John Larroquette Night Court

2023 - 1 - 18

Post cover — Image courtesy of "Los Angeles Times"

'Night Court,' 'That '90s Show' welcome back pre-prestige TV (Los Angeles Times)

Reheating old series for modern tastes is common practice. But new revivals from NBC and Netflix seek to honor the TV of an earlier age.

But to anyone interested in a sharper picture of young people in the last years of the last century, let me direct you to Freevee’s lovely “ Attracted to the sound of Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” blasting from Donna’s old house next door, Leia meets Gwen (Ashley Aufderheide), determines that she needs to become her best friend and talks her parents into letting her spend the summer with her grandparents. And they are still smoking pot, though, again, this is implied (the signature “circle” scenes are back) rather than shown — an aesthetic choice now, rather than a network mandate. (Eric, still a nerd, has become a professor teaching a course in “The Religion of ‘Star Trek,’” and Donna, still tough, has written “a book,” though just what sort of book it is not thought important enough to specify.) Episodes in the new and old show alike concern acquiring a tap to get beer out of a lucked-into keg. [John Larroquette](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1993-09-01-ca-30266-story.html) is the original series’ sole representative — and a joy to watch — transformed by time from a narcissistic womanizer into a merely misanthropic widower. The setting, with its invariably strange, quickly dispatched cases, provides a platform for a variety of comic bits, but the point of the show is To the extent that any lessons are learned, it will not be by anyone who comes before Judge Stone, but by her colleagues, who are children in grown-up clothing. [Harry Anderson](https://www.latimes.com/entertainment/tv/la-et-st-harry-anderson-20180416-story.html) as Harry Stone, a young, irreverent judge working the night shift in Manhattan’s Municipal Court. Each features at least one old cast member; each re-creates the old sets; each is, as before, a multi-camera comedy; and neither is out to do more than capture whatever it was that made their progenitors so popular, to not fix what wasn’t broken. It’s impossible to generalize about television except to say that there’s too much of it, but here and there, in a small way, we seem to be experiencing something of a neoclassical phase. [That ](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-mar-03-ca-4805-story.html)’ [70s Show,](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2000-mar-03-ca-4805-story.html)” which aired on Fox from 1998 to 2006, premieres Thursday on Netflix.

Night Court reboot review: What TV revivals get right and wrong (Vox)

Melissa Rauch and John Larroquette on the set of Night Court. Dan Fielding is back, but he's not better. Jordin Althaus/NBC/Warner Bros. Television.

If you’re a fan of the original Night Court, there’s enough of it left in this one to make it worth at least a nostalgia watch. I didn’t really want to return to the Night Court universe if Harry, Christine, and Mac weren’t in it. The best episodes and funniest moments of Night Court were driven by the court’s defendants. New Night Court had a major hurdle to clear in that its cast was beloved and half of them (Anderson, Post, and Robinson) are dead. Of all the ways I thought the revival would handle this, I was not expecting what it ultimately did, which was give Anderson his due and make his loss a major part of the show (it is, in fact, its catalyst), and completely ignore Post and Robinson. Night Court is still writing the best lines for and getting the best performances out of its prosecutors! And the rest of the series regulars apparently fell into a rip in the space-time continuum and were erased from existence, as none of them are even mentioned in the first seven episodes. Thirty years after Night Court went off the air, Harry fell in love, got married, had a daughter, and died. In both content and format, the show was very much of its time, which is also very much not of this time. In between, you get something that’s not enough like the original show to keep the fans it had, but too much like the original to attract new ones. And after a co-worker said she thought Night Court was just a 30 Rock invention and not a real show, I knew I would have to review it, as only the show’s truest and best fan could. There are things a fan wants from a reboot — a return to a place, people, and tone — that no Night Court reboot could possibly provide.

'Night Court': Is Marsha Warfield Headed Back to Show? (TV Insider)

Fans go wild after actress, who played bailif Roz, makes video comments about NBC revival.

“I didn’t have a chance to catch the first episode, but I will,” she promised. “I hope everybody gets to learn as much from you as I did when I worked with you.” “I can’t imagine a new show doing better than having you to build around,” she told Larroquette. [Night Court](https://www.tvinsider.com/show/night-court-2023/) returned to [NBC](https://www.tvinsider.com/network/nbc/) on Tuesday (January 17) night, over 30 years since the original series ended its nine-season run, and one former cast member was celebrating the occasion. Congratulations,” Warfield said in the video (watch below). “I hear there’s a new Night Court in town!

John Larroquette Revives His 'Night Court' Role at 75 (AARP)

John Larroquette as Dan Fielding in "Night Court." Jordin Althaus/NBC/Warner Bros. Television.

And this is maybe a nice way to cap it off. I live in a beautiful place and enjoy being on my tractor. Even back then he was sometimes very, very bad, and sometimes very, very good, like getting Judge Stone to come back when he was going to quit, or delivering babies in an elevator. Even though there were a lot of high jinks, you always got to the heart of the case, and cared about the people involved. At the dry cleaning counter, the person who’s 60 goes, ‘Oh, nice to see you!’ and the one in his or her 20s says, ‘Who’s that old man?’ There are five phases to an active career. To have a character as libidinous as he was back then just wouldn’t work. But it’s a very normal environment — a courtroom. And even though Abby’s not the most by-the-book judge, she takes the job seriously too. And because she is Harry Stone’s daughter, he feels obligated to try and help her navigate the shoals of being at work at 2 in the morning in the middle of Manhattan. You have to present a different kind of comedy today. He thinks most of humanity is a small waste of space, as opposed to a huge waste of space. He is older, not quite as insecure, not as much a misanthrope.

