If you were given carte blanche to remake a old sitcom, what would you do with say, “Gunsmoke”? 
Defeated by my better angels, whom weren’t around back then, anyway.
I would replace Miss Kitty with Barbara Eden, Festus with Elizabeth Montgomery, Chester with Mary Tyler Moore, and call it Smokin’ Heat.
(that’s if I could go back in time and do it in the mid-60s, of course)
THE MAN FROM UNCLE. Today it would be The team from UNCLE with a group of agents.
Land of the Lost, but this time for adults. The show had amazingly intelligent and detailed universe for a no-budget Saturday morning kid’s show- even now I watch it and think “that’s cool” (the Marshalls looking through binoculars and seeing their own backs, the pylons and weather crystals, the Sleestak slaying Confederate soldier, the “out of his own time” Enik, etc.). I had such high hopes for the movie until I heard “Will Ferrell”; there were millions of people nostalgic for that series and the studio basically farted in their general direction, but I think with a reboot and a modest TV show budget it could succeed both for fans of the original and for people who’ve never even heard of the original.
And naturally despite being set during the Iraq/Afghan War it will really be a commentary on the Antartic War.
A remake of Deadwood set in gold rush era San Francisco.
Brimstone
With the current popularity of supernatural themes, it would probably have an easier time finding an audience now. Peter Horton is too old to return as Stone, even if he were available, but getting John Glover back as the Devil would probably be possible.
Go with the same premise as the original–some number of damned souls escaped from Hell, and a cop who was damned for killing his wife’s rapist has been sent back to catch them. The number of targets is set in stone, but not every episode will necessarily eliminate one, so the original 113 could fill out a 5-year run. Establish early on that the mastermind behind the escape has a big plan, and that’s your five-year arc. Each season has a handful of souls who have a part to play in the big plan, while the rest are monster-of-the-week diversions.
Oh, yeah–and decide what the big plan is before you start.
IIRC “djinns” were simply the male equivalent of genies on I Dream of Jeannie. This would make the show awhole lot more entertaining on several levels. 
There was a Mission: Impossible revival in 1988-90 that not many people seem to remember. Peter Graves returned as Jim Phelps, and Phil Morris played the son of the character played by Greg Morris (his father) in the original.
And one of the networks was working on a remake of The Rockford Files a couple years ago. I think a pilot was shot but it didn’t get any farther.
I don’t really know what shows should be remade. We’re talking about keeping the premise of a series, but what really makes a show great usually has nothing to do with that. Who thought Battlestar Galactica needed to be remade? Any of the shows mentioned so far could be great if they got the writing, casting, directing and acting right, or any of them could suck. I like the original Rockford Files; maybe you could recapture what made it work, maybe not.
But much, much less entertaining on another.
I suppose the ex-astronaut/senator could be a woman.
Firefly (Damn network suits!)
The Twilight Zone, although it would probably last fewer episodes than the last remake.
Quantum Leap, as discussed above. Change the premise so the range of the time machine is 100 years, not just “Sam’s” lifetime. Focus on “Sam’s” lifetime so the audience has an emotional connection to most of the episodes. Let’s assume “Sam” is in his early 40s, so he was born in the early-to-mid 1970s (depending on when the show is greenlit). That still covers a lot of interesting territory, but having Sam drop in on WWII or WWI would be fun.
Blackadder - my idea is in posts [post=12460646]here[/post] and [post=12466409]here[/post].
Wizards and Warriors - but taking the material seriously. After the success of Game of Thrones, it’s about time for another well done sword and sorcery series.
I think you could get around this by thinking more globally, which would probably also help selling the show internationally. Rwandan genocide? Balkans? As for stories about segregation well ahem apartheid? Shit the last country to outlaw slavery was in 1981!
It would definitely change the whole dynamic, especially considering that Tony and Jeannie got married in the final episode of the original series.
You know, that would totally rock. I remember seeing a documentary about a city in the Pacific Northwest where they actually had underground rooms for imprisoning guys they’d kidnapped to enslave as sailors … add that to the gold, the greed, the prostitution, the violence dialed up to 9 and the ornate language to go with it … damn, that could be fun.
I would second Sliders.
Also there was a short lived show called G vs. E about the forces of angels fighting the forces of demons on Earth. They did their show with a wink which was good but I would love a more series take on that type of show, sort of like the RPG In Nomine.
They are already doing this one. It’s called Archer. 
Tales of the Golden Monkey. They could pick up the torch for Indy since I have no hope that the movie franchise will recover its former glory.
They could also bring back Briscoe Couty Jr.
I’d go with Quantum Leap.
A 42 year-old character would have everything from 1970 on to work with and not everything in the original series dealt with major issues all of the time, but you could work in:
Nixon resignation
Oil crisis
Miracle on Ice
Challenger explosion
Iranian hostage crisis
Loma Prieta earthquake
Son of Sam/NYC blackout
Zodiac
Dan Cooper
and that’s just the 70’s and 80’s