In the age of reboots, revivals and cinematic universes, television’s legacy characters are no longer allowed to rest. They’re resurrected, repackaged and reintroduced — often with a fresh coat of wokeness, trauma or even rebranded into a funko pop toy to “get with the times” so to speak. But in trying to make them relevant, are we asking too much of them?
Legacy characters — those beloved figures from long-running franchises — once served as cultural anchors. They were familiar, comforting even mythic. But today, they’re expected to evolve with the times, often in ways that feel more like obligation than organic growth. Whether it’s Carrie Bradshaw grappling with gender identity in “And Just Like That” or Frasier Crane navigating podcast culture in his rebooted return, the message is clear: adapt or become obsolete.
This isn’t inherently bad. Representation matters. Stories should reflect the world as it is, not just as it was. But the pressure to retrofit legacy characters into modern discourse can flatten them into symbols rather than people. Their arcs become checklists — grief, guilt, growth — rather than journeys. Nostalgia is no longer enough; they must now justify their existence. The result is often tonal whiplash. A sitcom character once known for slapstick now delivers monologues about systemic injustice. A sci-fi hero once defined by action now spends entire episodes in therapy. These shifts can be powerful when earned but too often they feel like narrative overcorrections.
Audiences are complicit too. We demand comfort, critique, familiarity and freshness. We want our icons to grow, but not too far from who they were. And when they do change, we scrutinize every choice, every line, every haircut. The burden of relevance becomes a trap. Perhaps the solution isn’t to abandon legacy characters, but to let them age with grace. Not every return needs to be a reinvention. Sometimes, relevance lies in restraint — in allowing characters to reflect the passage of time without bending to every cultural wind. Television, like its audience, is aging. And maybe the most radical thing it can do is let its legends grow old without apologizing for it.
