NBC is bringing back one of their original “Must See TV” classics as Night Court is back in session tonight with a new revival series starring Melissa Rauch of The Big Bang Theory fame, who is also an executive producer alongside her husband, Winston Rauch. The new show was developed by Dan Rubin with the Rauches building on the classic series which was created by Reinhold Weege.
Returning to his Emmy-winning role as Dan Fielding is John Larroquette, who explained at the Television Critics Association Press Tour earlier this week that his initial reaction was to say “no” to coming back.
“It was brought to me by Melissa and Dan and Winston, and my initial reaction was, ‘That’s funny. Talk to you later. Bye’,” Larroquette recalled. “Because, you know, the ego of an actor [is] thinking ‘a double-edged sword.’ The idea of trying to revive something that you did 35 years ago when you were young and agile and acrobatic and maybe funny… to try and go back at 75 years old, let’s not forget, that seemed a real error in judgment on my part if I had said ‘yes’.”
When it seemed that Melissa Rauch was only producing the show and not starring as Abby Stone, it was easier for Larroquette to hesitate. But once Melissa signed on to play the series lead, “I knew I was sort of stuck, as it were,” he said.
The idea of finding out what happens to a character decades later did pique his interest. “The other part of my ego as an actor sort of perked up and said, ‘Hold on a second. How often does an actor get a chance to revisit some character that he played three-and-a-half decades ago? What happened to him in his life?’ That became interesting to me,how he might appear in 2022 as opposed to 1992 when we last saw him. It became an exciting problem to solve as to how he can be funny at 75, even though he was still funny at 35, but in a different way. So, we worked on that, and you’ll be the judge of whether or not it actually worked,” Larroquette explained.
As for what Night Court is: Is it a reboot? A revival? A continuation?
“When we were first developing it, I think we were all trying to figure out what the term for this would be,” Melissa Rauch admitted. “Would it be a reboot? Would it be a revival? Is it a continuation?”
“I think whenever someone hears the term “reboot,” I know I personally my whole body tenses up,” she continued. “Like, ‘that’s my show! What are you going to do to my show?’ With this, we were like, ‘well, it’s not necessarily a reboot, because there is this fresh new element toward to it.’ And when they were, ‘oh, like, it’s a new reboot’ and then we started joking that it’s a ‘newboot.’ As ridiculous as that word sounded at the time, we realized that actually, sort of, makes sense. So, it’s a bit of a newboot, a bit of a revival, because we really pay our respects to the original. It’s obviously very much a part of the DNA in this show.”
“Fans of the original, there’s so much for them to love,” she promises. “We’re revisiting these wonderful stories in these walls that we all know and love. And, of course, we have the amazing John Larroquette reprising his role of Dan Fielding. So, there’s all these Easter eggs that original fans will love.”
But don’t worry if you haven’t seen the nearly 200 episodes of classic Night Court. “You don’t need any prior knowledge of the original to watch a show with the fresh, amazing new cast that we have,” she promised. “We’ve created this new workplace family. And even though it is a continuation, you don’t really need any prior knowledge to jump in, while, at the same time, if you do have prior knowledge, then it’s also exciting to see where the show lands.”
Night Court premieres with two episodes tonight (January 17) on NBC. Read KSiteTV’s review of the new series here!
