Best & Worst TV Spin-offs: Worst: CSI: Miami (2002-present)

Worst: Knight Rider (2008)
Spun-off from: Knight Rider (1982-1986), the crime thriller in which David Hasselhoff foils baddies with the help of a talking car called KITT. Seriously.
Hit or Miss? Miss. US critics blanched at this update of the '80s series, which followed the son of Hasselhoff's character and a newer, shinier, tricked-out KITT. Its low ratings meant Knight Rider did not cruise through to a second season.
Factoid: The 2008 Knight Rider wasn't the first time that TV attempted to reboot the series. In 1997 came Team Knight Rider, starring a group of pretty young things who all zoomed around on talking vehicles.

Never even heard of this iteration, but I did see some of Team Knight Rider back in the 90s which was predictably awful (and was actually the series I thought the author was referring to when I first saw the title).

Funnily enough I saw part of an episode of the original Knight Rider last week - it hasn't aged well with typical 80s hammy acting, and I just couldn't take The Hoff seriously at all.

 

Best: Angel (1999-2004)
Spun-off from: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003), starring Sarah Michelle Gellar as a young women who (duh!) slays vampires.
Hit or Miss? Hit. Angel, which told the story of Buffy's vampire lover (David Boreanaz) and his monster-fighting club, featured frequent crossovers by Buffy's characters in early seasons. It even eventually defeated its parent series in the ratings.
Factoid: Buffy has existed in several different mediums: the TV show was spun-off from the 1992 film of the same name, and a comic book series continues the vampire slayer's adventures.

Never watched this (I'm having a good run aren't I?).

Unlike most of my friends I missed the Buffy-craze of the late 90s and only finally got to see the series a couple of years ago ... and I wasn't particularly awed by it (it was OK, but I felt no desire to watch beyond the 1st season**). As such, I never felt compelled to watch Angel either.



**(a friend has informed that Buffy really takes off in the 2nd season - maybe I should have stuck with it, but then again I just don't think vampires (or vampire slaying for that matter) is an area that particularly interests me)

 

I didn't get into Buffy until a couple years ago in college, but it's now my favorite TV show. Angel's a solid show in its own right. I don't think it had as many highs as Buffy and it lost itself in the end of the 3rd season and much of the fourth,but overall it's pretty good. The series finale is brilliant.

 

Best of the best! Buffy was a hugely successful spinoff of a largely unsuccessful film and Angel a hugely successful spinoff of it. Angel was actually better than Buffy in season 3 although Buffy rallied for season 7. Terrific and we shall not see it's like again!

 

Best: Frasier (1993-2004)
Spun-off from: Cheers (1982-1993), the long-running sitcom classic set in a bar where everybody knows your name.
Hit or Miss? Definitely a hit. This smart sitcom about lovably pompous Seattle shrink Frasier Crane (Kelsey Grammar) and his eccentric family and friends ran for 11 seasons (as long as its parent series) and was tapped for multiple Emmy Awards every single year.
Factoid: In addition to Cheers and Frasier, Grammar also played his most famous character on the sitcom Wings and he was Emmy-nominated for appearances on all three shows.

This was the first series I thought of when I originally saw this list (for 'best', obviously) purely based on reputation.

I never actually saw this show much (it was always screened at some God-awful time down under) but I did find the few episodes I saw funny.

 

Frasier, I think, actually exceeded Cheers. It is, in every way, a funnier show and a more artistic show. Grammar was brilliant, but David Hyde-Pierce routinely stole the show as Niles.

 

I've never really watched Cheers (I have vague memories of my parents doing so), but I love Frasier. I happened to watch an episode two years ago on a NY-London flight because Virgin randomly had a couple episodes in their video library. It was the one where Frasier took his father to the Opera and Martin pretended to be gay, and it absolutely killed me. Been an avid watcher of reruns since then.

 

I'd argue Frasier is THE best spin-off, because as mentioned, it actually exceeded its predecessor. Better all around cast. Unlike Cheers where I found several characters annoying, on Frasier, you really couldn't hate any of the main cast (Frasier, Niles, Martin, Daphne and Roz). In addition, while Kelsey Grammer was a great lead, his supporting cast held their own in several episodes. They also had incredible range in their performance. Martin at the parole hearing for the guy who shot him was a great one and then compared to Blah-Z-Boy where he and Frasier act like an old married couple. I can't think of any show that has made me laugh more. Episodes like Nightmare Inn were just perfect.

 

Frasier was brilliant, though I'd pick the Shelley Long seasons of Cheers over it.

 

I think "Frasier" was a lot more consistent than "Cheers" and rather more interesting. The writers had endless fun puncturing poor old Frasier's ego--and the episode where Frasier picks out a woman that looks exactly like his deceased Mom was even oddly moving.

ObiAnne, a query, are the shows shown in Swedish in Sweden, or subtitled?

