The people love a sequel. Or a prequel, or a spin-off. Audiences have spoken, and they have said: “Please do not give us new characters or premises, they scare us and we would rather see our old friends from Full House again, thank you.” Which is why The Good Wife will soon beget The Good Fight, 24: Legacy will serve up a familiar premise with a new cast, and Rogue One saw the Star Wars factory continue its unceasing cycle of production and distribution. This is why the Duggars of 19 Kids And Counting fame keep getting TV shows; why so many things are getting Extreme Makeovers. This is why any low-stakes craft contest can be Great and British.
So what makes a good spin-off? How can a broadcaster avoid a Joanie Loves Chachi and make a Laverne & Shirley instead? Read on for some Dos and Don’ts of the fine art of the spin-off.
Don’t put all your eggs in one boring basket
While Friends was one of the most successful and long-running sitcoms in history, it also wrought the champagne of failed spin-offs: Joey. The show relocated the second-least-interesting Friend (we all know the No 1 spot goes to Ross) to Los Angeles, with no friends, eliminating in one fell swoop everything that made its predecessor a hit. The show was cancelled after two seasons, when it was discovered that “always hungry and/or horny” was not a fully realised character description.
Do change the game
All In The Family – a 70s sitcom about the working-class Bunker family, inspired by British series Til Death Do Us Part – was something of a spin-off matryoshka, containing within it five spin-offs. Of these, the most revolutionary by far sprang from a several-episode arc for guest star Bea Arthur. A feminist foil to the often backwards Archie Bunker, Maude Findlay got her own series in Maude, a trailblazing sitcom that covered issues like abortion, aesthetic pressure on women, and mental health in primetime. All In The Family pushed the envelope; Maude opened it up entirely.
Don’t fix it if it ain’t broke
Fans of CSI were thrilled to discover CSI’s Miami, Cyber, and NY all featured the same anonymous murdered women and cause-of-death puns as their progenitor. Teen Mom, Teen Mom 2, Teen Mom 3 and Teen Mom OG also subscribe to the “change nothing, produce more” school of television-making. The Bionic Woman was an early adopter of this formula, giving the Six Million Dollar Man treatment to Jaime Sommers, a beautiful tennis pro-turned-bionic super babe after a skydiving accident. When it comes to spin-offs, more is definitely more.
Do mine for gold in deep cuts
A short French & Saunders sketch spawned five seasons, eight specials, and one film we won’t talk about: Absolutely Fabulous. The sketch featured Saunders’s iconic performance as Edina Monsoon, while French was her mild-mannered daughter Saffron (played by Julia Sawalha in the series). Three minutes of a sketch into years of classic comedy? That’s value, sweetie darlings.
Don’t be afraid to move cities
It can be risky to set a spin-off in a new locale (see: Joey), but a big move paid off big for a newly single Massachusetts psychiatrist. Frasier’s creators took the doctor from Boston to Seattle to avoid having to feature former Cheers cast members. Although they couldn’t avoid a few crossover cameos, the new cast of Frasier worked out just fine: the show ran for 11 seasons. Added to his nine seasons on Cheers, Frasier Crane spent 20 consecutive years on TV, though fans were denied the Eddie spin-off we all deserve when the dog portraying him died, aged 15-and-a-half, in 2006.
Do take a risk
Spin-offs usually follow a popular character’s life after their departure from the original show. 2015’s Better Call Saul blazed trails with a spin-off prequel of Breaking Bad focused not on Walter White or Jesse Pinkman, but their dodgy attorney, Bob Odenkirk’s Saul Goodman. Fans of the original were worried: would it be too shticky? Would the shadow of the original loom too large, and prove impossible to live up to? Two seasons in, viewers and reviewers remain rapt, with not a pork pie hat in sight.
24: Legacy begins on FOX in February
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