'Night Court' Opens Big: TV Ratings Tuesday, Jan. 17, 2023 (Hollywood Reporter)

The update of the 1980s sitcom also has the best 18-49 rating this season for any network entertainment show without an NFL lead-in. By Rick Porter.

Elsewhere, ABC’s The Rookie continued to benefit from its move to Tuesday nights, drawing a season-high 4.77 million viewers and a 0.6 in adults 18-49. The second episode grew by about 260,000 viewers to 7.2 million and added 0.16 to its 18-49 rating for a 1.1 with Peacock included. (Several episodes of The Simpsons and a Thanksgiving night edition of The Masked Singer on Fox have topped 1.0 ratings following NFL games.) Both figures are above the show’s same-day season averages. A second episode Tuesday retained more than 90 percent of the premiere’s audience, coming in at 6.94 million viewers. The Rookie: Feds (2.99 million, 0.37) and Will Trent (3.32 million, 0.35) improved over last week as well (it probably didn’t hurt that CBS aired repeats of its FBI franchise). NBC also said that the Night Court premiere added about 450,000 viewers and 0.2 ratings points in the 18-49 demographic on Peacock, for totals of 8 million viewers and 1.2 in the demo. The two-hour series finale of New Amsterdam followed Night Court with 3.15 million viewers and a 0.36 rating in the 18-49 demo. In the key ad-sales demographic of adults 18-49, the two episodes of Night Court posted ratings of 0.98 and 0.94 — the highest marks for any network entertainment show this season that didn’t have an NFL game as a lead-in. The premiere was also the largest same-day audience for any comedy on TV this season, topping the 7.43 million for an episode of CBS’ Young Sheldon on Jan. The update of the 1980s-90s sitcom, starring The Big Bang Theory’s Melissa Rauch and original series fixture John Larroquette, delivered 7.55 million viewers for its series premiere on Tuesday. [Share this article on Facebook](https://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/tv-ratings-tuesday-jan-17-2023-1235304058/&title=TV%20Ratings:%20‘Night%20Court’%20Is%20NBC’s%20Best%20Comedy%20Debut%20in%20Five%20Years&sdk=joey&display=popup&ref=plugin&src=share_button&app_id=1153511048447777) [Share this article on Twitter](https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/tv-ratings-tuesday-jan-17-2023-1235304058/&text=TV%20Ratings%3A%20%E2%80%98Night%20Court%E2%80%99%20Is%20NBC%E2%80%99s%20Best%20Comedy%20Debut%20in%20Five%20Years&via=thr) [Share this article on Email](mailto:?subject=thr%20:%20TV%20Ratings:%20‘Night%20Court’%20Is%20NBC’s%20Best%20Comedy%20Debut%20in%20Five%20Years&body=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/tv-ratings-tuesday-jan-17-2023-1235304058/%20-%20TV%20Ratings:%20‘Night%20Court’%20Is%20NBC’s%20Best%20Comedy%20Debut%20in%20Five%20Years) [Show additional share options](#) [Share this article on Print]() [Share this article on Comment](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/tv-ratings-tuesday-jan-17-2023-1235304058/#respond) [Share this article on Whatsapp](whatsapp://send?text=TV%20Ratings:%20‘Night%20Court’%20Is%20NBC’s%20Best%20Comedy%20Debut%20in%20Five%20Years%20-%20https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/tv-ratings-tuesday-jan-17-2023-1235304058/) [Share this article on Linkedin](https://www.linkedin.com/shareArticle?mini=1&url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/tv-ratings-tuesday-jan-17-2023-1235304058/&title=TV%20Ratings:%20‘Night%20Court’%20Is%20NBC’s%20Best%20Comedy%20Debut%20in%20Five%20Years&summary&source=thr) [Share this article on Reddit](https://www.reddit.com/submit?url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/tv-ratings-tuesday-jan-17-2023-1235304058/&title=TV%20Ratings:%20‘Night%20Court’%20Is%20NBC’s%20Best%20Comedy%20Debut%20in%20Five%20Years) [Share this article on Pinit](https://pinterest.com/pin/create/link/?url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/tv-ratings-tuesday-jan-17-2023-1235304058/&description=TV%20Ratings:%20‘Night%20Court’%20Is%20NBC’s%20Best%20Comedy%20Debut%20in%20Five%20Years) [Share this article on Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/widgets/share/tool/preview?shareSource=legacy&canonicalUrl&url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/tv-ratings-tuesday-jan-17-2023-1235304058/&posttype=link&title=TV%20Ratings:%20‘Night%20Court’%20Is%20NBC’s%20Best%20Comedy%20Debut%20in%20Five%20Years) [NBC](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/t/nbc/)’s update of [Night Court](https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/t/night-court/) opened to a big audience on Tuesday — bigger than any comedy on the network in more than five years.

'Night Court' Revival Draws Highest Debut Comedy Ratings for NBC ... (Collider.com)

Everyone's returning to Manhattan for Night Court as the reboot pulled in the highest comedy debut for NBC since Will & Grace in 2017.

ABC's Roseanne reboot debuted to earth-shattering numbers for a broadcast show in 2018 and its success has carried on through The Conners which is still ongoing. This revival, while trading almost all of its old cast members, also managed to keep one of its most prominent in John Larroquette who returns to his Emmy-winning role as sleazy prosecutor Dan Fielding and has been an early source of praise for the show. She's tasked with bringing order to the crew and the court which features plenty of oddballs and cynics including the aforementioned Dan Fielding. The workplace comedy series delivered the highest-rated and most-watched program of the night with its first episode, landing an impressive 7.4 million viewers and scoring a 1.0 rating with viewers in the key demographic of adults 18-49. It's also not unprecedented for revival series to do especially well in general. Moreover, the success sustained into the second episode which pulled a lower but still impressive 6.7 million viewers on average and a 0.9 rating in the 18-49 demographic.