For years now, the crusty yet sympathetic Colonel Time has been telling Sylvester Stallone that Rambo is over, only to be told repeatedly that nothing is over—that you just don’t turn a franchise off. And so, talks have begun about bringing Rambo to the TV landscape, which he can then pockmark with dramatically scaled-down explosions, for the first time since the Rambo kids’ cartoon, whose existence now seems perfectly logical in retrospect.
Some may recall that—after previously abandoning his Rambo mission and pursuing a more self-reflective life among the big wooden stick-fights of The Expendables—Stallone said last year that he was interested in doing a fifth Rambo movie as a means of bringing closure to the character and/or “passing the torch,” presumably at the end of an arrow. And now Stallone is in talks to participate in this TV version of Rambo on a “creative level”—potentially even reprising his starring role, in the understandably reduced capacity that his film shooting schedule and the laws of biology will allow.
Perhaps Rambo will open every episode with Stallone in front of a crackling fireplace, reading some of his favorite Rambo stories from a leather-bound book. Perhaps Rambo will embark upon his most treacherous mission yet: as the live-in babysitter to three rambunctious teenagers, all while trying to live the college life with his wacky friend played by Willie Aames. Or who knows, perhaps a Rambo TV series will end up being sort of silly.