Fuller House returns for a third season this September

Netflix’s revival of the ’90s sitcom will premier the first nine episodes of the third season in September with the back nine coming in December.

Nostalgia is a powerful force in today’s entertainment landscape. It seems like nothing from the past is safe from a ham-fisted reboot or cloying relaunch. Not all reboots are created equal, though.  Some are likely to fare better than others, but the point remains the same. There’s big money in bringing back the successes of bygone eras. Even if those “successes” were only successful on paper.

Obviously, that happens to be where we stand with Fuller House.

Nearly all of Full House’s early success was contingent on time slot. A rumor in Hollywood goes that creator-producer Jeff Franklin bet that he could take several of the worst comedians he knew with the most bland plotlines he could conjure and create a monumental success if he could get it into the right time slot. Thus, Full House began. Whether or not the rumor is true is neither here nor there. What is true is that the original didn’t get it’s feet under it until it was moved to mid-week in the second season.

Fuller House tries to bank on the success of the original but without the benefit of scheduled television programming. There’s no strong Family Matters lead in with a powerful Hangin’ with Mr. Cooper closer on a Friday night block to compensate for a bad episode or wooden acting. (Bob Saget’s built his career on genital humor, not being thespian.) On Netflix, entire seasons of shows drop at once. This means that the shows have to stand on their own merits and not on the shoulders of their neighbors.

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Fuller House tries to capitalize on the nostalgia inherent in modern hipster-dom. Retro is always in as they say. The problem is the original’s target audience were kids when it was on. Now, we’re grown up, and our tastes have matured. You can’t expect a 20-something to enjoy the same types of camp and simplicity as a kid. However, if nostalgia for the ’90s is enough to sustain a series, Fuller House remains a perfect case study.

Going on three seasons, maybe they are doing something right.