The breakout hit of the recently launched Peacock streaming service is its reboot of cheesy teen sitcom Saved by the Bell, which takes the hokey style of the ’90s series and updates it with self-aware humor and contemporary resonance. So there was some hope that Peacock’s new revival of cheesy ’80s sitcom Punky Brewster might follow the same path, putting a clever spin on an awkward, dated series. Unfortunately, the new Punky Brewster is a lot closer to Fuller House than it is to the new Saved by the Bell, maintaining the old-fashioned sitcom style of its previous incarnation as it attempts to update characters and storylines for the present day.
In the original Punky Brewster, the title character (Soleil Moon Frye) was an eight-year-old orphan taken in by curmudgeonly building manager Henry Warnimont (George Gaynes), who eventually adopted her and provided her with a loving home. Thirty-plus years later, Punky is now a divorced mother of three, still living in the same apartment where she grew up (Henry left it to her when he died) and still learning valuable life lessons in half-hour increments. Also returning from the original series is Punky’s best friend Cherie (Cherie Johnson), who now runs the group home where orphaned Punky was sent when she had no one to care for her.
That’s where Punky meets eight-year-old Izzy (Quinn Copeland), a spunky orphan who, like Punky, was abandoned by her mother. Izzy is obviously meant to be Punky 2.0, from her quirky fashion sense to her rebellious personality to her penchant for saying whatever comes to mind. Unlike the childless widower Henry, Punky already has a full family, but she can’t resist Izzy’s charms, and she agrees to become Izzy’s foster mom. Izzy joins Punky’s teenage daughter Hannah (Lauren Lindsey Donzis) and Punky’s adopted sons Diego (Noah Cottrell) and Daniel (Oliver De Los Santos), brothers who were brought into the family at the same time.
Also frequently hanging around is Punky’s ex-husband Travis (Freddie Prinze Jr.), a musician who’s a bit immature but clearly loves his kids (and Punky, even though they’re divorced). It makes for, well, a full house, and the six episodes provided for review feature plenty of basic sitcom hijinks, from easily resolved misunderstandings to wacky mix-ups that are also easily resolved. The original Punky Brewster was somewhat notorious for its many “very special episodes” meant to impart important lessons to young viewers, and the new version continues that tradition, although there’s nothing quite as ridiculously heavy-handed as the original show’s infamous episode about the dangers of getting stuck in an abandoned refrigerator.
But Punky’s relationship with Izzy offers plenty of opportunities to teach about found families and the importance of self-esteem, and Punky Brewster also tackles more current concerns via the gender-nonconforming Daniel. There’s also a surprisingly retrograde anti-marijuana storyline in the fourth episode, whose references to modern legalization seem shoehorned into a plot that could otherwise have been lifted from a ’90s family sitcom.
Punky Brewster strikes a clumsy balance between its progressive treatment of Daniel’s gender expression and Cherie’s sexuality (she’s a lesbian who lives with her girlfriend) and its simplistic, outdated tone of lecturing young viewers about the dangers of the outside world. This is the kind of show that has Punky refer to sex as “you know what” when talking to Hannah in the first episode, although later episodes are a bit less timid on this subject.
The show’s multi-camera, laugh-tracked style is similarly outdated, and like Fuller House, the new Punky Brewster panders to nostalgia with recycled catch phrases, references and guest appearances (original creator David Duclon is on board as an executive producer). Punky gets applause from the studio audience in the first episode when she reveals that she’s wearing mismatched shoes and when she says “Punky power!,” and the audience “awws” at the contrived emotional moments between Punky and her brood. Despite the audible laughs, absolutely nothing in these six episodes is remotely funny, and many of the lines that inspire alleged audience laughter aren’t even jokes.
The acting is broad and overstated, as if the performers are desperate for the attention of easily distracted viewers. Like the flat visual style and the stilted writing, it recalls the worst of kid-targeted sitcoms on the Disney Channel or Nickelodeon. Frye and Johnson, who’ve both been consistently working actors since they were children, slip back into their old roles with ease, and Prinze’s goofy personality is a perfect fit for this kind of dopey sitcom. The kid actors are all varying degrees of annoying, led by Copeland, whose Izzy is like young Punky turned up to 11, with a grating presence that may make viewers long for Punky to return Izzy to the orphanage.
It’s hard to say who those viewers will be, since the very young audience that the show seems to be targeting will have no idea who Punky Brewster is, and the adults with fond memories of watching Punky as kids are likely to quickly lose patience with the basic, pedantic storytelling. This is a show that seems designed to appeal to no one, that exists solely because a corporate executive decided to revive some recognizable intellectual property. All this show proves is that Punky Brewster should have remained an orphan.
Starring Soleil Moon Frye, Cherie Johnson, Freddie Prinze Jr., Quinn Copeland, Noah Cottrell, Oliver De Los Santos and Lauren Lindsey Donzis, the 10-episode first season of Punky Brewster premieres Thursday, Feb. 25 on Peacock.