Ladies and gentlemen it seems to be very common place now for every single streaming service to bring back a nostalgic property. Well the latest TV show from the eighties to get a rival has just been released onto a streaming service and while I didn't grow up with the original show mostly because I was born in the UK in the nineties and as such the original show didn't really air over here and so join me as I review the 2021 rival of Punky Brewster with this new show also being called simply "Punky Brewster" enjoy.
From what I can gather the plot of this show is now single mother of three Punky Brewster meets a young kid who reminds of her of herself. That's all I can really say about the show without going into spoilers since i'm only doing this post based f the first episode and just based of this first episode the story has promise but it's not something that i can see lasting beyond one season since the plot seems like it's one season story in my opinion.
Starring in this series is the shows executive producer Soleil Moon Frye as Punky Brewster and Cherie Johnson as Cherie Johnson. Also starring in this show is Star Wars Rebels and Scooby-Doo star Freddie Prinze Jr. as Travis , Noah Cottrell as Diego , Oliver De Los Santos as Daniel , Lauren Lindsey Donzis as Hannah and Quinn Copeland as Izzy. Now there are a few more actors in this episode but since I cannot find a cast list for this episode i'm just using the shows main cast list and as luck would have it all of the actors and actresses that i've just listed appear in this episode.
As for what I thought about the acting in this episode in all honesty the acting in this episode was at best OK. Since the acting to me at least isn't as good is it perhaps could have been which I guess is to be expected given that this is the first episode of a new series but at the same time you always want to put your best foot forward and give us a good first impression which sadly at least in my opinion isn't the case when it comes to the acting in this episode but here's hoping that the acting gets better as the series goes on.
Now unlike the Saved By The Bell revival / continuation at least from what I can tell this revival doesn't really give that much nods to the classic series at least in this episode anyway. Which while I can see why the makers of this show chose not to include that many nods to the original show since it would alienate new fans but by not including nods and winks to the original show it kind comes of across as that the makers of this show didn't watch the original show and so they don't have that much respect for the original show.
Like I said at the start of this post i've not seen the original Punky Brewster and after watching the first episode of this continuation / revival I don't feel inclined to watch the original Punky Brewster. As such I don't have any nostalgic ties to the original show which in a way makes me prime for this show since like I said I don't have nostalgia for the original show but this is a show that I can't see winning new fans just due to how cheesy this show is which might have been the case with the original Punky Brewster but in this show that same cheesiness that the original Punky Brewster might have had doesn't work in this show in my opinion.
Now this is something that I actually didn't realise until I started to write this part of the post and so forgive me this part is a bit all other the place. I couldn't help but notice but this show has a very similar set up to another revival / continuation that being Raven's Home it's honestly shocking at how similar the set ups to both shows and so I can't help but wonder if the makers of this show were either inspired by Raven's Home or if the makers of this show straight up stole the set up to Raven's Home just due to the fact that the set up to both shows is very similar.
Now then without giving away anything about this episode if your a fan of the original Punky Brewster then you will want to stay around until just before the end credits of this first episode. Since there's something that is said that as far as I can work out from spending a few minuets on Wikipedia which is going to rock Punky Brewster to her very core but i'm not going to say what that thing since it's a pretty good way to get people wanting to watch episode two of this revival / continuation in my honest and humble opinion.
I don't know why this seems to be the case but every streaming service seems to either have a reboot / continuation of a beloved show or movie out or has a reboot / continuation of a beloved show or movie in various stages of development. Is creativity really so dead that every single streaming service needs to have a reboot or a continuation of a show or film on there service why can't these big Hollywood companies come up with new ideas for TV shows why do they have to keep on digging up shows from the past it's honestly getting pretty freaking tiresome hell they've just announced a reboot / continuation of both Fraiser and Icarly and Icarly hasn't been of the air for ten years so why the heck are producing a reboot / continuation of that show I really don't know.
This episode has a total running time of twenty eight minuets and twenty five seconds which for a show that's basically a feel good type of show and that hasn't got that much story (at least in this episode) is the right amount of running time. Since like I said there's not much story to tell in this episode and as such it doesn't make sense to have this episode run any longer then twenty eight minuets and twenty five seconds in my opinion.
Now then since this is a comedy show boys and girls that does mean that I have to talk about the jokes that are in this episode. Or at least I would if there were any jokes to talk about since I didn't laugh once during this entire heck i don't think I even raised a smile for any comedy is always a bad thing but there's always a chance that the jokes in this episode are perfectly in line with the jokes of the original Punky Brewster but even so a comedy has to make you laugh or at least smile and this episode didn't do either of those things for me personally.
Overall this was a pretty bad episode in my personal opinion but weather or not the original Punky Brewster was anything like this reboot / continuation I cannot say for the reasons that i've stated in this post. Now even tho i've listed a lot of bad things in this episode in this very post there are some good things in this episode which like the bad things in this episode i've talked about the good things in this very post but since these are only my first impressions of the show i won't give the show a rating since any show can have a bad episode and for all I know the show could get better in later episodes and you can watch all the episodes of this show right now on Peacock , as for where I got the images that I used in this post well I got the images that I used in this post from the official Punky Brewster fandom wiki page , the official Saved By The Bell fandom wiki page and the official Raven's Home fandom wiki page with my referred website for the images that I used in this episode being the official Punky Brewster fandom wiki page just because the images on the official Punky Brewster fandom wiki page were very high quality and as very high definition.