‘Richly rewarding’: why Netflix’s A Different World is the only TV reboot worth watching this year

With zany twists and lovable new faces, reboot of the Black sitcom is a worthy sequel to the trailblazing 1980s original

It’s often the case that nothing disappoints like a sitcom reboot. The Malcolm in the Middle revival is missing Dewey. The updated Saved By the Bell felt like detention punishment. And Just Like That … had Sex and the City diehards sharpening their stilettos.

When Netflix announced plans to reboot A Different World two years ago, fans of the Cosby Show spinoff mostly saw reasons not to. Too much time had passed since the show’s 1992 sign-off. Too much cultural currency had been invested in the show and in Hillman College – the series backdrop that was like Wakanda before Wakanda, a grand bastion of fictional yet somehow tangible Black excellence that drove attendance at historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) and a crowd-sourced CRT education boom online. And too much cynicism had set in among American TV viewers to bother replicating the show’s classic multicam setup – too dusty and fusty, they might sneer.