8 Intriguing TV Spinoffs That Never Happened

When television spinoffs go right, they can succeed with flying colours. Just ask Frasier or The Flash, both of which were spawned from perfectly popular series but then managed to outshine their parent shows in most viewers’ hearts (Cheers and Arrow, respectively). Of course, for every success story there is a spinoff that utterly flops. The acclaim of The X-Files did not follow The Lone Gunmen when they went solo in their short-lived 2001 series, and David Hasselhoff left Baywatch to star in Baywatch Nights, a bizarre mess of a show that combined cop shows with crazy Scooby Doo-like supernatural mysteries. The list goes on. But what about those spinoffs that never got the chance to prove their worth? Well, this is their story. Read on for eight television spinoff shows that sounded intriguing but unfortunately never happened. Sure, they might not have been that great, but we would have liked the chance to judge that for ourselves. 8) Girlfriends When Friends ended after ten seasons in 2004, fans were desperate for more from the gang. Unfortunately, their prayers were answered with the underwhelming spinoff Joey, which didn’t even make it to a full two seasons before being cancelled. At one stage, though, there was another Friends spinoff in the works. The idea was to build a show around Lisa Kudrow’s Phoebe Buffay, where she would move in with latter-day Friends character Charlie (as played by Aisha Tyler). Naturally, the show would have been called Girlfriends. Despite plans to feature former Friends regulars like David Schwimmer in recurring roles, the show failed to come to pass. The problem might have been that, to make the premise work, Girlfriends would have had to undo Phoebe’s ending in the original show, where she was happily married to Paul ‘Ant-Man’ Rudd. Still, it very well could have been more successful than Joey. 7) A Seinfeld Off-Shoot Starring Jackie Chiles A Seinfeld spinoff could well have been great, as there were a bunch of characters who could have gone solo. However, the Seinfeld spinoff that did actually get to the discussion stages would have focused on a pretty minor character. Though Phil Morris only appeared in just six episodes of Seinfeld, his character Jackie Chiles (a parody of O.J. Simpsons’ lawyer Johnnie Cochran) was deemed worthy enough of his own show. According to Morris, the idea that he, Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld had come up with was that Chiles would find himself as the only black employee of an all-white law firm. Somewhat strangely, NBC outright denied that they had any knowledge of such a show - so it's possible Morris was stretching the truth a bit. In any case, he later played the role again in a series of Honda commercials and Funny or Die videos. 6) Twin Peaks’ Audrey Horne Goes To Hollywood After 26 years, David Lynch’s classic surreal crime series Twin Peaks will return in 2017 with nearly all of the original cast returning to their roles. However, we could have got more Twin Peaks a lot sooner if this idea for a spinoff came to fruition. Lynch was so fond of Sherilyn Fenn’s character Audrey Horne that he planned to build a series – or, according to other sources, a one-off movie – around her. The writer/director’s plans were summed up with the phrase ‘Audrey Goes To Hollywood’ and would have seen her, in Fenn’s words, “driving around Mulholland in this convertible car.” What's interesting about this one is that, even though discussions for the spinoff fell through, Lynch fans still got to see this idea make it to the screen. He subsequently developed it into a film instead and made Mulholland Drive, released in 2001 and starring Naomi Watts in what was originally the Audrey role. 5) How I Met Your Dad After the finale of long-running favourite How I Met Your Mother managed to offend most of the sitcom’s many fans, the show’s creators were really keen on appeasing the viewers by giving them a spinoff. Rather than a conventional off-shoot featuring familiar characters, How I Met Your Dad would have been independent from HIMYM. The link would have been that it gender-swapped the premise – with Sally recounting how she met her children's father. A pilot was made with Greta Gerwig in the lead (and Meg Ryan voicing older Sally in the wraparounds). Unfortunately, CBS and co-creators Carter Bays, Craig Thomas and Emily Spivey disagreed on the direction of the show. While the network wanted to reshoot the pilot with a new cast, the creators wanted a guaranteed full-season order first. Neither backed down and so, we never found out how those kids met their dad. 4) The Farm With The Office well past its best days and soon to wrap up with its final season, the producers were keen to keep the spirit of Dunder Mifflin alive. The spinoff they came up with was to be called The Farm and feature Rainn Wilson’s Dwight Schrute getting into wacky adventures as he ran his family’s old farm. To set up the show, a backdoor pilot was inserted into The Office’s ninth season. The problem was that audiences hated the episode – fans and critics alike blasted it for its cartoonish humour, which was at odds with the usual tone of the series. As such, the network decided to pass on the show and The Farm never went into business. It’s intriguing to think, though, what would have happened if the series had actually come to fruition. Lots of pilots don’t find their feet straight away, so perhaps there was a good show in there somewhere. 3) Rose Tyler: Earth Defence Doctor Who is such a long-running, expansive show that it makes complete sense that it has had numerous spinoffs over the years. Previously, the adult-orientated Torchwood and the child-friendly The Sarah Jane Adventures ran for four and five years a piece, and this year will see the debut of another in teen-centric Class. Former showrunner Russell T. Davies actually had an idea for yet another spin-off at one point, based around ex-companion Rose Tyler (played by Billie Piper). It would have seen Rose protecting a parallel Earth - the one she found herself in after leaving the Doctor - from alien threats. The BBC were enthusiastic about the idea, with the plan being that it would be a series of annual one-off specials. Even though work on the spinoff was ready to begin, Davies had a last-minute change of heart and scrapped the project. He later explained that he thought it was “a spinoff too far.” 2) Krusty The Clown (In Live-Action) It is pretty incredible that, in the 27 years it has been on the air, the phenomenon that is The Simpsons has never spawned a spinoff. Sure, the show itself mocked the very notion of that in a classic episode (where Wiggum starred in a clichéd cop show and Moe got a corny sitcom), but it's still surprising it never happened. That isn’t to say the idea has never been batted around, though. Back when the show was at the height of its success, Matt Groening pitched a live-action spinoff featuring Krusty the Clown, with Dan Castellaneta set to reprise his voice role in the flesh. The idea was that the TV clown would move to Los Angeles and land his own talk show. Though Groening co-wrote a pilot script with The King of Queens creator Michael Weithorn, the series never materialized due to a breakdown in contract negotiations. Instead, Groening moved onto another idea he had: an animated sci-fi comedy… 1) A Shed-Load Of Buffy The Vampire Slayer Spinoffs Thanks to the ingenuity of creator Joss Whedon, Buffy the Vampire Slayer helped revolutionize genre TV over its seven year run from 1997 to 2003. As such, it’s no surprise it spawned an independently successful spinoff in Angel. If Whedon had had his way, however, there would have been many more. Back when Buffy was still running, Fox greenlit an animated spinoff to be set in the early, high school-set years of the show. It would have featured most of the original cast, save Giselle Loren replacing Sarah Michelle Gellar. Six scripts were produced (and a short pitch presentation was animated), but the network sadly backed out of the project. Once Buffy and Angel ended, Whedon worked on various follow-ups starring the likes of Faith, Giles and Spike. While Eliza Dushku turned down the opportunity to reprise her role, Anthony Head and James Marsters were both enthusiastic. Sadly, perhaps due to Whedon’s busy schedule, neither of these got off the ground. Fans instead got more Buffy through the official comic book continuation, which is still going strong today.