As genre television goes, there are few genres as popular as science fiction. For decades, sci-fi television series have been staples, with some series becoming beloved and iconic that get huge followings while others don’t fare as well. Whatever their fate, however, sci-fi series take their viewers into incredible worlds that challenge the imagination and thrill the viewer with tales of high-tech futures, aliens, or even alternate realities that provide unique ways to view current events and our own experiences.
Science fiction is also the genre where, while originality is always good, reboots are also great. As times change, so does scientific advances and attitudes make some classic and more recent but underappreciated gems perfect for the reboot treatment. We’ve previously explored five series that are begging for reboots but given how many great sci-fi shows are out there, we couldn’t stop with just five. Here are five more that really need reboots, stat.
There’s a good chance you’ve never heard of John Doe. Airing for just one season on Fox during the 2002-2003 television season, the series had a pretty great premise: a mysterious man, played by future DC’s Legends of Tomorrow star Dominic Purcell, wakes up on an island off the coast of Seattle, Washington with no memory of who he is, how he got there, or any details of his own life and past. However, he does have an incredible ability: he can seemingly access all of human knowledge, both obscure and otherwise. Calling himself John Doe, the man uses this skill to help solve crimes with the Seattle police department while also trying to solve the mystery of his own identity, all the while an international conspiracy called the Phoenix Organization is keeping track of his every move.
The series never really stood a chance. The network kept shifting its timeslot and aired episodes out of order, hindering its storytelling and it was cancelled after 21 episodes, leaving a huge cliffhanger. While the series creators Brandon Camp and Mike Thompson did later explain what would have happened who John Doe really was — and why he knew everything — we never got to see it play out. Given that the premise held a lot of promise and complexity, rebooting this one could be a very interesting way to explore the idea of identity and self, especially against the backdrop of a world that is increasingly using AI for “information” that could really inform the conspiracy aspect of the story.
You probably don’t think about the iconic Knight Rider television series as being sci-fi, but let’s be honest for a second: K.I.T.T. is an indestructible car with artificial intelligence. It’s definitely sci-fi. And yes, we know there was a reboot in 2008, but we think the time is definitely now for another go. The original Knight Rider show had a kind of silly premise — a billionaire rescues a police detective, gives him a new face and identity and recruits him to be part of his justice organization operating with the other half of the program, the advanced vehicle controlled by artificial intelligence, K.I.T.T. with the pair brought in only for the more serious of situations — but it was wildly popular.
A reboot for contemporary times could actually be very interesting, especially if it was approached as more of a critique on the rise of AI and an examination of the justice system. There is a lot that can be explored within the basic premise and to be honest, a good action series would be a fantastic thing to see on network television, especially if it had slightly serious undertone. There is just so much that could be done with a new take on Knight Rider and we’d love to see it.
Another Fox series that never had a chance, Almost Human aired for just one season on the network in 2013 and was, like John Doe, mishandled from the start thanks to episodes aired entirely out of order. Despite this, the series had a great premise, following a human detective partnered with an advanced android. The detective, Kennex, is initially reluctant to work with the android Dorian, they develop a real friendship and the series poses all kinds of questions about humanity and technology and the intersections in between.
With our own technologies advancing at such rapid rates, revisiting the idea of Almost Human and giving this series a reboot — and this time telling the story in order — just seems like an almost surefire win. Themes of where technology ends and humanity ends never get old, after all, and they’re more timely than ever.
Shows about humans finding a new home away from Earth are always interesting stories which makes Earth 2 a series that is prime for a reboot. Airing for just one season on NBC in the 1994-1995 television season, Earth 2 follows the journey and settlement of an expeditionary group, the Eden Project. The group plans to go to an Earth-like planet, G889, in an attempt to find a cure to a mysterious illness known only as “the syndrome”. The story is told with the backdrop of humanity having already fled an uninhabitable Earth to live on space stations.
There’s a lot to explore in Earth 2 that makes it a perfect show to reboot. This is not just a standard space exploration and survival story. There are layers to it that dig into issues of wealth, politics, environment, and colonialism. The government doesn’t want to acknowledge that “the syndrome” even exists, which prompts a billionaire to seek her own solution by settling another planet, but there’s also issues when they arrive as there are already civilizations there and, more than that, the government has their own designs for this foreign world. There’s a lot of complexity and intrigue and it just feels like prestige television waiting to happen.
We will never stop advocating for some sort of continuation or reboot of FlashForward. The one-season ABS series had such a unique premise: a mysterious event causes almost everyone on Earth to blackout for two minutes and seventeen seconds on October 6, 2009, and, during this blackout, those experiencing it experience visions of their lives six months in the future on April 29, 2010. A team of FBI agents come together to try to figure out what caused the blackout in the first place, what the “flash-forwards” means, and will it happen again.
While the show rose during the era of Lost, this high-concept sci-fi series was definitely not Lost and deserves a chance to fully explore its story without that show’s shadow lingering. The best part of FlashForward is that it’s based on an incredible novel so there is lots to exπlore (and the original television series even introduced a plotline from the novel in its cliffhanger ending). And, with shows like Severance proving that high concept sci-fi can work now, the time is perfect for FlashForward to get a reboot.
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