90s Light-Hearted Sci-Fi Series Impossible To Watch Today Needs A Netflix Remake

The everyday man is stock broker Gary Hobson, played by a pre-Friday Night Lights Kyle Chandler. Every morning, an adorable tabby cat delivers the titular Early Edition to him, and Gary sets out to do good each day while slowly starting to unravel the mystery behind the newspaper from the future. As the seasons progress, Gary gets closer to the truth and, a few times, actually goes back in time, including to the 1929 St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

Throughout it all, no matter how dark the storyline may get, Early Edition retains an air of optimism and hope, which is sadly missing in most modern shows, nevermind genre ones.

Working alongside Gary is Marissa Clark, a blind former co-worker of his with an adorable guide dog named Spike (paid for by Gary after abusing the Early Edition to win at the lottery), and Chuck Fishman (played by Short Circuit’s Fisher Stevens), his friend that wants to keep using the paper for profit, but eventually warms up and becomes a staunch ally for the first two seasons. Season 3 adds Kristy Swanson (the first Buffy the Vampire Slayer) as Erica Paget, Gary’s new girlfriend, but as you can likely tell, even among the supporting cast, the drama is kept to a minimum, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I’d lump Early Edition with other high-concept procedurals like Ghost Whisperer and Medium in that they aired for what felt like forever, and though each show had some ups and downs, for the most part, the quality is consistent from start to finish. If anything, I think Kyle Chandler got more comfortable as a leading man, and you can see his charisma start to carry even the weakest of episodes. Audiences at the time seemed to agree, with the ratings remaining at around 10 million per episode throughout the series finale, after 90 episodes, in 2000.

As with all procedurals, Early Edition had its share of guest stars during its run, including Star Trek: Voyager’s Robert Duncan McNeil and Robert Picardo. None amused me as much as seeing ECW wrestlers Tommy Dreamer and, shockingly for network television, New Jack. In fact, the network loved the show so much that it was used to soft launch another series, Martial Law, and even crossed over with Chicago Hope. Unlike almost every other sci-fi series from the 90s, the network interference was minimal, with the worst of it coming at the very end, as two episodes aired after the finale, which was incredibly confusing at the time.

In fact, the worst thing I can say about Early Edition is that trying to watch it today is nearly impossible. I rented the DVDs from my library, as there was a complete box set released in 2018, which is another reason why physical media has to stick around, as the show isn’t streaming anywhere. With a simple, high-minded concept that lends itself easily to multiple ways to take the story, this is one of many sci-fi shows I think that Netflix could pick up and make a fun revival out of.

After all, the last time CBS mentioned a reboot was in 2022, and nothing’s been heard of it since, so really, Early Edition should be fair game at this point.

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The streamer could even bring back Kyle Chandler and have it be a 20 years later sequel series, where his neighbors are very confused as to why he’s getting a newspaper delivered to his door. Either keep it light or go dark, and have him try to prevent a major tragedy that then sets off a chain reaction each day of subsequently worse events; yes, that might be a little too similar to the Umbrella Academy, but this show deserves more respect and a modern audience needs this type of light-hearted fluff.

So, if you can find the DVDs, sit down, relax, and enjoy Early Edition.