All Grown Up and On-Demand: The Post-Teen Drama Revivals of Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars

Abstract

Recently, television series have been returning from the ‘dead.’ This thesis explores the current television series revival trend in American commercial television. This trend has emerged in the post-television era, a time of heightened competition for audiences between networks and streaming services, linear and on-demand television, and old and new ‘content.’ The trend started in 2013 and is ongoing. Beginning in 2013, it was started by Netflix, a Subscription Video on Demand service. This thesis is a timely investigation into an ongoing popular trend. Discourses about revivals variably position them as a savvy business move or as a love letter to fans, but there are further factors to be considered. Revivals are the result of industrial and technological changes in television that have caused networks and consumers to re-examine ‘old’ television. To examine this phenomenon, this thesis uses the case studies of ‘post-teen drama revivals’ Gilmore Girls (2000–2007; 2016) and Veronica Mars (2004–2007; 2019). Both series are (former) teen dramas that were last broadcast on the youth-oriented network The CW. These revivals have emerged during television’s ‘post-television era,’ a time characterised by uncertainty about the medium’s future and increasing/increased/heightened competition due to the emergence, and subsequent popularity, of subscription video-on-demand platforms such as Netflix and Hulu, the networks that revived Gilmore Girls and Veronica Mars respectively. While some predicted ‘new media’ to be the death of television, streaming services have incorporated old television into their branding. This thesis explores the causes, considerations, and consequences of television revivals through two particular case studies. To do so, it considers industrial, production, fan reception, and creative contexts through an in-depth examination of changes in the television industry that have occurred since the series’ original time of production. When they were revived, however, they moved to subscription video on-demand services, Netflix and Hulu. This prompts an examination of the series’ (and its revivals’) industrial context, the teen drama genre, fan reception/disappointment and narrative approach.