TV's New Old Ideas

Martini Shot

When a fading comedian says they want new material, that's not what they want. What they want is “new old material,” meaning fresh jokes that sound like the ones they’ve already told. Hollywood today finds itself in the same predicament: needing new shows that feel like the old ones. Because, as Rob Long points out, the comforting and the familiar are what audiences crave — like Italian food — and can fix an industry today broken right down the middle.

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