 

I wondered about that one. I have to admit I have trouble with subtitled comedies, because you are so busy reading the subtitles that you lose the actors' expressions and inflections, which are such an important part of comedy.

I talked to someone who'd seen "My Fair Lady" in a theatre in Italy. He said it was dubbed, except for the songs, which were untouched.

 

Worst: AfterMASH (1983-1985)
Spun-off from: M*A*S*H (1972-1983), the sitcom juggernaut about the medical personnel struggling to endure the Korean War.
Hit or Miss? Miss. AfterMASH revealed what happened to M*A*S*H's Colonel Potter after he returned home from the Korea. Cancelled after just two seasons, the series is often remembered as one of the worst spin-offs of all time.
Factoid: M*A*S*H also spawned another spin-off. Titled W*A*L*T*E*R, it revolved around Walter "Radar" O'Reilly, who became a policeman after the war. Only one episode was ever produced.

I only know of this series from infamy.

 

W*A*L*T*E*R?

Migod.

 

No kidding. Never heard of W*A*L*T*E*R, but man, just reviewing the synopsis of the show certainly removed all doubt why it was never picked up. In the pilot, viewers learn that:

1)O'Reilly returned to Iowa, where he failed at farming. He sold the farm and the livestock and sent his mother off to live with his aunt.

2)His bride left him for another man after their honeymoon.

3)O'Reilly decides to commit suicide, and goes to a drug store to buy sleeping pills for an overdose (as well as aspirin, because sleeping pills give him headaches).

4)The drugstore clerk, Victoria, cheers him up and they became good friends. His cousin Wendell helps him get a job on the local police force.

5)Walter solves a dispute between two strippers, and gets his wallet back from a young would-be thief whose father had died in Korea.

I don't know how much input Gary Burghoff actually had in the show, but it was created by Bill Bixby, which is certainly strange.

 

Fraiser was superb, and yes, Niles increasingly stole the show as time went on. Also love the relationship between the father and his sons. Would have loved to have seen more of their mother (Stephanie Beecham?)

Best gag? Martin tells his sons of how he met their mother beside a dead body at a murder he was investigating.
Martin; "Didn't you ever wonder why she used to make those funny shaped gingerbreadmen on our anniversary?"
Niles (outraged)"We thought they were DANCING!"

Aftermash was actually pretty successful in it's first year but in the second they put it up against The A-team and it tanked. You could argue this was the 70s very leftwing sensibilities of post-Vietnam Jimmy Carter America coming up against the macho, confident, ultra-patriotic Reganite America

 

There was a couple of MASH sequel novels, by the original author, and yes, I've read them--the ones set in Maine, and they were pretty good. (The series where MASH goes to London, Paris, etc. were not written by him.) They involved Hawkeye as the protagonist, though. Joke: he was a right-winger in the books.

As for WALTER (I'm damned if I'll pander to those asterisks), stupid, stupid...and quite out of character. Radar was the type that would never dump his mother for starters.

 

Frasier: best spinoff EVER. The baseline which all other (sitcom) spinoffs will be measured.


As for WALTER, all I can say is 'what the ****'.

Based on that summary that Mr44 posted, that sounds ridiculously surreal. Was this supposed to be a sitcom? Or another product of the Alan Alda school of dramedy? In any case, the pilot's synopsis reads like Quentin Tarantino was writing it.

 

Worst: Joanie Loves Chachi (1982-1983)
Spun-off from: Happy Days (1974-1984).
Hit or Miss? Miss. Joanie (Erin Moran) may have loved Chachi (Scott Baio), but audiences did not love this sitcom about the young couple's attempts to start a band, ?perhaps because The Fonz was nowhere to be seen. It wasn't long before the series was axed, and the characters absorbed back into the original series.
Factoid: Happy Days - itself a sort-of-spin-off of the '70s series Love, American Style - spawned several spin-offs, including Laverne & Shirley, Mork & Mindy and the animated The Fonz & the Happy Days Gang.

I've only seen the odd episode of Happy Days in re-runs, and I've never heard of this series.

Can't help but note the production years - I wonder if the producers knew Happy Days was approaching the end of it's life and so were trying to extend it's success with this spin-off.

 

I'd never realized Happy Days ran that deep into the eighties. It's such a seventies show; the idea of Reagan-era Happy Days feels just bizarre.

 

I'll just mention that I think the episode of Frasier where Frasier and Niles open a restaurant together is like the pinaccle of TV comedy. The entire third act is just one of the most amazing pieces of farce I have ever seen.

I confess to nearly spitting up laughing about W*A*L*T*E*R. That's just amazing.

My favorite story about Joanie Loves Cachi is that it was a huge hit in . . . South Korea, I think, because in Korean, 'chachi' means 'penis.' That's totally an urban legend, but I do find it hilarious.

 

Oh, yes, this has success written all over it...take the two least engaging characters of a tired sitcom...!