The update, now available on the Max streaming service, hasn't provided a great answer for why we should check in on these characters nearly 20 years later - besides getting to see a few non-white and gay characters bask in the privilege that Carrie and her cohorts blithely enjoyed back in the day. So much of the original series' appeal was rooted in how we felt about sex, gender, wealth, privilege, race and class back in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Max Gloria Steinem, Sarah Jessica Parker as Carrie Bradshaw and Candice Bergen.Īnother revival which struggled with this question recently is the Sex and the City spinoff, And Just Like That. When a TV revival really works (or doesn't) And, for me, Justifed: City Primeval, good as it is in spots, just doesn't quite reach that pinnacle. Fans have bought enough ancillary products to show there's a market.īut there's only one answer that leads to a great series: Someone has found an amazing new story which must be told with these popular characters. Stars of the show are willing to return for one more payday.

A media company has intellectual property it wants to exploit. Most of all, they have to answer a simple, yet telling question: Why is this happening now? The best of these evoke a sense of the original but offer a fresh perspective and, if possible, corrects and improves on the shortcomings of the original series. Which highlights the particular challenges of the modern-day TV revival/reboot/reimagining. So it's not surprising that FX's version feels like they lifted poor Raylan out of an environment where he makes sense and plopped him into a place where his charm, street savvy, Southern roots and drive to do the job is blunted and less appealing. This time, it's based on a novel by the legendary author who created Givens, Elmore Leonard, set in Detroit, instead of the Kentucky hollers and small towns where the original 'Justified' series took place.īut Leonard's 1980 book City Primeval features a different protagonist, not Givens.

On the surface, it offers what any good revival does: The bracing, nostalgia-laced return of a beloved character - Timothy Olyphant's modern-day, Stetson-wearing lawman Raylan Givens - in a new adventure. As a stone Justified fan, I'm just not sure what to make of FX's new limited series revival, Justified: City Primeval.

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