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5 TV Revivals That Fixed Plot Holes & 5 That Created New Ones

5 TV Revivals That Fixed Plot Holes & 5 That Created New Ones
VOICE OVER: Samantha Clinch WRITTEN BY: Joe Shetina
TV revivals can be a double-edged sword! We're diving into the world of reboots that either brilliantly fixed long-standing plot holes or accidentally created even more confusion in beloved franchises. From "Cobra Kai" addressing the controversial crane kick to "Twin Peaks" leaving fans more puzzled than ever, we'll explore how some shows managed to clear up mysteries while others just made things more complicated!
Welcome to MsMojo, and today we’re counting down our picks for the TV reboots and spinoffs that retconned their narratives for the better and the ones that just complicated the storyline. For this list, we’re also including small screen continuations of movies.

#5: Fixed: “Will & Grace” (1998-2006; 2017-20)

In the first series finale, Will Truman and Grace Adler’s friendship is on rocky ground, which isn’t new, but this glimpse into the future reveals the two will reunite after not speaking for years. Their marriages and children apparently got in the way of their friendship. Longtime fans disliked this development. It just doesn’t gel with everything they have been through, and feels more like an underdeveloped twist than a true character development. Well, those fans are in luck. The revival series finds Will and Grace having divorced their partners and living together again, sans the children introduced in the original finale.

#5: Created: “The Golden Palace” (1992-93)

A weird season 6 storyline of “The Golden Girls” saw Rose Nylund’s boyfriend, Miles Webber, revealing he’s actually a mob informant in the witness protection program. “The Golden Girls” mostly sweeps that story under the rug. But one thing fans couldn’t stomach is how the show’s ill-advised sequel series, “The Golden Palace,” ended their relationship. Miles not only cheats on Rose, but he was apparently having an affair during the events of the first show. He even has his wedding in the hotel Rose runs with Blanche and Sophia. Given all we know of them, it just doesn’t make much sense. And no, it doesn’t seem like his new wife knows about his past in witness protection.

#4: Fixed: “Star Trek: Enterprise” (2001-05)

This is a tricky one because there’s a lot of lore to cut through with this franchise. The Klingons’ appearance changed drastically after the original “Star Trek.” Other franchises tiptoed around the issue, but the spinoff found a novel way to explain the lack of forehead ridges in the 1960s’ version of the Klingons. Between “Enterprise” and the events of the original series, the Klingons were exposed to a virus, and the cure allowed for genetic mutations seen later on. Essentially, there was now a canonical explanation why there are two very different groups of Klingons running around.

#4: Created: “Twin Peaks” (1990-91; 2017)

Given the surreal atmosphere of “Twin Peaks,” it’s hard to know what’s a plot hole and what’s just a loosey-goosey approach to time and space. When David Lynch and Mark Frost’s metaphysical murder mystery returned after 25 years away, it seemed to revel in raising questions rather than answering the ones its 1991 finale left open. When is this show supposed to take place? What exactly does the Manhattan Project have to do with all this? Where has Josie Packard been? Did Audrey survive the original series finale? Can Laura Palmer be saved? The revival doesn’t answer these questions, and if anything it confuses us even more. Once again, “Twin Peaks” proves it’s not a show you can approach with the goal of solving it.

#3: Fixed: “Cobra Kai” (2018-)

For years, fans of the original “Karate Kid” movie had a big, burning question. Daniel LaRusso triumphed over his bully and rival karate student, Johnny Lawrence, using the crane kick his teacher, Mr. Miyagi taught him. Fans swear up and down this move is actually grounds for disqualification, and the movie shouldn’t have ended with Daniel’s win. Even actor Ralph Macchio said the move was against the tournament’s rules. Whether or not that’s true, “Cobra Kai” addresses the years of speculation head on. In the TV revival and semi-retelling of the movie series, Johnny challenges the legitimacy of Daniel’s win, making this alleged plot hole canon.


#3: Created: “The X-Files” (1993-2002; 2016-18)

After over a decade away from the small screen, Mulder and Scully returned to their extra-terrestrial investigating ways. One leftover storyline from the first go-around became a bigger issue in the revival. Baby William, the child Scully gave birth to in a controversial storyline late in the show’s original run, has become a grown man after the two abandoned him for his safety. The contradictory, constant rewriting of the baby’s origins were made worse in the revival, and angered fans as Scully’s actions just don’t square with everything we know about her. As so much of the last season focused on the grown William as a character, it made the holes even harder to ignore.

#2: Fixed: “Obi-Wan Kenobi” (2022)

Disney+’s miniseries brought Ewan McGregor back to the role he played in the “Star Wars” prequel series. It also cleared up a strange logic gap that those movies created. In the very first movie, the captured Princess Leia calls Obi-Wan Kenobi her only hope. But the prequels tell us that Kenobi has been thought dead between the two trilogies, so how would Leia even know he was alive to help her? Not everything in a story has to be explained, but “Obi-Wan Kenobi” fills in this hole with a story about Kenobi rescuing Leia from a kidnapping plot as a young girl. Some fans were annoyed that this opened up a few more questions, but it was fun to see the connection made.

#2: Created: “Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life” (2016)

Nine years after the first show ended, Lorelai and Rory Gilmore returned in a four-part Netflix miniseries. Fans were eager to see a lot of the wrongs done in the last two seasons made right. They were disappointed. Richard Gilmore actor Edward Herrmann’s off-screen death left a void. At the character’s funeral, Lorelai is put on the spot to share a good memory with her father and she doesn’t have one. It actually takes her four episodes to remember one. People grieve differently, but the first series is chock full of moments where the two reconnect. It seems like a willful rewrite of their dynamic for the sake of giving Lorelai something to do.

#1: Fixed: “Roseanne” (1988-97; 2018)

Roseanne Barr and company delivered one of the most frustrating and controversial series finales of all time. In voiceover, her character, Roseanne Conner, told us that most of the series was actually fictional events in a book she was writing. In just one of the many changes, her kids’ spouses were switched, which opens up a huge can of worms and rewrites entire histories. But her husband Dan’s devastating death by a heart attack was the final gut punch. When the show came back in 2018, it did away with the entire ninth season storyline and most of the revelations made in the 1997 ending, restoring the family to the dynamics we remembered.

#1: Created: “Young Sheldon” (2017-24)

Reintroducing the fussy but brilliant Sheldon Cooper for a new generation, this “Big Bang Theory” prequel made a few alterations to our understanding of Sheldon’s childhood. The show’s portrayal of his father, George Cooper Sr., is radically different from the anecdotes about him in the first show. Adult Sheldon portrays his deceased father as an alcoholic, borderline abusive rube who resented his son’s intelligence. On “Young Sheldon,” George is understanding and genuinely good to his family. In fact, many of the terrible things he was said to have done are addressed as misunderstandings in the prequel series. Some fans say this demonstrates Sheldon’s unreliable narration, but this rewriting of his own past just makes him seem cruel.

What’s a TV revival that you think got it right? Tell us in the comments.
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