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How do!

Having returned from visiting friends, and recovered from my Christmas Lunch food coma induced by said friend’s Slap Up Feast, I’m bingeing some lovely telly.

Today’s choice is The Real Ghostbusters. And being the 21st Century, I’ve been Googling the odd episode here and there, and learned the odd interesting fact about the show’s production values.

And in turn, my appreciation for this show got me thinking about other spin-offs which whilst yes, still a Cash Grab (otherwise they’d have done something actually original) are far from being lazy cash grabs, and may even have bettered their parent show or film. As ever I’ll give some opening examples and some level of explanation.

But I’m not counting Latter Day Sequels With A New Cast, because those are Sequels or Prequels.

The Real Ghotbusters

OK they don’t look like their movie contemporaries. But that’s about the limit of criticism. And….it ran for a pretty long time, as kid’s shows there to sell toys are reckoned. More importantly, some elements come from earlier versions of the Ghostbusters script, and genuine “real” ghost lore (such as regional ghost stories or house spirits and that). For an 80’s kid’s cartoon there primarily to sell toys, this is simply far, far better than it ever should’ve been. It even influenced Ghostbusters 2 (Winston being clean shaven, different coloured overalls for each cast member). It also remains bloody entertaining.

The Sarah Connor Chronicles

Oh what a wonderful show! Ran for two seasons, cut down in its prime. And it only ever added to the lore. Excellent cast throughout. Some bloody interesting ideas. It was so good, I think I actually fear someone trying to resurrect it, as it couldn’t be the same.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer (first three seasons for sure, four and five subjective), then Angel, the spin off of the spin off.

Stargate SG1, and to a lesser extent Stargate Atlantis.

Frasier was a good spin off series from Cheers.

War of the Worlds The Series had a lot of good moments.

Andor. (Are we counting Star Wars in this?)

Highlander the Series.

We count Star Wars, but nothing Ep 1-9.

The Godzilla cartoon based on the 1996 film is way better than it has any right to be.

Goblin Slayer Year One is better than Goblin Slayer. Fight me.

Though should probably have to rule anything MCU is out. As it’s all part of the greater whole.

Paramount technically considers anything post Star Trek TOS as a spin off, so Deep Space 9.
Season one has a lot of guff but it's still pretty neat and even then there are a lot of gems early on, Dramatis Personae is possibly one of the best Star Trek episodes period.
The characters are brilliant and the Ferengi actors especially (Armin Shimmerman, Aron Eisenberg, and Max Grodenchik) take the joke race and turn them into stunning characters. The chemistry between the cast is brilliant and the stories are really good. It gets the mix of self contained adventures and overarching plots really nicely as well.

Does the MASH TV series count as a spinoff from the movie?

 Gert wrote:
Paramount technically considers anything post Star Trek TOS as a spin off, so Deep Space 9.
Season one has a lot of guff but it's still pretty neat and even then there are a lot of gems early on, Dramatis Personae is possibly one of the best Star Trek episodes period.
The characters are brilliant and the Ferengi actors especially (Armin Shimmerman, Aron Eisenberg, and Max Grodenchik) take the joke race and turn them into stunning characters. The chemistry between the cast is brilliant and the stories are really good. It gets the mix of self contained adventures and overarching plots really nicely as well.

DS9 is a masterclass in World Building.

I mean it has 7 seasons, as was the fashion at the time but they were called Dinglebatickles. And in those 7 Dinglebatickles, we have Bajoran, Cardassian, Ferengi, Trill, Founder, Jem Hadar and Vorta explored in quite decent depth - and even Klingon Culture put under a micro-scope. Not to mention fleshing out a whole previously unexplored quadrant of the Galaxy.

For me, and I suspect many others, it will always be the High Point of Trek. Which isn’t to say everything else therefore is guff. Just that DS9 has never been bettered.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Does the MASH TV series count as a spinoff from the movie?

I’m gonna say yes, because I’m not familiar with either, other than knowing they exist.

Better Call Saul (from Breaking Bad)

StarGirl (from the Arrowverse, so ultimately from Arrow)

The Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (from the Disney land/world ride).
Particularly the first one, but 2 & 3 are also pretty entertaining. And all are surprisingly good when you consider they cane from an amusement park ride....

If that counts, then Clue. A classic comedy based on an annoying board game.

Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance was a great exploration of the world from the original film and a more grown up fantasy series.

Deep Space Nine
Highlander: The Raven
The Clone Wars
Star Wars: Rebels
Sarah Connor Chronicles
Spiderman & his Amazing Friends

Torchwood?

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Torchwood?

Children of Earth and Miracle Day absolutely 100%. And whilst not gatekeeping, I’m not sure the regular seasons would qualify for me!

