MTV's TEEN WOLF, not so much as reboot as a new boot

The other day, when Rob Zombie said that the Blob in his upcoming remake of The Blob would not be "blobby", I made an absolutely side-splitting quip to the effect that that was like selling a werewolf movie by promising that it wouldn't be all werewolf-y. Well, now MTV has come very close to doing just that, by pledging that their upcoming Teen Wolf TV series will be very un-Teen Wolf-y.

"It has a fresh take and is very different from the original," says Liz Gateley, senior vp MTV series development. "It has more of an American Werewolf in London feel to it. It's a dramatic thriller with two best friends in the center who provide a great comedy element: They are two very relatable characters on the outer circles of popular cliques."

Don't get me wrong; I barely remember the 1985 Michael J. Fox werewolf comedy, so it's not like I'm a big Teen Wolf purist or anything. The show has some fine talents behind it (including Prison Break creator Jeff Davis and Deep Space Nine's Rene Echevarria), and the idea of an American Werewolf-esque horror/comedy set in a high school could be lots of fun. But I do get tired of remakes that have nothing in common with the original beyond the title. It sounds like they could have just as well called this thing I Was a Teenage Werewolf. Or even An American Werewolf in High School. But no, they decided to call it Teen Wolf, a title that's probably irrelevant to today's teens, and which will just tick off fans of the original film.

Hardly a day goes by without news of something from my childhood or teen years getting a reboot, remake or rip-off. It's kind of exhausting having the pop culture of my youth constantly exhumed and shoved in my face like this. Is this what it felt like to be a Baby Boomer in the '80s? Jesus, no wonder those people on Thirthysomething were such a mopey bunch.

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