I watched last year's remake of The Fall & Rise of Reginald Perrin with some trepidation. I loved the original and, while it hasn't aged well, it was a pretty seminal piece of sitcom work. Updating it as Reggie Perrin seemed doomed, frankly.
And yet, by the end of the season, I had come to enjoy it. Underneath the traditional sitcom production values, there was something far bleaker and darker than you see in conventional comedy, and more so than there was in the original. The main arc was quicker back then, with the original fall and rise played out in a single series, with the later ones having to explore further from the core to keep it going. in the 2009 version, we were left with an angry, despairing Reggie quite possibly on the brink of committing suicide for real, rather than just staging it.
News that a second series of Reggie Perrin is coming leaves me with equally mixed feelings. The final episode left it quivering with potential, with the chance to explore the frustrations and fallacies of modern life in more detail as Reggie shed the trappings of the ordinary. Yet the press release suggest that something of a reset. That would be a shame. Here's hoping it's better than that.
