In order to give me an excuse to talk about One Day at a Time, the Netflix sitcom that made me laugh and cry and talk an awful lot about how much I like Rita Moreno, we decided to talk about three properties we’d like to see rebooted. Whiskey Jenny wins this round. It’s not a competition, but if it were, Whiskey Jenny would win it. #JusticeforDrive
You can listen to the podcast using the embedded player below, or download the file directly to take with you on the go!
What we talked about:
One Day at a Time (Netflix)
Terry Crews paints a picture
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Y’all, I am so embarrassed. There is a Buffy the Vampire Slayer reboot being made with a black lead and a black lady as the showrunner. And obviously I knew about this and just forgot that I knew about it and thought that I made up the whole notion. Grr I hate when I am a dingbat.
Drive (Fox TV show)
Man of La Mancha
Brian Stokes Mitchell singing “The Impossible Dream”
Frozen 2 teaser
this is the song from Man of La Mancha that Vanessa Hudgens could have. it’s his niece, not his sister.
The Game (CW, then BET, show)
All-American (CW show)
the Chronicles of Narnia, CS Lewis
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Credits
Producer: Captain Hammer
Photo credit: The Illustrious Annalee
Theme song by: Jessie Barbour
Transcripts by: Sharon of Library Hungry
Transcript is available below the jump.
THEME SONG: You don’t judge a book by its cover. Page one’s not a much better view. And shortly you’re gonna discover the middle won’t mollify you. So whether whiskey’s your go-to or you’re like my gin-drinking friend, no matter what you are imbibing, you’ll be better off in the end reading the end.
WHISKEY JENNY: Hello, and welcome to a special bonus episode of the Reading the End bookcast with the demographically similar Jennys. I’m Whiskey Jenny.
GIN JENNY: And I’m Gin Jenny.
WHISKEY JENNY: And today we are going to talk about three properties that we want to see rebooted in the year of our Lord 2019.
GIN JENNY: Or any year. Any year, any time.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, we can’t go back. We can only go forward.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: And then going forward, obviously. [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: I don’t know, maybe you have a time machine.
GIN JENNY: I like how you were immediately like, no, now, listen.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: We’ve been over this! Don’t do the time travel.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: We actually have been over that. I know you don’t like time travel.
WHISKEY JENNY: Do I dislike time travel?
GIN JENNY: I mean, you find it stressful in books, I’ve found.
WHISKEY JENNY: Well, I do find it stressful, yeah. I guess that’s true. I guess it kind of breaks my brain, because there’s all these weird rules that are different every time. [LAUGHTER] And none of them ever make sense. [LAUGHTER] Sure, yeah. All right, I guess I do find it stressful. You know me so well, Gin Jenny.
Yeah, well anyway, so Gin Jenny, why don’t you tell us the impetus for this conversation first?
GIN JENNY: OK, so this is inspired by me badgering Whiskey Jenny to let me talk about One Day at a Time on podcast. Because the third season of One Day at a Time showed up on Netflix recently, and I pretty much mainlined it. It’s a reboot itself, which is how it all ties in together. And it’s about a Latina single mom who’s a military veteran, and she lives with her two kids and her mother, who’s played by Rita Moreno—the queen. And they also have this hipster neighbor-slash-landlord named Schneider who’s like part of the family, too.
The comedy is slightly broad, and when I first started it I kept thinking, this is a little too broad for me. I’m not so into it. But then some episodes would go by and I’d be like [SOBBING] they all love each other so much!
So the last four episodes of this season in particular really, really brought it home. It was a great season for Schneider, who’s the landlord, and also for Elena, the teenage daughter, and they both just really knocked it out of the park. I was a weepy mess.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, man. I was not familiar with the original property. So did they make any drastic changes, or is it sort of a straight—just move it into the current year?
GIN JENNY: I don’t know. I will say that when I told—so my dad likes rom coms and gentle sitcoms, so I’ve been trying to get him to watch One Day at a Time, which I think is right up his alley. And when I mentioned it to my parents, my mom was like, the one about the single mom? And I was like, yeah, yeah. And she was like, and they have an annoying landlord. And I was like, uh huh, uh huh! And she was like, that’s on Netflix? And she thought I was talking about the old one. So it sounds like it hasn’t changed a ton. But I don’t actually know. I have not seen the original.
We wanted to take this bonus episode as a chance to talk about properties that we would like to see rebooted. And we’ve each picked three, and I’ve taken a slightly liberal view of the term “rebooted,” so I have a slightly strange array. But Whiskey Jenny, do you want to start us off?
