Things I Miss: Do Over (2002)

I didn’t watch much television growing up. I engaged in a lot of extracurricular activities and I loved to read. My favourite television show – when I wrote in my friends’ profile books1 since everyone seemed to include that after favourite colour, favourite food, favourite drink, favourite band, favourite singer – was written as “The Simpsons, Madeline, Rugrats, Do Over”.

What the heck is Do Over, you might ask? Given that my other three favourites are well-known and pretty typical, it didn’t seem like much of a cool unique favourite.

Do Over was a comedy/drama/fantasy television series that got axed after about fifteen or sixteen episodes. Was it really that bad, though?

I had seen the trailer for it on television and it immediately made me want to watch. It was about a 34-year-old man, who, after an accident, is sent back into the past and finds himself as a teenager in high school. Now, I don’t really know Penn Badgley, but apparently he was fifteen at the time he played main character Joel, and everyone laughs at his time/experience with Do Over. The series aired in 2002. I was only about eleven years old at the time.

Cast of Do Over
Cast of Do Over

I loved this concept of time travel being used in a television show, and the comedy really pulled me in, and it sounded very Back to the Future-like. And BTTF is my favourite movie.

I would come back from ballet class on Thursday and rush home, ready to watch Do Over. At some point, I think either the television show or my ballet class moved times, so I would sit and watch the episode even though I would be in a mad rush to go to ballet.

It was only a 24-minute show within a half hour slot, but I wanted to watch it more than anything. The Simpsons was always playing repeats, I had probably seen every Madeline episode, and Rugrats wasn’t at the top of my list. I only cared enough for Do Over.

It then moved to Wednesday nights, and I was thrilled because growing up, I didn’t have extracurricular activities on Wednesday nights and I enjoyed being free. I would finish my homework and run to the television for dinner and watch, or after dinner I would patiently wait in front of the television and hope no one else would hog it. One time, I remember missing the first few minutes of an episode and being extremely irritated, wondering what I had missed.

One day, it wasn’t aired.

The next week, it wasn’t either.

Apparently, it had been cancelled, and I don’t think I even got to see all the episodes. There had been a big fanbase, but ratings were low. To hell with ratings.

It was a very short-lived. I can’t even find a picture of the television show that isn’t pixelated or larger than three hundred pixels.

I don’t know why I liked the show so much and felt so devastated when I missed it. To this day, I still don’t really watch much television; I generally hate television. But I will always remember Do Over as one of those quaint little shows that I liked for some time, that disappeared into the ether.

  1. Profile books were all the rage at my school in 2001-2002. They were just pretty notebooks that mostly girls (a boy or two did have them towards the end of primary school) owned, and where their friends would write their profiles. It was commonplace to ask, “Hey, can you write in my profile book?” In a way, it was a bit like a yearbook.

Comments on this post

I know what you mean with short-lived t.v. series. There was one t.v. series that I really loved. It was about a martial artist teaching kids to how to defend themselves from bullies at high school. It was short-lived. It may have possibly aired about 5 episodes, and that was the end. Same with this one television series named Flash Forward. Some of the stars were from “LOST.” Flash Forward, aired a whole 13 episodes before they pulled it off the air.

The storyline was awesome though. It was basically were a special task force in the FBI investigates after every person on Earth simultaneously blackouts and awakens with a short vision of their future.

I really loved the plot and the characters. But was sad to see it go. Of course, I did end up buying the series well, that one particular season. However, I have no idea if it’s still at my dad’s house or not when I had moved. I’m pretty sure it is. I hate it when there’s a really good series on, and it’s short lived. AYAH!

It’s so annoying when a tv series that you’re really into gets cancelled. It’s happened to me a couple of times and I get really wound up wondering what would’ve happened next, and what I’ve missed out on because of the cancellation. I find myself guessing what the storyline might’ve gone like, but of course I’ll never know if I was right or not. O_O

I’ve actually never heard of that show before, but I just looked it up and found out that it aired over here in 2008. We got the entire series, but I don’t ever remember it to be honest.

I don’t remember that show either, but just incase I did happen to see it when it was on, I looked on youtube and they do have the episodes there. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCPcA8l6qzM

Turns out that I don’t remember it. I was mostly likely watching Friends or something else like TRL.

Interesting fact though, the guy that pays the baseball coach played a gym teached on another short lived tv show called freaks and geeks. :D