Growing Pains revival in the works with original cast hoping to honor Alan Thicke

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https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbi...an-Thicke.html

Another 1980s classic family sitcom may be coming back to the small screen, with a Growing Pains revival reportedly in the works.

Jeremy Miller, who played Ben Seaver on the hit series, revealed to US Weekly that a revival is in the works that would honor the late Alan Thicke.

'We’re still in talks right now. We’re actually doing story creation and brainstorming right now,' Miller said at the Reel: Portrayals and Perceptions of LGBTs in Hollywood exhibit at The Hollywood Museum last week.

Miller, 42, said he is in 'constant contact' with his original Growing Pains co-stars Kirk Cameron and Tracey Gold, who played his on-screen siblings Mike and Carol.

'(We) are trying to put together a workable storyline that will be respectful to Alan (Thicke) and the cast and the history and everything,' Miller said.

'So it’s challenging, it is. But between the three of us, I think we may be able to knock something out,' he added. 'Once we put together a good starting point, then we’ll start talking to the production companies.'

The original series followed the Seaver family, lead by Thicke's Dr. Jason Seaver, a psychiatrist who worked out of a home office, and Maggie (Joanna Kerns), a TV journalist.

The show also became a stepping stone for a few young stars, including Leonardo DiCaprio, who played a homeless teen named Luke Brower, who the Seavers took in, and Ashley Johnson as the youngest Seaver child, Chrissy.

Miller added in his interview that the 'motivation' for putting this show together would be to pay homage to Thicke.

'It would be to really pay tribute to a man who was a real pop to all of us,' Miller added.

Thicke passed away just before Christmas in December 2016 at the age of 69, after collapsing while playing ice hockey with his son.

Witnesses said he was talking with and even joking with his son Carter while being wheeled away, but he passed from a type-A aortic dissection.

Miller said that he still misses being able to talk to his TV dad about anything, even decades after the show went off the air.

'What I miss the most is just being able to call him about anything. I mean, that was the case 25 years after the show,' he said.

'No matter what was going on, I could just pick up the phone to call him and tell him good news, call him to get advice, call him to just talk and see how he’s doing,' he continued.

'He was my other dad and I miss that connection, and he was the most loving, warm, caring man I’ve ever known to everybody. I miss that desperately,' he concluded.

It isn't known if Growing Pains series creator Neal Marlens will be involved in this new revival series or not.

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I started thinking about this after watching the Reelz program Autopsy, which examined Alan Thicke's death. Quite frankly, do we really need a revival of Growing Pains? I'm sure that Jeremy Miller has the right intentions, but we've already had two made for TV reunion movies back in the early 2000s. If they were going to do a full blown revival of Growing Pains then they should've done it right then and there. Plus, Growing Pains isn't exactly a show like Roseanne/The Conners or to a lesser extent, Will & Grace, which has still predominated the public consciousness (through constant reruns in syndication and what not) to a degree that a revival would immediately be warranted or accepted. It just on the surface, feels like an opportunistic way to cash in on any likely new found nostalgia for Growing Pains in light of Alan Thicke's sudden passing.

While I'm not necessarily trying to say that you can't do Growing Pains without Jason Seaver, it would immediately be troublesome to build a revival type show around Kirk Cameron. While Mike Seaver may have been the breakout character of the original series, there's no way that a person with common sense would make Kirk Cameron the lead in their prime-time TV show given how he pretty much wrecked the original show with his sanctimonious, rigid, "my way or the highway" behavior following his religious awakening. And Jeremy Miller isn't exactly the most charismatic actor (there's a reason why Leonardo DiCaprio was brought in to replace Kirk Cameron as the show's resident teen heartthrob instead of making the increasingly gawky/awkward teenage Ben out to be one) to build a show around either.

[Johnny be good!]

Maybe Carol could be the lead.

[paul.austin]

Originally Posted by Johnny be good!

Maybe Carol could be the lead.

".. and one classic Coke".