- 12 hours ago
When a beloved TV series gets a second life, fans often expect a continuation of its story. But what happens when the revival decides to conveniently forget everything that happened in the original finale? Join us as we explore the television reboots and revivals that completely rewrote their own history, hitting the reset button on dramatic conclusions, character deaths, or decades of established timelines. Get ready to question everything you thought you knew about your favorite shows' endings!
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00:00Here you go!
00:02Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa!
00:04My bad!
00:04No, no, it's your sciatica!
00:06Engage your courtesy bear!
00:07Welcome to Ms. Mojo,
00:09and today we're counting down our picks for the revivals and reboots
00:13that either hit the reset button
00:15or simply pretended those final episodes of the original series never even happened.
00:20Oh, I had the craziest dream!
00:23You were there, and you were there.
00:27You weren't.
00:3110. Melrose Place
00:33Sometimes a show ends so definitively,
00:36you wonder why anyone would ever dare bring it back.
00:39What can you say about a woman who let me spend 15 years in prison for something she did?
00:46She robbed me of my life, stole my boyfriend, my husband.
00:51Oh, and about that husband,
00:52boy, did he turn out to be a sick, simpering lapdog or what?
00:56The original Melrose Place
00:58wrapped things up with several characters getting there just desserts
01:01or finding some semblance of peace
01:04like Amanda and Peter's messy conclusion.
01:07Fast forward to 2009,
01:09and most of that had been tossed out the window.
01:12I wish you'd known me when I first moved here.
01:17We were like a family.
01:19And I know it sounds stupid, but I thought if I came back,
01:21I could start over with a new family, and now everyone's abandoned me.
01:24While new residents had moved into the titular apartment complex,
01:28it seemed the writers had settled on a pick-and-choose approach to its own history.
01:32Sure, it was technically a sequel,
01:34but it conveniently suffered from a bit of amnesia regarding the more explosive
01:39and legally complicated events of the original series finale.
01:42I've seen better days.
01:44Me too.
01:46You maybe want to go grab some coffee?
01:48I think that cafe around the corner is open, right?
01:54Yeah, I think I'm just gonna cry.
01:57Number nine, Twin Peaks.
01:59The original run of Twin Peaks ended on arguably one of television's
02:03most iconic and chilling cliffhangers,
02:06with Agent Cooper seemingly possessed by the demonic entity Bob giving us all a jump scare
02:12and asking, how's Annie?
02:15How's Annie?
02:18How's Annie?
02:20How's Annie?
02:24How's Annie?
02:25How's Annie?
02:26Fans spent over two decades pondering what happened next,
02:29and while Twin Peaks' The Return did acknowledge the passage of time and Cooper's predicament,
02:35it hardly picked up where that final, terrifying image left off in any conventional sense.
02:55Instead, the revival embarked on an even more surreal and philosophical journey,
03:01effectively transforming Cooper's struggle into something far grander
03:05and more abstract, leaving behind the specific, intimate horror of that original finale
03:10for something truly unprecedented and mind-bending.
03:14Once we cross, it could all be different.
03:17Number eight, Dallas.
03:18The original Dallas famously ended with a cliffhanger that saw J.R. Ewing contemplating his life,
03:25followed by a fantastical, it's a wonderful lifestyle sequence,
03:28where he saw what the world would be like if he'd never existed.
03:32Why don't we find out if, indeed, the world would have been a better place
03:39if there had never been a J.R. Ewing?
03:45The final image strongly suggests he's made a seemingly irreversible decision,
03:50but a few years later, he's back like nothing happened,
03:54alive, scheming, and business as usual.
03:57Welcome back, Mr. Ewing.
03:59Well, thank you.
03:59Good to be back.
04:01No place on God's green earth like Texas.
04:03The TV movie revives him as the classic villain,
04:06rather than delving into the weight of that near-fatal reckoning.
04:10What once felt like a defining character moment suddenly plays more like
04:14a less meaningful, dramatic fake-out,
04:16and more like a temporary narrative swerve.
04:19And you, my son, are gonna live here and learn the business from the greatest oil man in Texas.
04:24Wait a minute, Dad.
04:27You make it sound like you planned it to happen this way.
04:30You see, John Ross, you're learning already.
