Future TV reboots should take a page out of Matlock’s book.
The reimagined version of the 1980s classic Andy Griffith vehicle is one of the biggest hits of the 2024-2025 season.
One of its selling points is that it’s not a true reboot, but there’s far more to what makes it a success than that — and writers of other potential remakes and reimaginings could learn a lot from it.
Matlock Is Much More Than That Premiere Twist
Matlock Season 1 Episode 1 set the Internet ablaze with its big reveal that Madeline Matlock wasn’t a relative of Ben Matlock — she was a fan who took his name because she was on a mission.
Everyone was excited about this new idea.
The audience loved it, and critics rushed to be the first to discuss how this reboot was different from all the others.
Those were all valid points, but in order for future TV reboots to be successful, we need to get beyond that initial surprise and discuss the real reasons Matlock is a success.
If the only exciting thing about it were the twist that it was only pretending to be a remake of the original, the energy everyone has for the series would have burned out a long time ago.
That would be a gimmick, and Matlock is far more than that.
I Fell For Matlock Because Its Core Is Addressing Social Inequities
The thing Matlock does best, besides having twist after twist throughout the season, is speak about important issues to its audience.
The legal drama could easily have been a one-note show about a female version of Ben Matlock.
Instead, it created this three-dimensional character who shares with her namesake a deep love of justice and willingness to fight for the underdog.
Madeline is, in many ways, a tragic figure, changed forever by her daughter’s death, but even that familiar trope isn’t handled in a superficial manner.
Madeline addresses things like how hard it is to be a woman in a formerly male-dominated field like law, how impossible it was for her to balance her work and family needs when her daughter was small, and how these issues contributed to her daughter’s drug abuse and death.
In short, Madeline is a complex, three-dimensional character in her own right rather than a carbon copy of Andy Griffith’s character who happens to be female.
I was reluctant to give this series a chance because I thought that’s what it would be.
A lot of reboots are uninspired.
They feel like fanfiction in which someone else takes over the role, and sometimes, they even reuse stories from the original version.
Matlock would have worked just as well if it weren’t a reboot at all, which is something I never expected.
It also takes on all those social justice-type stories I love.
It combines Ellie’s ongoing struggle for justice with cases of the week in which Madelne and Olympia stand up for people who are being trampled by others or by an overwhelmingly complex legal system.
Matlock Didn’t Need To Be A Reboot, So Why Was It?
I’ve often wondered what Matlock would be like without its connection to the Andy Griffith show.
Not much would change. Madeline would probably watch Matlock reruns on TV while continuing to fight for justice for her daughter.
We’d still get weekly insights into all the trauma the world causes by being the way it is, combined with thè mystery progressing about who covered up those documents.
However, the series would lose something — mainly, that Madeline is so mired in grief, guilt, and anger that she is willing to do anything to prove wrongdoing, even pretend to be one of her TV heroes so that she can catch and punish the people whose unethical behavior contributed to Ellie’s death.
What Other TV Writers Can Learn From the Matlock Reboot
Matlock succeeds because it takes only those elements of the original that are necessary to tell its story and crafts an original premise around those two or three points.
That’s the blueprint for other reboots. Don’t try to be a new version of the original — borrow your favorite parts of the original and build a new show around them.
I’ve been dreading the Scrubs reboot because the original ended beautifully.
Then it returned for a ridiculous half-season that had nothing to do with the characters I’d loved for seven years. Now it is supposedly going to use the same characters and actors.
Matlock shows us a better way forward.
A Scrubs reboot doesn’t need another easily distracted, highly imaginative intern who is secretly crushing on one of his new co-workers.
The heart of the show was JD’s relationships with the people he worked with and (in the early seasons) his fear of not being good enough.
Writers could do a lot with those ideas in a medical setting besides repeating what has come before.
Conversely, they could take some of Scrubs’ core concepts and apply them to a different setting altogether.
This is what St. Denis Medical did by rebooting The Office in a medical setting, and it’s been a phenomenal success.
This is an example of the same sort of thing Matlock has done: created something brand new out of something old.
Over to you, Matlock fanatics.
Do you think Matlock is showing TV writers a path out of reboot hell, or is this a one-off success that wouldn’t work in other contexts?
Hit the comments with your thoughts.
Matlock airs on CBS on Thursdays at 9/8c and on Paramount+ on Fridays.
Watch Matlock Online
TV Fanatic is searching for passionate writers to share their voices across various article types. Think you have what it takes to be a TV Fanatic? Click here for more information and next steps.