Has Your Favorite Show Aged Well?

The Guardian has an interesting piece on rewatching old series in the age of Netflix. The author was not impressed with some of her favorite old shows from the 1990s. Here is her take on Friends:

It is startling how clunky Friends looks now, a creaky old sitcom with a too-loud laughter track and copious overacting. One of the good things about the show was always the slapstick – Jennifer Aniston was great at pratfalls – but on the rewatch, it seems so overegged as practically to constitute mime. Phoebe is spookier and less funny than I remembered. The most shocking thing about the first episodes is Chandler smoking inside – not just in his apartment, but in Central Park.

However, not everything was showing its age.  The author was more impressed The West Wing.

The article made me think of other earlier shows we can watch again. But should we?  How about Magnum PI, BJ and the Bear, and The Dukes of Hazzard? 

As with the saying you can never step in the same river twice, you are unlikely to ever be in the same mindset again as you watch an old favorite. Context is everything. You are better off watching a old show you never watched originally. Though with hundreds of new shows appearing every year, many of great quality, the likely of such discovery has diminished.