Duck Dodgers.

Surely you mean Duck Dodgerth?

Dethpicable potht

NCIS was a spinoff of JAG.

The Jeffersons

Millennium was a spinoff of the X-Files. Also, the Loan Gunmen, which was hilarious. It got gunned down with only one season, but it got wrapped up in an X-Files episode in a funny way.

Batman Beyond was a spinoff of Batman the Animated adventures, and was totally awesome.

Oh, and let's not forget all the CSI spinoffs, each with their own Who song as an intro, forever keeping that band in royalty money.

Homicide: Life on the Streets had it's Spinoff, Law&Order. Which then had it's own spinoffs: L&O Special Victims Unit, L&O Criminal intent, L&O Trial by Jury, L&O L.A., L&O UK, L&O Hate Crimes, L&O True Crime, L&O Organized Crime.

TLG also had a plot thread in its pilot episode about remote controlling a passenger aircraft into the WTC, though - not long before the actual thing happened.

Which probably didn't help it.

Nowadays, TLG would be a spin-off from Qanon.

SamusDrake wrote:

Highlander: The Raven

This got a lot of flak at the time, but I have recently watched it and it is pretty solid. The first couple episodes suck, but they improve a lot as the show goes on.

I think the biggest thing is that Amanda just is not the duelist that Duncan is, and the few sword fights we watch, are a bit naff. However, I liked that most story lines either were not Immortal of the week, or were even resolved without dead immortals.

I vaguely remember enjoying that show, but the number one fan comment of the day was always “where was she hiding that sword, hur hur.”

I think this was around the time Babylon 5 got my attention, and *guy checking out new girl meme*.

Delta Green takes all the cosmic horror and futilitarianism of Lovecraft's work, and shows the terrible human consequences of knowing your place in the universe. It can be hard to get the tone right in a TTRPG setting, but the fiction can be truly sublime.

 cuda1179 wrote:
...

I'm not sure if that was a list of good spin offs or just a list of who had the most.

Although I must admit to have rather enjoyed Bradley Walsh's turn in UK Law&Order.

From my experience with classic television, I'm gonna mention Adam-12, which is technically sort of a spinoff from Dragnet. I've seen a lot of that show recently as it's been on a channel called MeTV here in the USA. Some episodes were fairly gritty for the time period, dealing with all manner of crimes from murders to robberies to child abuse/molestation. The show even had a crossover episode with Emergency, although I don't think that show was a spinoff of Adam-12 despite being made by a lot of the same people.

 ZergSmasher wrote:
From my experience with classic television, I'm gonna mention Adam-12, which is technically sort of a spinoff from Dragnet. I've seen a lot of that show recently as it's been on a channel called MeTV here in the USA. Some episodes were fairly gritty for the time period, dealing with all manner of crimes from murders to robberies to child abuse/molestation. The show even had a crossover episode with Emergency, although I don't think that show was a spinoff of Adam-12 despite being made by a lot of the same people.

Classics across the board there that tell stories still relevant today. I wonder just how influential Adam-12 and Emergency were on me as a kid greedily watching as much of those shows as I could back in a world before the internet and play on demand accessibility. I did not start watching Dragnet until the last decade but that is a pretty good show too if you can look beyond the memes.

Is the Dragnet film an offshoot of the series? I watched the film about 11 times in a row, rather before I was old enough to really understand all the references.

The film I think is a spoof take on the original series?

Yeah, that is what I meant… if I remember correctly the movie highlights meme material and spoofs the classic TV show. It took me awhile to give the TV show a chance because of the memes around it but I was glad when I finally did. I guess it was a bit more than a decade ago that I watched the TV series now that I think about it. Wow, how time flies!

I remember this bit really resonating with me as a rookie. It is a lot more of an accurate take on my experiences in the Job than most contemporary cop shows reflect.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7COcohB9n3w

Think I have to nominate Young Sheldon. Not as mean spirited as it’s overrated predecessor, it’s a warm hearted family suitable comedy.

The humour is derived from folk trying to accommodate for Sheldon’s eccentricities, rather than Sheldon being eccentric.

Well, at least up to season 2 as that’s where I’m up to. I hope it doesn’t nosedive.

To me, part of the problem is just knowing what is and isn't a spin-off. Many of the shows I watched as a kid in the 80s were spin-offs of other shows, but I don't know which ones.

And while we're on the subject of Dragnet, is the TV series considered a spin-off of the original radio show? I don't think so, personally, as that's more remake/reboot/continuation-in-different-format.

And should we get started on the Tommy Westphall Universe Hypothesis?

Family Matters. That's right, Urkle was a spinoff of Perfect Strangers.