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, OK. I thought you were going to say I’ve taken a liberal view of the term “three.”
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: That sounds like me, doesn’t it? [LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: Yes. I was not going to be terribly surprised. [LAUGHTER] Yeah, sure, I’ll get us started. Should we just go back and forth?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, go back and forth, I think.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, so my first one is, Terry Crews, currently on Brooklyn Nine-Nine and noted awesome human, recently did a little special, I think that was a promo for the return of Brooklyn Nine-Nine. But it was an hour long thing where he just painted a holiday-themed painting. And there was a fire crackling in the background, and it was sort of a Bob Ross-esque thing where you just watched this man paint and narrate.
GIN JENNY: Since we recently lost Bob Ross.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I think we should bring back a Bob Ross-style painting show hosted by Terry Crews, A of all would be great. B of all, if he’s too busy, I understand, and I think it’d be really fun if it sort of rotated around hosts. And then just various actors and musicians and whoever wanted to paint a little painting they could. And then maybe you would get a lot of cool people because they wouldn’t have to commit.
GIN JENNY: Oh, that sounds great.
WHISKEY JENNY: Doesn’t that sound lovely?
GIN JENNY: Yeah, that sounds wonderful. Can I add an additional possible way to do it?
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: OK, what if Terry Crews was the host—this would, of course, be after Brooklyn Nine-Nine had lived out its natural lifespan; I don’t want anything to happen to Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, we don’t want to interfere with that. Yeah, yeah.
GIN JENNY: So if Terry Crews is the host, but he also had guests, I think that would be great. We could have the best of both worlds.
WHISKEY JENNY: Ooh. That would be cool, too. Do they paint the same painting, or what they do?
GIN JENNY: Good question. Gosh. I think they could—you know what, they could choose. If they felt confident, they could choose their own subject. But if they wanted more guidance from Terry Crews, the more experienced artist—
WHISKEY JENNY: They could follow along with him.
GIN JENNY: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: What a great idea that is. Yeah, and then we could see their banter? Oh, man.
GIN JENNY: Or, plus, they could also have professional artists come on and talk to Terry Crews about technique, and maybe show him some tricks. I just see a lot of potential.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. That’s a great idea, too. Because I know he has a big design background, so I think he would be a great interviewer and explainer of those kinds of concepts to the layperson.
GIN JENNY: But it’s a good idea. I wish it were not just in our heads, because I think it’s really strong.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, all three of mine, I was like, man, now I’m sad that doesn’t actually exist. [LAUGHTER] Except we do have the one—you know, we have the one the special from Terry Crews. So we’ll always have that.
[LAUGHTER]I just wanted to ask a general question. When I was looking up things—what are some past things that have not gotten rebooten yet? And Moonlighting and Remington Steele came up several times. And I’ve never seen those. Have you seen those?
GIN JENNY: No, not at all.
WHISKEY JENNY: I wonder if I should. All right, well.
GIN JENNY: I’m going to be real, I’m probably not gonna.
WHISKEY JENNY: I could not weigh upon their rebootability without having seen them, but they both seem like they’re just bantery procedurals where people investigate things. And you know that’s my jam, so.
GIN JENNY: It’s true.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Maybe I’ll just watch those and then get back to you if they could be rebooted or not.
GIN JENNY: [LAUGHTER] Sounds great.
WHISKEY JENNY: All right, great. So what’s your first one?
GIN JENNY: OK, so my first one is something that I think can actually happen. I don’t know if it’s in the works, but I think that it seems really eminently rebootable. I would love to see some women of color reboot Buffy the Vampire Slayer and just do a new take on it. Because I really love original Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but a lot of elements of it haven’t aged well. Especially some of Joss Whedon’s gender and race issues. But I love the property, and I think it’s really fun. And I think that it would be really cool to see it done by someone who doesn’t—uh. It’d be cool to see it redone by someone whose feminism has evolved since the year 1992.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK. Sure. That’s one way of phrasing it. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: So yeah, I just think it would be great. I love vampire shows, as you know. And there’s not one that currently is on that I’m able to watch. So it would just be nice to have.
WHISKEY JENNY: Is there one that’s currently on that you’re not able to watch?
GIN JENNY: No, I don’t think so. That’s what I— Sorry, I phrased that strangely. But no, I don’t think there’s any on right now.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, I don’t think so either. What happened to the vampire craze?
