Tim Allen’s ‘The Last Man Standing’ may be in for a revival

When Fox canceled “The Last Man Standing,” a sitcom featuring a middle-class family with a conservative patriarch, many suspected that the move had more to do with the politics of the character and the actor who played him, Tim Allen. Now, however, with the success of the rebooted “Roseanne,” with the title character an open Trump supporter, the network is said to be considering bringing back “The Last Man Standing” for much the same reason it is alleged to have canceled it in the first place. Does that mean that the entertainment industry is prepared to offer programming designed to appeal to conservative Middle America?

And if so, what will that be like?

What constitutes ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ shows?

Fortunately, most episodic television does not try to beat one over the heat with overtly political messages. Some exceptions exist. The “Law and Order” franchise often has what some television critics call “the sucker punch” when, out of the blue, one of the characters say something political, invariably to the left, which has little to do with the case being solved. Some plot lines can lean left as well, such as the tiresome trope of the innocent Muslim being accused of an act of terror when the culprit is, in fact, a right-wing zealot.

On the other hand, could shows like “The Brave” and “24” be considered “conservative” because the American special ops commandos are the good guys and the terrorists, often Muslim, are the bad guys?

And is “The Big Bang Theory” and its spinoff “Young Sheldon” “conservative” because Sheldon’s mom, Mary Cooper, is both a fundamentalist Christian and a warm, loving human being? Has “Homeland” gone right because the female, Hillary-like liberal president is apparently a paranoid loon?

Some helpful suggestions for conservative programming

Of course, all sorts of ideas occur for episodic TV shows that are overtly conservative. What about a legal drama about a law firm which specializes in defending clients being abused by government regulators? How about a drama about a conservative president who has to do constant battle with the liberal deep state to get his or her reforms passed?

One problem standing in the way of developing right-friendly content is that writers and directors in the entertainment industry tend to lean left and those who do not tend to keep quiet out of fear of being blacklisted. The people who approve programming are going to have to coax their conservative creative people out of the shadows and reassure them that they will not be penalized if they let their politics be known in their writing and their public lives. If the entertainment industry can manage this, it will reap bountiful benefits.