Full House Revealed An Alternate & Worse Fuller House
Years before Fuller House, Full House already revealed an alternate and worse version of its sequel spinoff. In 2016, amidst the height of reboots and revivals, Netflix ordered an offshoot of the '80s/'90s family sitcom. Fuller House ran for five seasons, ending in 2020 with the triple wedding of DJ, Stephanie, and Kimmy to Steve, Jimmy, and Fernando. What we got could have been much worse, as it turns out.
Wanting to lean heavily on nostalgia, Fuller House pretty much just riffed off its predecessor's premise. Like Danny in Full House, DJ was suddenly widowed and left to raise three young kids on her own. She then got help from Stephanie and Kimmy, who both moved into the Tanner family home with their respective families. Meanwhile, the older cast was relegated to supporting characters, with Danny, Jesse, and Joey popping in from time to time with their own side stories. Becky was regularly featured in the series as well until Lori Loughlin was fired after her connections to the national college bribery scandal were exposed. This creative move was divisive, with criticism accusing Fuller House of lazy writing by copying what came before it rather than coming up with something fresh.
That being said, whatever panned out in Fuller House is definitely better than what Full House originally envisioned it to be. Back in season 3 of the original show, the episode "Those Better Not Be The Days," found Danny, Jesse, and Joey suddenly fed up with the girls bossing them around. The girls no longer asked for permission or respectfully requested anything; instead, they expected the adults to be their beck and call. Once the men realized this, Danny envisioned a future where the girls were all grown-up and still living in the house — as they did in Fuller House, with only Kimmy replacing Michelle. What made it worse was that in this daydream, the sisters were still treating them as if they were servants never having grown up or having learned to fend for themselves. In Fuller House, however, the girls only moved back in together because of unfortunate circumstances. In fact, it's the older cast who moved out and were scattered across the West Coast.
At the end of Fuller House, DJ remained in the Tanner ancestral home, with her new husband Steve moving in. The plan was for Stephanie and Kimmy to get their respective places following their wedding, but at the very last minute, they decided to all stay under one roof. Admittedly, the logistics of that were unclear considering there were a limited number of rooms in the house, nevertheless, it all harkened back to the feel-good ending of Full House. In any case, this was still a much better story than what the original show's vision was. Admittedly, there was some character inconsistency, particularly with DJ, and less than stellar storytelling, but the spinoff thankfully didn't make the younger cast insufferable as they had been in Danny's vision.
Unfortunately for Fuller House, it wasn't able to live up to the standards set by its predecessor. Full House was by no means a perfect series, but it did well when it mattered. It didn't lose sight of its core message and consistently put the kids at the center of its storytelling. Perhaps if Netflix did revive Fuller House for season 6, they can pick up where they left off and shift the narrative to be around their younger cast.