ABC rebooting Greatest American Hero with female lead

The wacky 1980s sitcom The Greatest American Hero is set to make a return in the form of a modern reboot, this time with a woman as the titular superhero.

Do you remember ABC’s The Greatest American Hero? I’m not blaming you if you don’t. The show only ran from 1981 to 1983 on the network before disappearing into the ether. Perhaps the world just wasn’t quite ready for a wacky drama show about a teacher named Ralph accidentally becoming The Greatest American Hero!

Decades later, ABC is going to try their hand with this story again, as THR confirms the network is rebooting the series. However, don’t expect the lead character to be a curly-haired blonde guy named Ralph. This time, an Indian-American woman is going to be the titular superhero in question.

The new version will be a single camera sitcom, with episodes running the typical 30 minutes in length. THR describes the new lead character, Meera, as a young woman whose talents are pretty much limited to karaoke and binge-drinking. Like Ralph in the original, however, her life changes when aliens bestow her with a superhero suit, meaning the planet “has never been in more unreliable hands.”

While the word “reboot” usually makes me cringe the same way it does most people, I think ABC is onto something here. As I was saying above, the show wasn’t the biggest hit in the early 80s when it first came out. Nowadays, I think people are ready for such a program. Let’s just hope it’s actually funny and we could have a new hit.