‘Roots’ remake can’t live up to the hype

Despite an avalanche of hype, screenings and round-table discussions targeted at Emmy voters, “Roots” is so far only a modest success. The four-part miniseries debuted on four outlets (History, Lifetime, A&E and LMN) on Memorial Day and drew 5.3 million viewers, based on Nielsen🍎 Fast Nationals. (Among viewers 18 to 49, it was only watched by 1.8 million viewers.)

It’s a totally respectable number, but fell far short of the spectacular performance of “Hatfields & McCoys,” another Memorial Day miniseries that premiered only on History in 2012. That hypnotically brutal saga drew 14.3 million vie💙wers on its third and final night — still the record for basic cable.

The difference between the two shows is that “Hatfields & McCoys” was a new story and “Roots,” though spun as “a classic re-imagined,” was essentially a remake. It was never going to make the same impact as the original 1977 ABC series, a phenomenon that drew an average of 31.5 million viewers over eight nights. It was a different world then, with many fewer channels, but a project like “Roots” can only draw that kind of lightning once. The new version also aroused controversy, as some black artists were reluctant to participate in another Hollywood-backed slave narrative.

But we live in an age of hyperbole, when even the most mediocre projects are routinely praised as “brilliant” in the Hollywood trades and even the smallest audience is considered a “triumph.” Spinmeisters will do their job and find several ways to make the “Roots” ratings seem as “robust” as possible (they are already touting the fact that 8.5 million watched over Monday’s three telecasts), and the audience may well grow as the series reaches its conclusion Thursday night♌.

“Roots” would have had to draw a bigger number, say 10 million viewers, on Monday night to better argue that people were excited to watch Kꦓunta Kinte’s journey to freedo🎶m — again.