GIN JENNY: Well, it died down. And I think that’s OK. I don’t need there to be a whole vampire craze. But I would like a vampire show.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure. Yeah. Just at least one.
GIN JENNY: Right, exactly.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. OK, so my next one is—and I think you’ll be familiar with this property as well—the TV show Drive.
GIN JENNY: Oh my God! That is the best one. You’re a genius. Justice for Drive! Continue.
WHISKEY JENNY: Justice for Drive. Yeah, I had to restrain myself when doing this and not just list things that I like that I would like more of, [LAUGHTER] things that I actually think need a second chance. But I really think Drive needs a second chance. It’s such a good setup. It was an illegal cross-country road race.
GIN JENNY: Set up by shadowy—
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, by this shadowy corporation. So there’s all these opportunities to follow around the different teams. They have different challenges and clues each time to get to their race thing.
GIN JENNY: Some of them are in it for money, some of them are kind of being blackmailed into doing it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. I think ultimately probably they should all team up and bring down the shadowy corporation. The original cast was really cool. Nathan Fillion was in it. Emma Stone was in it. I want to say Kevin Alejandro was in it. Those people might all be busy right now, so we don’t have to get original cast, but just the original show idea. Oh, Melanie Lynskey Remember her?
GIN JENNY: Melanie Lynskey was terrific. Melanie Lynskey plays this single mom who’s a survivor of domestic abuse, and her dedication to the cross country road race is amazing and something I haven’t really gotten to see Melanie Lynskey do. Like, crazy woman intensity. And it was so, so, so good.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, she was great at it.
GIN JENNY: She was fantastic.
WHISKEY JENNY: And I just feel like it’s like a concept rife with television drama. You can do so many episodes about—it’s just already an episodic concept, when they have little different checkpoints every time they have to get to. It just works so well for a TV show, and it only got like four episodes, and it was so great, and I think we should bring it back.
GIN JENNY: I absolutely agree, and I’m not done talking about Drive. I really love Drive.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, great. Tell me more.
GIN JENNY: One of the teams was a rich brother/poor brother, legitimate son/illegitimate son team up.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, who was that? Who were those actors, do you remember?
GIN JENNY: Was that not Kevin Alejandro?
WHISKEY JENNY: Was that Kevin Alejandro? I was going to ask. OK, yes, right.
GIN JENNY: And they were so great. They didn’t trust each other. They had a complicated relationship. One of them was a super rich kid and one of them had just gotten out of jail, and they were developing their fraternal relationship and their mistrust of their father.
But also they teamed up at some point with Nathan Fillion and the louche long-legged lady that he was hanging out with. And that lady and Kevin Alejandro I think were going to be hot like fire, but the show didn’t get far enough for their romance to blossom.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. There was a lot of bedroom eyes.
GIN JENNY: And I really shipped them. I was really into it.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, it was good. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: Plus Amy Acker plays Nathan Fillion’s wife who they kidnap in order to make Nathan Fillion do the race. And we didn’t get to see much of her at all, and I was excited to see what she was going to do inside the corporation as a kidnappee.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. There were just so many opportunities.
GIN JENNY: There were so many opportunities. [SIGH] That’s the best pick we’re going to hear today, Whiskey Jenny.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Well, we’re not done yet. That can’t be right.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, but I’m calling it already.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: All right, so what’s your next one?
GIN JENNY: OK, so next up, I would like them to revive Man of La Mancha, or make a movie of it that doesn’t suck. I have a top five musicals list, and Man of La Mancha got edged out of my top five when Hamilton hit the scene. But prior to that, it’s the only one of my top now six musicals that I haven’t seen live, and I really, really want to. My parents had it on vinyl when I was a kid. It’s an adaptation of Don Quixote. So I’ve been listening to it since I was like 6. And I think it gets overlooked a lot when people talk about musicals. So I would really like for it to become known to a new generation of Broadway nerds.
WHISKEY JENNY: So we’re looking at either a Broadway revival or a movie.
GIN JENNY: A movie, or actually I was thinking a live TV musical, if they did a good one.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh.
GIN JENNY: That would be a very acceptable alternative. As long as they got good people and staged it well, and it was Jesus Christ Superstar level of good.
WHISKEY JENNY: Mm-hmm. Do you have any recommendations for casting or anything?
GIN JENNY: Oh, gosh. Well, Brian Stokes Mitchell played the main part in 2002, which is the last time it was revived.
