There’s nothing new about the concept of rebooting old TV series for a new audience. CBS has found great success with their gender-swapped “Matlock” reboot starring Kathy Bates, and NBC has high hopes for “The Rockford Files,” with David Boreanaz stepping into the role formerly occupied by the late James Garner. These, however, are well-known properties.
Their original shows have spent decades in syndication and are now streaming staples, resulting in legions of longtime fans launching into online disparagement about how different they are from the original properties. In that spirit, we’ve pulled together a list of five TV ’70s series that were critical darlings during their original runs, but never successfully pulled high enough ratings to go beyond a second season, making them all ripe for a reboot.
Banacek (1972)
Created by Anthony Wilson, “Banacek” starred George Peppard as Thomas Banacek, a freelance insurance investigator, a premise which sounds less than gripping until one realizes that Banacek tends to limit himself to only pursuing cases that he finds both lucrative and interesting. Because of the former caveat, he’s rich enough to have a limousine and chauffeur (Jay Drury, played by Ralph Manza), but cool enough to drive his own 1941 Packard convertible –- and both vehicles have car phones, which is really saying something for a show set in the early ’70s.
Banacek is also an unabashed ladies’ man, and a successful one, at that — but that’s to be expected for someone who, in addition to being rich, is also smart, classy, and an honorably discharged Marine who’s still in top shape. The series positions Banacek with a buddy, Felix Mulholland (Murray Matheson), who helps provide him with information to assist him with his investigations. Banacek also has rival investigators — Carlie Kirkland (Christine Belford) and Henry DeWitt (Linden Chiles) — who are trying to find the missing property before he does.
The plots in “Banacek” were a bit more complex than the traditional procedural, which might explain why it was always more of a hit with the critics of the era than with mainstream audiences. That said, it’s become a cult hit in recent years, thanks to a DVD release and availability through various streaming services, making it ripe for a reboot.
The Snoop Sisters (1973)
Part of the “NBC Tuesday Mystery Movie” line-up, a rotating “wheel” of mystery series that ran 1971 to 1977, “The Snoop Sisters” starred Helen Hayes and Mildred Natwick as two senior-citizen sisters who — while not professional detectives — nonetheless find themselves stumbling upon mysteries on the regular and can’t help but try to solve them. As for the sisters’ actual careers, Ernesta Snoop (Hayes) was a mystery novelist, while Gwendolyn Snoop Nicholson (Natwick) was a widower and occasional poet who transcribed her sister’s mysteries. Aided in their mystery-solving endeavors were their chauffeur/caretaker, Barney (Lou Antonio), and their nephew, Steve (Bert Convy), a lieutenant in the NYPD.
At the time of the series’ premiere, Hayes was 73 and Natwick was 68, with the obvious novelty being the fact that these “old ladies” were somehow able to solve crimes. Keep in mind that this was a decade before Angela Lansbury played a mystery-solving novelist, but with Jamie Lee Curtis on the cusp of making a “Murder, She Wrote” movie, this is a property that would be perfect to reboot. The tone would be completely different, of course, given that 70 is the new 60 — perhaps even the new 50 — but if a modern-day “Matlock” can be a success, why not a modern-day “Snoop Sisters”?
Harry O (1974)
Arguably one of the most ahead-of-its-time detective dramas of its time, ABC’s “Harry O” starred David Janssen as Harry Orwell, a San Diego cop who — after being shot in the back — finds himself forced into retirement. Rather than accept being put out to pasture, Harry decides to become a P.I., running his agency out of his beach house on Coronado Island … at least, for the first half of the show’s first season, anyway. After which, he moved to Los Angeles. That wasn’t the only change to the series, either – it was retooled to add more supporting characters (including Farrah Fawcett as Harry’s neighbor/sometimes girlfriend, Sue, and Anthony Zerbe as Lt. Trench) — but Harry was always at the center of the series.
“Harry O” was nominated for an Edgar Award for Best Television Episode, and Zerbe won an Emmy for Best Supporting Actor for his role on the show. Janssen never received any such honor for his performance, but he deserved one. Without him, the show still would’ve been great, but he made it outstanding. It might be a challenge to find a modern-day “Harry O,” but if the writing can match that of the original, it’s worth taking a shot.
Nashville 99 (1977)
This short-lived CBS drama only ran for four episodes in 1977 and has never been formally released on any medium, which likely makes “Nashville 99” the least-remembered series on this list. Claude Akins stars as Stonewall “Stoney” Huff, a fella who not only owns a 200-acre family farm outside Nashville, but is also a detective lieutenant with the Nashville Police Department. His fellow detective, Trace Mayne, is played by country music legend Jerry Reed — and it may not surprise you to learn that he’s a would-be songwriter trying to make in the music business. To be fair, Reed’s fellow country legend, Charley Pride, plays a detective on the series, and his character isn’t trying to make it in the music business.
During the course of its four episodes, “Nashville 99” managed to work in guest appearances by country artists Chet Atkins, Johnny Paycheck, Ray Stevens, Mel Tillis, and Tammy Wynette, along with Ned Beatty, Pat Hingle, Don Johnson, and future “General Hospital” star Sharon Wyatt. A revival would provide an opportunity to spotlight present-day country artists, of course, but given that Nashville has become a hotbed for all sorts of music, it certainly wouldn’t have to be limited to country.
If “Nashville 99” lasted just a little bit longer, it could’ve benefited from the tremendous success of “Smokey and the Bandit,” which also starred Reed and came out shortly after the show’s premiere. The series remains an obscurity with an extremely fresh premise that could work nicely in the present as a police procedural with down home flair.
Kaz (1978)
Ron Leibman co-created (with Don Carlos Dunaway) and starred in “Kaz,” a1978 legal drama about Martin “Kaz” Kazinski, an ex-con, who — having passed the bar exam via correspondence school during his six years behind bars — immediately turned his life around and began to pursue a career as a criminal defense attorney. With help from a couple of old acquaintances who let him rent the apartment above their bar, Kaz promptly talks his way into a gig at a top-flight law firm and starts trying cases.
He tends to look a bit rumpled when he rolls into court, and he’s more than a little rough around the edges as an attorney, but Kaz has the charisma, the determination, and the mantra — “Never give up hope!” — to make it work. Plus, as a once-criminal, he’s been on the other side of the legal equation, providing him with additional incentive to help people prove their innocence and/or turn their lives around. It wouldn’t take much to make “Kaz” work in a modern setting. The only real requirement would be finding the right actor to take on the titular role: Someone deft at both comedy and drama, capable of shifting from a smirk to a stern gaze at the drop of a hat.
