similar problem to Will & Grace - its series finale flash-forwarded throughout the rest of the characters’ lives, and would probably also have to be ret-conned out of existence.
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No word yet on when Mad About You might return.
Source: TV Line