Fall Flash Forward: Your Sneak Peek at TV in 2018

Michael Fell September 15, 2017, 10:00 am

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Miami Vice - Don Johnson, Philip Michael Thomas — Frank Carroll/NBC/NBCU Photo Bank via Getty Images

Don Johnson as Det. James 'Sonny' Crockett and Philip Michael Thomas as Det. Ricardo 'Rico' Tubbs in the original *Miami Vice*

Chances are you were familiar with S.W.A.T. and Dynasty when the networks announced them as new series for this fall. Perhaps you’ve also heard of The Jetsons, The Munsters and Miami Vice? These classic TV hits could be among the “new” offerings for next season. As we dig into this year’s fresh crop of shows, the networks are already hard at work developing Fall 2018, and early signs point to schedules chock-full of more familiar names and faces.

Though there is no guarantee you’ll actually see George Jetson or Herman Munster back on air soon, it’s no surprise that the instant recognition of a favorite character or the built-in audience of a popular title can help a script make it through the development process a whole lot quicker. Such brand names can also help bring in eyeballs once the series is picked up and competing for attention against the thousands of shows on hundreds of channels these days. It certainly worked last season for Lethal Weapon and MacGyver. In short: It pays to look back.

Here are some recognizable faces you might see next autumn:

• Movie star Vin Diesel (the Fast and the Furious franchise) wants to put Sonny Crockett and Ricardo Tubbs back on the beat. Diesel is in talks to produce a Miami Vice update for NBC, which was the original home of the cop drama starring Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas for five seasons, from 1984 to 1989.

CBS Announces 2017-18 Schedule; Offered 'American Idol,' Didn't Want It

• ABC is looking to relaunch 1962’s The Jetsons. If George; his wife, Jane; daughter Judy; boy Elroy; and dog Astro settle back into the Skypad Apartments, they’ll be live instead of animated.

• Fox brought back Family Guy three years after it was originally canceled in 2002. Now the network might give King of the Hill the same treatment and reboot the series, which was canceled in 2009 after 13 seasons.

• NBC is attempting, again, to revive The Munsters. They developed a version in 2012 from producer Bryan Fuller (Hannibal) called Mockingbird Lane that didn’t get past the pilot. This time around, Seth Meyers will oversee the effort.

• There’s another show you might see next fall, and it proves that rebooting popular series will continue as a trend: Fox is developing a comedy that is about developing a comedy that is a relaunch of a popular fictional ’80s family sitcom. It’s called Revival.