I'm back! This is going to be a slightly different type of post, because this is my first experience with Punky Brewster, and so I don't have any insight into the new show as a revival of the original which was on in the mid to late 80s. Let's get into it.
This was alot of fun to watch. Thinking about all of the other TV show revivals of old shows, like Girl Meets World, Fuller House, Roseanne (before it became The Connors), and even Saved by the Bell (don't even get me started on what they did to Saved by the Bell), Punky Brewster is probably the one that revives the concept the most successfully. I'll see if I can explain.
I've never watched Punky Brewster before last night's Canadian premiere. It ran on TV from 1984 until 1988, and never showed up in reruns after that. Not here in Canada anyway. And so I never got the opportunity to see the original show. Well, aside from clips on YouTube in preparation for this show. But comparing the pilot episode of this to "Our Very First Show...Again", the first episode of Fuller House, Punky Brewster does the revival better. Fuller House was so wrapped up in it's own nostalgia and trying to still be the original show that unless you were a fan of Full House and had seen every episode, you couldn't enjoy Fuller House as it's own show. Especially in that first episode because they packed so much Full House nostalgia into that one episode, even going as far as doing a shot by shot comparison of the final scene of Full House with the final scene of Fuller House.
Punky Brewster does none of that. It realizes it's not what the show was back in the 80s and lets itself, and the audience, focus on who Punky and Cherie are today, rather than trying to make them be who they were on the original show. It also doesn't try to put Punky's kids front and centre, though there is a girl who reminds Punky of herself at that age, who joins the family, but she isn't annoying like DJ's kids were on Fuller House. Not even Ramona could save the boys from that fate. Punky's daughter, Hannah, might be a problem in later episodes, but she was pretty toned down here. In the first episode anyway. She and the boys, Daniel and Diego, were pretty obnoxious in episode 2, but Punky put a stop to that pretty quickly. I loved the way she did it too.
Basically I recognized all three of the adults on this show, despite having never seen the original. Punky is of course played by Soleil Moon Frye, who later went on to play Sabrina's roommate, Roxie, in seasons 5 through 7 of Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Cherie is played by Cherie Johnson, who played Laura's best friend, Maxine on Family Matters. And then there's Freddie Prinze Jr. who has been in more movies that I've seen than I care to count. And then some. I like that the cast is small, and it's easy to keep track of all of the characters, unlike on certain other shows. And yet, they still managed to have a cast of seven characters, which is nice too.
The only thing I didn't like about the second episode "Making Room for Izzy" is Hannah. Daniel and Diego were never really fine with their mom taking Izzy in. But in the first episode, "Pilot" (I will not start a rant, I will not start a rant...), Hannah was helping her mom convince the couple that Cherie had chosen to adopt Izzy to let Izzy stay with them instead of adopting her. So, when did things change? There wasn't any real reason for Hannah to be suddenly against the idea of letting Izzy move in with them. It's weird.
Like I said, this was alot of fun to watch. It's not making fun of itself, like most sitcom revivals do (I'm looking at you Girl Meets World and Fuller House), and it's just being a new show based on the original 80s sitcom was. I haven't seen this either, but I wonder if there will be any references to the Punky Brewster animated series, It's Punky Brewster, on this show. It's just as enjoyable for those who didn't get to see Punky Brewster originally, like myself, as it is for those of you who are lifelong fans of the show. Definitely check it out if you haven't already done so.
Alright guys that's going to be it for me for today. I'll be back next week with more reviews and other posts. There might be a comic book review coming up at some point, but I don't know which one yet. So until then have a wonderful rest of your weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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