WHISKEY JENNY: Hm, interesting. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: Yeah, so maybe him still.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: What a surprise. [LAUGHTER]
GIN JENNY: He was just really good. But you know, I didn’t get to see it in 2002, and maybe I could see it now. Plus I think he would be a good choice for a live TV musical, because he has a history in the part, so it’d bring in all the Man of La Mancha existing fans. And then they could get some new blood for the other parts, and I just think it’d be great. Oh, Josh Gad could play Sancho Panza. There you go. I just did that. That’s brilliant. I’m a genius.
WHISKEY JENNY: Ah, there you go. Done.
GIN JENNY: And he’s Olaf, so they could make it coincide with the Frozen 2 release and then draw in all the Frozen people.
WHISKEY JENNY: You’re a genius. You’re a marketing genius.
GIN JENNY: Thank you, thank you, I appreciate that. Frozen 2 looks really good, by the way, speaking of reboots.
WHISKEY JENNY: Wait, does it? Tell me more. Why does it look good? Is there a trailer? What do I need to know?
GIN JENNY: There’s a little teaser trailer.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK.
GIN JENNY: The animation is extraordinarily beautiful, and you also see Elsa working really hard on her powers and trying stuff out. And they have to go to a distant land. So, I don’t know, it just looks great.
WHISKEY JENNY: Cool. Yeah.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, so that’s my number two. Man of La Mancha. Revive it or put it in some format where people can watch it. I love it so much.
WHISKEY JENNY: Is there a role there for Vanessa Hudgens?
GIN JENNY: Oh, great question. Not really—yes! I can believe I said no.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: What a ride this has been.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Absolutely there is. Don Quixote has this sister who is very embarrassed by him doing all the crazy stuff he’s doing. And she has this really great song where she’s talking to the priest. And she’s like, he’s acting crazy, but I’m not worried about myself and my marriage prospects. I really only care about him. I’m just concerned about him. And it’s a really funny song, and I think Vanessa Hudgens would knock it out of the park.
WHISKEY JENNY: Great. OK, great.
GIN JENNY: Thank you for asking that.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: You know me, asking all those hard hitting journalism questions.
GIN JENNY: No, that was really good. You’re just really, really, really extraordinarily brilliant today, like even by comparison with usually.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, gosh, that’s so kind. Thank you.
GIN JENNY: Oh, man. Drive.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, Drive. I don’t understand what happened. It was so good.
GIN JENNY: It was so good. And I really think you’re right. I think if it was on today, it would find its audience.
WHISKEY JENNY: I think it would, yeah. When was it? It was like 2002 when it came out?
GIN JENNY: God, It was so long ago. Hang on, let me check. Drive TV show.
WHISKEY JENNY: It was a different time.
GIN JENNY: It was a very different TV landscape. 2007.
WHISKEY JENNY: OK, yeah. So, you know, it’s been a while.
GIN JENNY: It’s been a minute.
WHISKEY JENNY: We have new production companies and new ways of streaming things. And I think it could work.
GIN JENNY: Me, too. Call me, Tim Minear.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: OK, so my last one is a sitcom that did not go off the air too long ago, but I have a new idea to make it slightly different. So it is The Game, which was a sitcom about football players and their wives and/or girlfriends and whatnot.
GIN JENNY: Oh, OK.
WHISKEY JENNY: And family. So it was comedy amongst the sportsball of it all, and then their relationships, and trying to make it in that world, and marketing deals and things like that. And A of all, I just think there’s not enough fictional TV content right now about sportsball.
GIN JENNY: Agree.
WHISKEY JENNY: There’s so much room there to make one.
GIN JENNY: Agree. Oh, and by the way, real quick, people, watch All American on the CW, because it’s at risk of getting canceled. And I haven’t watched it yet, like a monster.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, man, I haven’t either. So yeah, so we’ll watch All American.
GIN JENNY: All right. Continue. Sportsball.
WHISKEY JENNY: I was really into Pitch, and that got canceled. But so The Game, as a sitcom, I think it would be really cool. It was originally on the CW, and then it was on BET. And I think all three of the dudes and most of the—so most of the main cast were people of color, and that’s really cool. I think we should keep that. But I think it would be interesting if one of the football players was gay and out, and one of the storylines was that he’s the first out professional football player. And then his partner would also be one of the partners having hijinks with the other partners.
GIN JENNY: Oh, that sounds great. That’s a great addition.
WHISKEY JENNY: Thank you. So The Game.
