With Fuller House coming back for a fifth and final season and One Day at a Time infuriatingly, unjustly canceled, Netflix is down two family sitcoms. Netflix shouldn’t have canceled either show, but they did. This is the grim reality sitcom fans now live in. That’s why I’m looking for a light in the darkness, a show that can fill the void. I’m talking about Family Matters.
We need a Family Matters revival right now! As one of the absolute biggest shows of the ’90s, Family Matters is a perfect candidate for a revival. While the show was actually only a modest ratings hit, barely cracking the top 30 in the ratings for most of its run, I’d argue that there is no ’90s sitcom character as iconic as Steve Urkel. More people were watching Friends and Seinfeld, sure, but way way way more people could recognize that bespectacled nerd over The Rachel haircut or even Kramer. Think about it this way: Kramer never got his face on a lunchbox and there was no Joey Tribbiani doll. Bringing Jaleel White’s truly legendary sitcom character back after 20 years seems like a no-brainer.
But there’s more to a Family Matters revival than seeing where Urkel is now. If you thought Full House’s sudden cancellation back in 1995 left a lot to be desired, then you clearly don’t remember how viewers said goodbye to the Winslows in 1998. Family Matters, the show that defined Friday nights for a generation of young TV addicts, went out with a whimper in the summer on CBS. The show switched networks for its final season and ratings plummeted as a result. Millions of us that grew up watching Urkel annoy the hell out of Carl abandoned the show as we entered high school (although odds are a lot of us have checked out what we originally missed via streaming, as a Hulu report from last summer indicated).
Even those that did stick with the show, uh, couldn’t have been happy with what happened in those final seasons. Family Matters went off the rails at the end. The series finale shot Urkel into outer space in a two-parter that’s plays out like a precursor to Gravity. That left Carl, Laura, Eddie, and not-Harriette back on Earth, dealing with a minor B-plot and fretting over Steve. They all deserved better! That finale is indicative of what Family Matters became towards the end: The Steve Urkel Show. Characters like Estelle, Rachel, Richie, and Waldo faded into the background and middle child Judy straight up disappeared. The family stopped mattering on Family Matters.
A revival could fix that, too, and give the show’s legacy a nice shine. If it follows the Fuller House style, the revival would star a few of the big names from the original series alongside a hip, young cast. Maybe Steve and Laura Urkel have to move back in with Carl and Harriette, with their nerdy daughter and cool son in tow. Or maybe Laura and Steve called off their engagement and their kids have their original frenemy dynamic. The show could also bring back everyone who was ever on the original series for a celebratory comeback or goodbye episode. Where’s Richie now? Does Rachel have a singing career (you know she does)? Is Waldo Geraldo Faldo an Instagram celebrity? The possibilities are endless!
This needs to happen! Fuller House teased an Urkel return over and over again, but it still hasn’t manifested. The cast even said in 2017 that they’re ready for a revival. Give them their wish, Netflix! But one word of advice to anyone in charge of making a Family Matters revival happen: make sure Netflix produces and owns the show, because we don’t want what happened to the Tanners and the Alvarezes to happen to the Winslows.
