Hollywood is notorious for rebooting, re-imagining and redoing every film idea in sight. Once considered as original plot has been rehashed over and over again with new twists and faces. A film we see in the theatre today could actually be a remake of past films., without the producer admitting it. We are often wondering whether Hollywood will ever be able to come up with wonderful new ideas. It’s true that with so many storylines and twists already used by hundreds of films, finding an original one can become increasingly more difficult. This problem also extends in the TV series production, in films for TV, series and commercials. When it comes to reusing plot lines, we can easily argue that television production companies are guiltier for the same sin. A single TV series can be consisted of hundreds of episodes and finding a fresh idea for the next episode is even more challenging. Personal developments of the characters will eventually find a roadblock. After the sixth season, we will become attached to the characters in the series, but at the same time we will see a pattern and repetition. It is not uncommon to watch an episode with no real progress in overall plot.
The popular TV series How I Met Your Mother (HIMYM) has strong resemblance with an early series, Scrubs, which was released in 2011. Both shows have plenty of resemblance in terms of characters and overall plot. We could also find plenty similarities in Cheers, Seinfeld and Friends. However, it is quite intriguing that each series is popular in its own respective time period. It appears that the audience has preferences on specific topic, which can be repeated over and over again. But, when we gather a group of characters, this is a versatile setting for many things to happen. The reason for the repeated interest on the same topic is likely because, TV series allow the audience to become emotionally and fully invested in the characters. If the storyline is very interesting and the character is captivating, people will follow these characters wherever they go and even to the end of the Earth and back.
The thing is even more apparent on crime TV series. CSI: Las Vegas, CSI: Miami, CSI: New York and CSI: Cyber show that if a setting and plot are interesting enough, people would want to see them in different variations. Another fact is that the generation is changing and younger viewers never watch Cheers, Seinfeld and even Friends. It means that future TV series with similar format could become successful once again. Even so, it is important to make sure that the storyline is still interesting and characters are not emotionless and stale.
However, it is important to know that a plot can become eventually overused and tired. We no longer see a “one-soldier army” film that shows the leading actor kills hundreds of enemies without getting a single scratch. Even so, we will continue to see Hollywood and TV series producers to rehash, revamp and reboot any viable idea.
