The star of the mega-hit of the 90s, Home Improvement, made his return to network television this week and got off to a great start. The new Last Man Standing delivered a very strong 13.2 million viewers and 3.6 demo. It's the second best premiere for a comedy in total viewers after 2 Broke Girls and third in the demo after Broke and New Girl, but both of those shows had lead-ins (2 Broke Girls had the extremely powerful Two and a Half Men lead in). This was a self-starter and the second half hour grew from the first. While it's hard to know how things will ultimately turn out, Allen's critically panned retro-feel show had the last laugh this week.
TV just can't help itself with remaking hit shows. There have been many failures over the years - Knight Rider, Fantasy Island, Melrose Place, V, Bionic Woman, The Love Boat, The Fugitive, Dragnet, The Twilight Zone. But last year, CBS had success with the high action remake of Hawaii Five-0 and so now remakes might be all the rage again. But this year, they are not working. ABC's first cancellation was the buzzy remake of 1970s hit Charlie's Angels which dipped to embarrassing demos before getting pulled on Friday. NBC's remake of BBC hit Prime Suspect sunk to another series low and is actually doing worse than Charlie's, though it's on NBC so it's surviving for now. While we're at it, Hawaii dipped to a season low this week. Why do networks keep trying this when the batting average is very very low?
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