The ’90s was the golden era of sitcoms. We had Friends, Fresh Prince of Bel Air, and of course, Full House. The reign that these shows had over the TV landscape may have ended, but their legacy lives on through catchphrases repurposed into memes on Twitter. Now, through the magic of Netflix and YouTube, a whole new generation can enjoy the quality TV that once existed.
But in the same way many movies have terrible sequels, the Full House crew decided to take a gamble and invade the millennial entertainment market with a spin-off. The term ‘spin-off’ is not used lightly here: the new Netflix original, entitled Fuller House, takes the original story line and spins it round and round. It’s like getting off of an incredibly fast rollercoaster: your surroundings still look the same, but slightly distorted.
Set 20 years later, Fuller House actually starts with the original Full House credits in all of their ’90s glory. One by one, the original characters enter back into familiar territory with recycled jokes, proving to the universe that somehow, they are immortal.
The show follows DJ Tanner-Fuller (Candace Cameron-Bure), a widow with three boys. As her family begins to move on with their lives, DJ begins to see how difficult it can be to raise three children on her own. By the end of the premiere episode, her younger sister Stephanie (Jodie Sweetin) and best friend Kimmy Gibbler (Andrea Barber) move in with her to help her raise her family.
Sound familiar?
In the first episode, all of the catchphrases and jokes come back to life in a very surreal way. We welcome back Tanner family man Danny (Bob Saget) and his clean freak ways, “Have mercy” Jesse Katsopolis (John Stamos) and his all-American wife Rebecca Donaldson (Lori Loughlin), big kid Joey Gladstone (Dave Coulier), and even Jesse and Becky’s twin boys Nicky and Alex make a cameo appearance without blonde mops on their heads (Blake and Dylan Tuomy-Wilhoit). And who can forget DJ’s sandwich-chomping ex-boyfriend Steve (Scott Weinger), who tries to rekindle their romance despite his lack of hair?
However, noticeably absent was “You got it, dude” Michelle (Mary-Kate and Ashley Olsen). In addressing Michelle’s absence from the show, the characters broke the fourth wall — or rather, demolished the fourth wall — as they faced the audience somberly after stating that Michelle was “building her fashion empire in New York.”
Despite the premiere being a big cheesefest, the season continued on fairly strongly, bringing in independent storylines and new characters. The show has also been modernized to appeal to a 2016 audience, citing Donald Trump as a swear word, and including a Bachelorette-esque season finale.
Aside from the obvious attempts to be a sitcom that belongs in this day and age, Fuller House remains true to its strong sense of family and its commitment to keeping it PG. The fans enjoyed it so much that Netflix ordered a second season, to be released sometime next year. Hopefully it will be able to tie up many of the unfinished storylines that season one gave us, like if Michelle Tanner will ever return to San Francisco, or if DJ and Steve will ever be together for real.
Fuller House is a old meets new reboot with a lot of potential in future seasons. But regardless of how successful it gets, “holy chalupas” will never replace “oh Mylanta.”
