If NBC is rebooting Night Court, shouldn't the original be available to stream somewhere?

Paste Magazine

The potential sequel series starring John Larroquette that Deadline revealed earlier this week "could totally be a good show," says Garrett Martin. "Maybe instead of remaking Night Court, though, they should just make the original watchable somewhere? Night Court isn’t streaming anywhere. It’s not on Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, HBO Max, CBS All Access, Disney+, Apple TV, Kanopy, Shudder, Crunchyroll, Acorn, BritBox, VRV, AMC+, Crave, DC Universe, Fox Nation, WWE Network, or even NBC’s own streamer, Peacock. It wasn’t even on Seeso. You can buy episodes or seasons online, but if you’re just a casual fan, or somebody who’s never seen it and want to check it out based on its reputation, you can’t find it on any streaming service you subscribe to—no matter how many you subscribe to. Watching Night Court in 2020 is neither easy nor cheap enough. That’s disappointing. I’m not going to act like Night Court would be as big on streaming today as other old sitcoms like Seinfeld or Friends—hell, even Cheers, the most popular sitcom of the ‘80s and early ‘90s, and one of the two or three best ones ever made, has faded a bit despite streaming on multiple services for as long as streaming has been a thing, and Cheers was always bigger than Night Court. And I’m sure a lot of Night Court has aged terribly—you were never supposed to admire Dan Fielding and his philandering, but his insistent sexual harassment of basically every woman to ever enter the court is utterly out of step with the times now. But Night Court was huge in its day, running for nine seasons on NBC, often as part of the Must See TV lineup at its peak alongside shows like Cheers and The Cosby Show, and yet today it’s basically unknown to people who weren’t alive when it originally aired. It has no relevance and no cachet to audiences under the age of 35, and part of that problem has to be that it can’t be watched the way most people watch TV today."