In an era of reboots appealing to the nostalgia that we millennials didn’t know we had until reboots appealing to our nostalgia began to appear, Hulu has smelled money in the water. Perhaps realizing that the reboots have been overdone (and usually aren’t very good anyway), the streaming platform has released a show about reboots appropriately named Reboot that tries to balance appealing to those who like reboots and those who are ironically amused by reboots, with maybe a touch of appeal for those who are as sick of reboots as I am of typing the word “reboots” in this paragraph.
To clear this up a bit: Reboot is a sitcom (albeit definitely an adult one) about people trying to reboot a sitcom from the late 90s/early 2000s and squabbling over the nature of the reboot. Will it be the sort of quirky light-hearted fluff we all grew up with, or will it be dark and gritty and more attuned to contemporary tastes?
I can’t say whether Reboot is a good show or not, as so far we only have the first three episodes (and as of this writing I’ve only seen the first two). But I can say that I was once again pleasantly surprised by, of all people, Johnny Knoxville. I haven’t seen any of his Jackass stuff, the few movies I have seen him in I’ve come away thinking that I wouldn’t have hated him getting a little more screen time.
As far as the first two episodes go, they’re… fine. With the potential for more, but still just fine. The central theme so far is the connection between the creator and creation, wherein the creation is an expression of the inner life of the creator, and a broken relationship between a parent and child (specifically, the writer of the original series and his estranged daughter who is writing the new series, each with their own vision of what the show should be).
Initially, we’re told that the show being created is a vehicle for the expression of the writer and the cast. The questions, as I noted above, are over which writer is going to get to express themselves and in what way the will cast show their abilities. But as the show unfolds [spoiler alert] we also see that the creation is not just a place for self-expression, it is a vehicle for reconciliation. Rather than the show being merely a display of the inner life of the creators, the creation is used to heal a broken relationship. Or at least to begin that process.
I certainly won’t claim this is any kind of Christian show, but of course there’s much here for Christians to think about. We know that God displays his character in creation, and that He steps into creation and becomes a man for the purpose of reconciling Himself to His alienated and rebellious creation. So there are clearly parallels of a sort. Whether Reboot will continue to tease out these kinds of themes or move in a different direction–say, in a darker and grittier one–remains to be seen.
Dr. Coyle Neal is co-host of the City of Man Podcast an Amazon Associate (which is linked in this blog), and an Associate Professor of Political Science at Southwest Baptist University in Bolivar, MO
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