Just checked out the trailer for the new Quantum Reap (he's asian, it's a cheap joke), and the 'look' because there's no such thing as a real trailer anymore, has him in a completely modern neighborhood, dressed like he's from current year, and everyone else looks/acts like they are current year. The actual year for the setting? 1985. Everyone acts, talks, dresses, and looks like they stepped out of a struggle session.
There is no attempt to make any production look or feel like it is from the past in any of these new shows. What used to be a joke and a jarring moment (Keanu in Dracula) is now the entire theme. Cheap doesn't describe it, there is actual money thrown at all these productions. There is just nothing authentic here, it feels completely out of place.
Why? Are they afraid of trying? Is everything licensed to the point they can't use even a passing reference? Laziness? Or is it our old friend "we want to evoke nostalgia in people who never lived it, so nothing offensive, ever."
I have the entire original series on disc, having watched it a ton as a kid.
There was an episode from the first season where he leaps into an old black man in the 1950s South.
Sam hates racism (yes, that was in the original), and wants to fight every instance of it he finds in that time. Sometimes fighting physically.
But he can't.
Why?
Because the episode takes place a few months before the Montgomery bus boycott, which set into motion the events leading to Dr. King's speech and the end of these prejudices.
So he has to let them slide, against his better judgment, because he can't risk preventing the actual major historical events from occurring. Violence at that point would just ruin public perception of blacks even further, and all the good that would come would never happen.
This sort of dynamic happened in a lot of episodes. That's what made the series such a cult classic--and myself into a Scott Bakula fan.
This new one? "Who cares? Orange Man Bad."
Now that depiction is endorsement, the kinds of stories you can tell are a lot more limited. Also the people who write TV and movies are much, much less talented than they were 20-30 years ago.
I'm sorry but writing teams are now more diverse, they all must have a black woman at the very least, and everyone on the team must follow her lead no matter what or risk alienation, and because diversity is our strength, it just goes to reason that the people who write TV and movies are much, much MORE talented than they were 20-30 years ago.