I always argue that successful TV shows are a product of a particular moment in the lives of the characters on that show, of the people making them, and of the people watching. Change any or all of those things, and it's usually impossible to recapture the old magic, which is why almost all TV revivals are bad and should feel bad.
Hulu's Malcolm in the Middle: Life's Still Unfair brings back nearly the entire cast from the hit 2000s family comedy — which turned child star Frankie Muniz into a movie leading man for a bit, set Bryan Cranston up to become one of the greatest comedy/drama dual threats television has ever seen, and helped change the entire look and feel of sitcoms in the 21st century(*) — almost exactly 20 years since its last original episode debuted. It would seem to face steeper odds than most. After all, moving former child prodigy Malcolm (Muniz) from middle school to middle age is a much more drastic change than, say, Will and Grace just being deeper into adulthood since we last saw them.
(*) Much more on this part of the Malcolm story coming here next week.
But Life's Still Unfair has two things going for it. First, at only four episodes that are being released at once, it's the length of a movie. TV reunions have generally worked much better as a one-shot deal. The Eighties and Nineties were full of TV-movies revisiting older shows, and they got on and offstage before anyone really had a chance to question whether this all still made sense. Some modern revivals don't work even as close-ended projects (see Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life), but sticking to two hours already puts the new Malcolm ahead of so many others.