GIN JENNY: Great choice. Man. I just thought of Enlisted. It’s not my last choice, but Enlisted was a really terrific sitcom that only lasted one season, and it’s just a shame.
WHISKEY JENNY: Gosh, it was so sweet.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, it was just great. My last one actually, though, is C.S. Lewis’s Chronicles of Narnia. And what I’m saying here is that I wish that those books would fall out of copyright. They are completely foundational to me. They are the first books I can ever remember reading. My mom read them to me when I was three, and that’s one of my earliest memories. And I just think they are foundational to a lot of people, and I’m really excited for the copyright on them to expire so other people can start writing their own takes on that world.
Which honestly, they’re already doing. People write books that are so strongly influenced by Narnia, and it’s really obvious. Like Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, or Laura Weymouth has a YA novel out this year, or last year maybe, called The Light Between Worlds that’s obviously inspired by Narnia. But I would just love for a Middle Eastern writer to do a take on Calormen. Or I’d love to have a series that just explore Susan’s life after Narnia. I have a lot of feelings about the Narnia books, and I just would love, love, love to see what a new generation of writers made of it.
WHISKEY JENNY: When does it fall out of copyright?
GIN JENNY: Oh God, so long from now. Who even knows?
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, wow.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, no, Great Gatsby just fell out of copyright, and that was published at least 30, probably 40 years earlier than Narnia.
WHISKEY JENNY: Oh, yeah. OK.
GIN JENNY: So a while.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah.
GIN JENNY: I should also say, Netflix has acquired the rights to the Narnia books, and I really hope that those movies or that TV show end up being good. Because really, those books are my whole heart.
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah. Netflix.
GIN JENNY: I know! Yeah.
WHISKEY JENNY: Killing it.
GIN JENNY: So listeners, we would love to know what you think should get a reboot, and we would also like your ideas about a rebooted Drive. Because I think if we all collectively—[LAUGHTER]
WHISKEY JENNY: Yeah, we can make that happen, right?
GIN JENNY: Just think about it really hard, we can The Secret it into happening. I just—God, man. I really want to rewatch the six episodes.
WHISKEY JENNY: There’s only six! There’s so few.
GIN JENNY: I pirated them in 2007, and so I still have them. But see, it was such a different time! It was before streaming services. Everything was different in 2007.
WHISKEY JENNY: Everything was different.
GIN JENNY: Except I think Supernatural was on, so that was the same.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: That show’s been on forever.
GIN JENNY: It’s been on for so long.
WHISKEY JENNY: It was that time when all of the network shows streamed their shows online, but on their own, like Fox.com or CBS.com website. It was hard to find and nobody knew about it. It was a different time.
GIN JENNY: I think we’re staggering back towards that, though. I feel like I keep hearing about networks and companies that are planning their own proprietary streaming service.
WHISKEY JENNY: Sure, yeah.
GIN JENNY: Boo.
WHISKEY JENNY: We’ll see.
GIN JENNY: Yeah, we’ll see. What can the future hold?
WHISKEY JENNY: Who can say?
GIN JENNY: Anyway, I’m not just interested in your ideas about Drive, listeners. I would also like to know other properties that you’d like to see rebooted. But also your thoughts about Drive. [LAUGHTER] But yeah, I mean, a lot of thoughts about Drive would be appreciated, because I miss it. And I’m so glad you’ve reminded me about it, Whiskey Jenny, and my aggrievement that it’s no longer on the air.
[LAUGHTER]WHISKEY JENNY: When I was looking up the Wikipedia page—sorry, one more thing. When I was looking up the Wikipedia page for Drive, apparently in one of the Spider-Man comics they made a joke that, like, well ever since DRIVE got canceled, things have been going downhill.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: Oh my God!
WHISKEY JENNY: I thought it was so cute.
[LAUGHTER]GIN JENNY: This has been a special bonus episode of the Reading the End bookcast with the demographically similar Jennys. You can visit the blog at readingtheend.com. You can follow me on Twitter @readingtheend. We are both on Goodreads as Whiskey Jenny and Gin Jenny. And you can email us, please do, at readingtheend@gmail.com. If you like what we do, you can become a podcast patron at Patreon.com/readingtheend. And if you’re listening to us on iTunes, please leave us a review.
Until next time, thank you so much to our lovely Patreon patrons for making this episode possible.
THEME SONG: No matter what you are imbibing, you’ll be better off in the end reading the end.