The Hollywood Reporter contributor Kate Stanshope is reporting that ABC is doing a reboot of one of my childhood favorites, The Greatest American Hero. This is the channel that aired the original so it’s sort of a homecoming. However, the new Hero is not a new version of Ralph Hinkley, but a woman who happens to be….okay, someone tell me what an “Indian-American” is supposed to be? I’m not up on this hyphenated American stuff. Is it the replacement for Native American, formerly Indians, or is her ancestry from India but she’s American? Just call her American! Or Indian. Or just make sense! I actually don’t have a problem with the character being a woman (the original was a white man played well by William Katt, who better get some kind of cameo since he’s been trying to get the series back for years). Granted the last time they attempted to put a woman in the suit it didn’t work but that’s because Holly didn’t work playing off of Maxwell (the late Robert Culp). Hopefully Meera will be a better character although I wonder if she’ll be paired with an FBI agent as well.
What bothers me is that the show is being reduced from an hour to a half-hour, and I’m not sure you can get a proper superhero story in that time. Like The Orville from last night’s review, The Greatest American Hero had comedy elements but also had it’s drama although the show as a whole was lighter in tone, certainly more than today’s shows because the 80s were better at balancing that than the 2000s are. Meera isn’t going to get the chance to shine like Ralph did, although all we know about Meera at this point is that she drinks tequila and does karaoke and not much else. She won’t be a clone of Ralph or (thank God) Holly, so that’s a plus. She’ll get a chance to be herself. But she’s already getting the shaft and the first episode isn’t even cast yet. This is one of those concepts that can be reworked a bit easier so I hope it’s good.
