McKenna Grace's Netflix Riverdale Replacement Has Enough Stories To Last A Decade

Published Nov 1, 2026, 8:00 PM EST Cathal Gunning has been writing about movies, television, culture, and politics online and in print since 2017. He worked as a Senior Editor in Adbusters Media Foundation from 2018-2019 and wrote for WhatCulture in early 2020. He has been a Senior Features Writer for ScreenRant since 2020. While Riverdale’s entire story fell apart as the teen mystery drama continued, McKenna Grace’s next Netflix series can avoid this issue thanks to the extensive existing lore of its franchise's fictional universe. Riverdale seemed like a promising blend of murder mystery and teen drama when the show’s run began in 2017. While technically an updated take on the Archie Comics universe, the show was also obviously inspired by the classic small-town murder mystery Twin Peaks. Like Twin Peaks, Riverdale takes place in a titular town outside of time, populated by quirky, over-the-top characters and strange, surreal events. Although Riverdale season 1 was grounded, if campy, the show truly came into its own between seasons 2 and 3, when the series cranked up the surreal elements of its story. Eschewing season 1’s whodunit plot in favor of organ harvesting cults, evil nuns, cursed board games, and multiple masked murderers, Riverdale’s golden age was a bizarre, gleefully silly era. Sadly, as fast as the show became a cult hit, Riverdale’s audacity also proved its undoing. Despite featuring as much supernatural and paranormal action as a season of The X-Files, Riverdale maintained a flip, detached tone that made its later seasons feel too lightweight for their own good. Unlike Twin Peaks, where the characters always felt human despite the absurdity of the show’s stories, Riverdale winking-ly acknowledged its own artificiality. Fortunately, Netflix’s upcoming replacement, Scooby-Doo: Origins, can avoid this mistake. Scooby-Doo: Origins Could Run For Several Seasons Based On The Franchise's History Image courtesy of Netflix On the face of it, Scooby-Doo: Origins might sound more like Disney’s Coven Academy or Netflix’s Wednesday than Riverdale. Starring Scream 7’s breakout star McKenna Grace as Daphne, Are You There God? It's Me's Margaret's Abby Ryder Fortson as Velma, and Cobra Kai’s Paul Walter Hauser as the eponymous dog's original owner, Scooby-Doo: Origins is the first live-action series in the 57 years of the franchise. However, the fact that the show comes from Josh Applebaum and Scott Rosenberg, the co-creators of Netflix’s teen drama Everything Sucks, proves Scooby-Doo: Origins will be more of a YA mystery show and teen drama than a family-friendly children's adventure series. While the series is unlikely to get quite as dark as Peacock’s recent Friday the 13th prequel Crystal Lake, the synopsis of Scooby-Doo: Origins does point toward an edgier tone for the prequel reboot. Set on the last day of their shared summer camp as teens, Scooby-Doo: Origins will see Daphne, Velma, Fred, Shaggy, and Scooby meet for the first time and solve their first case together, becoming the iconic Mystery Inc. gang in the process. Much like Riverdale, its spinoff Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Hulu’s Hardy Boys and Goosebumps shows,and The CW’s Nancy Drew, the series is set to turn an iconic kid’s franchise into a live-action YA mystery series. Scooby-Doo’s Spinoff Shows Have Struggled To Last In Recent Years Unlike most of these shows, though, Netflix’s Scooby-Doo: Origins is unlikely to run out of source material to adapt. After all, there are 14 Scooby-Doo TV shows, two theatrical live-action movies, another three straight-to-DVD live-action movies, and over 40 direct-to-video animated movies in the six-decade history of the series, and that’s without even mentioning Scooby-Doo’s one-off specials, video games, and tie-in comics. However, despite the sheer amount of stories the new show could use as inspiration, Scooby-Doo: Origins won’t necessarily have an easy time bringing back the seminal series. In recent decades, none of Scooby-Doo’s TV shows have lasted more than two seasons, with 2002’s What’s New Scooby-Doo being the last outing to make it to a third season back in 2006. Despite boasting radically different art styles, tones, and even age ratings, 2006’s Shaggy & Scooby-Doo Get a Clue, 2010’s Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated, 2015’s Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!, 2019’s Scooby-Doo and Guess Who, and Mindy Kaling’s infamous R-rated HBO Max reboot Velma were all canceled after only two seasons. Thus, Scooby-Doo: Origins has a 20-year curse to break for the Netflix show to last as long as Riverdale. Network Netflix Directors Toby Haynes Writers Josh Appelbaum, Scott Rosenberg Cast Abby Ryder Fortson Velma Dinkley Maxwell Jenkins Fred Jones Tanner Hagen Shaggy Rogers Franchise(s) Scooby-Doo Creator(s) Joe Ruby, Ken Spears