04:33Number 7. Heroes Reborn
04:36When Heroes first burst onto the scene,
04:38it promised a world where ordinary people discovered extraordinary abilities,
04:43eventually leading to a somewhat hopeful, if open-ended finale,
04:46where powered individuals were slowly becoming known to the public.
04:50Look, I know what he told you about tonight.
04:52That you're coming out,
04:53and that you're gonna be able to live out in the open,
04:55and trust me, there is nobody who wants that more than me.
04:58But this is not your coming out party.
05:00This is his.
05:01However, Heroes Reborn completely disregarded any sense of progress or acceptance,
05:06instead jumping into a grim future where Evos were hunted and feared,
05:11treated as the bad guys.
05:13June 13 changed everything. Public scared to death of us.
05:16Most of these incidents are isolated.
05:18Tulsa, Cedar Rapids, the vigilantes, a few bad apples, that's all.
05:21If it was just vigilantes, the government wouldn't be forcing us to register.
05:26The world has seemingly reset to a state of heightened prejudice,
05:29undoing any strides made by the original characters towards a more integrated society.
05:34It brought back a few familiar faces,
05:37but their previous struggles and triumphs felt largely inconsequential
05:41in this new, oppressive landscape.
05:43People gathered from all around the world,
05:46hoping to build a better future
05:47where humans and Evos could coexist in peace.
05:52Within hours, an Evo supremacist named Mohinder Suresh
05:55claimed full responsibility for the attacks.
05:58Lies. All of it.
06:01Number 6. Prison Break Resurrection
06:04Fans bid a tearful farewell to Michael Schofield in the final break,
06:09where the brilliant structural engineer,
06:11whose life was already a ticking time bomb,
06:14made the ultimate sacrifice for his loved ones.
06:16Someone has to stay here.
06:19And someone has to open the hatch.
06:22And then someone's gonna be you.
06:24Okay, so I'll leave it open for you.
06:26You don't understand.
06:29This is the only way.
06:30His death felt definitive,
06:32a tragic but fitting end to his complex journey of love and escape.
06:36Yet, when the highly anticipated revival Prison Break Resurrection premiered,
06:41Schofield was miraculously resurrected,
06:43with his death explained as an elaborate ruse.
06:46This sneaky move completely undermined the emotional gravity
06:50and finality of the original series' farewell,
06:53effectively turning a poignant sacrifice
06:55into a mere plot device for a new season.
06:57When I knew Poseidon had gone rogue,
06:59I was operating outside the CIA.
07:02That's when I started my plan to get back to you.
07:04Number 5. Mad About You
07:06In the original Mad About You series finale,
07:09we watched a flash-forward that painted a rather dramatic picture.
07:14Jamie and Paul eventually separated, divorced,
07:17and lived separate lives for years,
07:20only to be reunited years later
07:21thanks to their now-grown-up daughter Mabel's movie.
07:24Did you ever think we'd be these people?
07:27No, I did not.
07:33I just want to say, if I did, um, change,
07:39in some way that made you feel...
07:41No, hey, no, no, no, no, no.
07:43You don't have to.
07:44It was a poignant, bittersweet look at their future.
07:47The 2019 revival, however, essentially went, never mind all that.
07:51They're not married.
07:53That's a totally different story.
07:55So what, we should get a divorce?
07:57If you think it'll help the marriage, I would.
08:00It picked up with Paul and Jamie, still happily married,
08:03adjusting to empty nest life as Mabel left for college.
08:07The reboot erased decades of marital strain and reconciliation,
08:11choosing instead to continue their established, loving, quirky relationship.
08:15We still can't decide if we're mad about it.
08:18What do you think, home office?
08:19Works for me.
08:23Number four, the X-Files.
08:25For nine seasons, the X-Files built a dense, sprawling mythology
08:30that led to a fairly definitive, if complicated finale.
08:33A set date for alien colonization and a sense of closure for Mulder and Scully.
08:39December 22nd, the year 2012.
08:45The date of the final alien invasion.
08:52Mulder can confirm the date.
08:55He saw it at Mount Weather.
08:57Then the revival arrived and decided to re-mythologize everything.
09:01Key details from the original ending,
09:04especially the colonization timeline and the true shape of the conspiracy,
09:08were altered or flat out contradicted.
09:11All the time I was being led by my nose through a dark alley to a dead end,
09:15exactly as they planned.
