UPDATE: Peacock has released the first teaser for the return of MacGruber. It’s about as modest and humble as you’d expect.
10 years ago a hero came to movie theaters throughout our country; cruelly, we rejected him. We deserve everything that’s happened to us since.
Fortunately MacGruber doesn’t hold grudges. Okay, the character almost certainly does—Will Forte’s SNL parody of MacGyver is defined by his pettiness and foolishness, and would love a good grudge—but the concept, well, that’s willing to forgive us. At least as much as a concept can.
Here’s the deal: Will Forte is bringing MacGruber back in a new eight-episode series for Peacock, the new streaming service launched by NBC Universal. According to Variety, the half-hour series will be reuniting the crew from the 2010 film, with director Jorma Taccone (of The Lonely Island) once again manning the production. Forte, Taccone and John Solomon will write the new series; they also wrote the film together. And according to Deadline, the movie’s co-stars, Kristen Wiig and Ryan Phillippe, are expected to sign on, as well.
The show’s log line sounds pulled right from any one of those movies where an aging action hero plays an older character for the first time in years. After a decade behind bars, MacGruber is freed to help track down an old enemy. Because this is MacGruber, the enemy has a grotesque double entendre for a name: Brigadier Commander Enos Queeth follows in the footsteps of the film’s Dieter Von Cunth, who was played by Val Kilmer.
MacGruber came out to bad reviews and worse box office, but has become a major cult classic among those who actually have good taste in comedy. It’s one of two or three movies based on Saturday Night Live characters worth watching, and with Forte, Taccone and Solomon writing it, the TV series could wind up being just as good. Could this be the breakout hit Peacock needs—it’s Stranger Things or Game of Thrones? Almost definitely not, but still, the return of MacGruber is one of the first pieces of legitimately good news we’ve heard in months.