Nickelodeon Paramount Plus
One of the trends for a while has been the idea of taking an old show and brining it back as a sort of "The next generation" type thing. Usually with these series, they've done the approach of giving a look at a characters from the original series and giving them families of their own and trying to be like the original. "Fuller House" is "Full House" but with a widow instead of widower, her best friend, and her sister (instead of a brother-in-law)
The funny thing is I think this is the most recent a revival has gotten. "Raven's Home" which is a revival series based off "That's So Raven" came out 10 years after the main series ended, "iCarly" (the type setting hates spelling it that way) ended in 2012 and is now getting a revival just almost 8 years later.
As of this writing, the first three episodes came out on the streaming service Paramount Plus (because these things need programming) which is owned by the parent company of Nickelodeon where the original series came out. I will give them points for not trying to give the show a funny or remodeled name (though if it was still a thing that was popular, we could have iCarly 2.0) but removing points because they called it "iCarly" and that makes it confusing.
When "iCarly" came out in 2007, it was kind of ahead of it's time, I mean, there were some live streaming internet programs at the time, but that wasn't thing really yet. You couldn't live stream on Youtube (or do videos longer than 10 minutes) and internet culture was slightly different. The revival takes place in our modern times built on a modern world of modernity. (what?)
This is one of those "what is character doing now after we last saw them" series. The difference compared to "Girl Meets World" and "Raven's Home" it's not about Carly trying to be a mom or focused on the kids' point of view like those seires did. There is a kid in the series, that's Freddie's adopted step daughter ,Jaidyn. Apparently, he's been married twice? (I kind of want to see a show about him somehow being married twice in 8 years and what the heck happened there?) This show is a focused on adult Carly being a modern adult. This show straddles a line, it would be a little out of place on Nickelodeon (not Nick at Nite) but it would fit well on the CBS primetime line up, with "Young Sheldon" , "B Positive" etc. in writing it's very network quality versus Nick. It being on Paramount Plus didn't mean they went all Showtime (another property owned by Viacom CBS ) and add in extra swearing and nudity. It allows the now adult cast (mostly) to be adult but CBS network adult. The first episode there's references to sex, and drinking.
The first episode , does some long exposition dumping, but they want us to catch up to eight years, and then they do the plot of the episode. The plot being that Carly wants to start a webshow with her boyfriend to find out that boyfriend doesn't want to be boyfriend anymore. (He has a name,but I don't really care about him, if he shows up again then maybe I'll use his name) That messes up Carly. The hard part is remembering how Carly was like, if you haven't seen the original series in sometime, like me so, I'm guessing maybe it's somewhat in character. (50/50)
She decides to find another guy to like and wants to work him on a web channel and goes through wacky antics because our comedy is going to situation. The main point of the plot, and it's not really a spoiler since the plot synopsis of this series gives it away, the whole idea is she misses doing web stuff and now she's going to do it again. They pull the nostalgia stuff on viewers not too much, the big part is the reveal that the old studio, the upper part of Spencer's loft" is still there and ready to be used once again for antics. The whole episode is Carly wants to do the show again, but is worried about not having Sam around.
In real life, Sam's actress, Jeanette McCurdy, has decided to not rejoin the cast for her own personal reasons which are understandable. There was dynamic to Sam and Carly's friendship/partnership that will be missed from this new series, but it's understandable and the show explains that she's busy with a biker gang which is in character for her, and I'm glad they didn't go the "she's dead approach". The rest of the original core cast is there, and holds their own fun.
If you liked the original series, you would like the revival, there's a barrier of entry for revival series since you have to know something about the original to enjoy it, compared a new series where everyone can watch and be confused together. This series is modern it fits into the modern times (yes) and will go into modern internet world as much as the old series did, with maybe a close pointing at it. (I can't wait for the Twitter episode where Carly quits the site because it sucks, that should be an episode)
They didn't change too much to make a person who remembers the old series be confused or befuddled, and again a fan might be happy to see their favorite characters and what they are up to now. So if you liked the original series, maybe do check it out, if you didn't, then maybe don't.
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