09:16You're blaming me for that?
09:17No, I'm blaming myself.
09:19Mulder is suddenly welcomed back into the FBI after his arrest.
09:23Sure, at this point, why not?
09:24Even William's fate and parentage get heavily reworked,
09:28making much of the original mythology's conclusion feel irrelevant
09:32in favor of newer and often controversial twists.
09:36You want to believe.
09:37You so badly want to believe.
09:40I do believe.
09:41I believe that Tad O'Malley is right.
09:43This is not an alien conspiracy.
09:45It's a conspiracy of men.
09:46Number three, Scrubs.
09:48It's a point of contention for many fans.
09:51The real Scrubs ended with season eight.
09:53And who's to say this isn't what happens?
09:56Who can tell me that my fantasies won't come true?
10:00Just this once.
10:02It wrapped up character arcs and felt like a definitive goodbye.
10:05Then came season nine, awkwardly subtitled med school,
10:10which largely ignored the poignant closure of its predecessor.
10:14If you are lucky enough to go to a great medical school,
10:18then my children, you got a real shot.
10:21Unfortunately, you're all screwed.
10:23It attempted to soft reboot the series with a new cast of interns,
10:27which ultimately flatlined.
10:29The tonal shift and focus on new,
10:31less established characters
10:33made it feel like a completely different show
10:35from the one we'd all become so invested in.
10:38So of course, we were pretty happy to hear
10:40the series would be resuscitating its sacred heart
10:42when Scrubs came back into our lives in 2026.
10:46Hey kid, do me a favor.
10:47Give us a beat, throw some stank on it.
10:50This is our first chief strut.
10:51Make it nasty.
11:02Number two, Will and Grace.
11:04The original Will and Grace ended with a flash forward
11:08that wasn't exactly light.
11:10Will and Grace had a brutal falling out,
11:12spent decades apart, raised their kids separately,
11:15and only reconnected when those kids met in college.
11:19Want to go get a piece of cafeteria cake?
11:22Oh, Lila's expecting you any minute.
11:24Yeah.
11:27If we go now, we can miss them.
11:28Let's go.
11:30It was emotional, messy, and very final.
11:34Then the 2017 revival slammed the reset button
11:37and erased that future entirely.
11:40What happened to the children you had
11:42who grew up and got married to each other?
11:44That never happened.
11:45Oh, what a relief.
11:46Nobody wants to see you two raise kids.
11:50Now they were back to living together,
11:52unmarried, child-free,
11:53and carrying on like the flash forward never existed.
11:57The move let the show restore the classic dynamic fans loved,
12:00minus all the long-term fallout.
12:02And it might just be one of TV's boldest
12:05it-was-all-a-dream rewrites ever.
12:07What about Stan?
12:09Is he still alive?
12:10Am I still rich?
12:11Answer the last one first.
12:13You're rich.
12:14Stan's alive.
12:16Both single, no kids.
12:18Got it?
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12:36Number one, Roseanne.
12:38The original Roseanne finale delivered a massive meta twist.
12:42The entire ninth season,
12:44including the family winning the lottery
12:46and Dan surviving his heart attack,
12:48was revealed to be a fictionalized novel
12:50written by Roseanne to cope with real-life tragedies,
12:53most notably Dan's actual death.
12:56My writing's really what got me through the last year after Dan died.
12:59I mean, at first I felt so betrayed
13:01as if he had left me for another woman.
13:05When you're a blue-collar woman and your husband dies,
13:08it takes away your whole sense of security.
13:11It was a dark, divisive, and game-changing ending.
13:14Then the 2018 revival brushed all that under the carpet.
13:18I thought you were dead.
13:19I'm sleeping.
13:22Why does everybody else think I'm dead?
13:25You looked happy.
13:27I thought maybe you moved on.
13:28Dan was alive and well,
13:30his heart attack simply a health scare,
13:32and a lottery win?
13:33What lottery win?
13:34The reboot essentially picked up in a timeline
13:36where the grim realities of last season were overwritten,
13:39offering a more convenient continuation of the Connors' lives.
13:43I ain't seen that movie in 20 years.
13:50Classics really do hold up.
13:52Did we miss any other reboots that gave their past a serious snub?
13:56Let us know in the comments.
13:58Let us know in the comments.
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