While there are plenty of TV spinoff series that have worked — like the new Gen V from The Boys, Better Call Saul from Breaking Bad, Gutfeld! From Mein Kampf, etc. — not every show is worthy of a 2.0 knockoff. For every Frasier, there's, well, Frasier 2023. Here are a few of the most embarrassing continuations in TV history, most of which are barely streamable (with just cause).
CSI: CYBER (2015-2016)
The unnecessary 2021 CSI: Vegas reboot is spared from being the worst series of the forensics franchise thanks to the existence of CSI: Cyber. The two-season series is almost impossible to find, with good reason: It's more tech-challenged than your grandparents with a new universal remote. FBI psychologist Avery Ryan (Patricia Arquette) leads a team of hackers who bust cyber-criminals who commit atrocities like ... setting WiFi-connected printers on fire. Two seasons, huh?
BAYWATCH NIGHTS (1995-1998)
Lifeguard Mitch Buchanan (David Hasselhoff) joins up with Baywatch cop Garner Ellerbee (Gregory Allen Williams) to start a private detective agency with an office above Lou Rawls' nightclub. No cocaine was involved with that TV studio pitch, not at all. Even dumber, Baywatch Nights switched to an X-Files-esque paranormal format in Season 2, taking on sea monsters, vampires and parallel universes. How could a Baywatch spinoff with no beach babes possibly fail?
THE GOLDEN PALACE (1992)
Golden Girls Rose (Betty White), Blanche (Rue McClanahan) and Sophia (Estelle Getty) buy a Miami hotel (conveniently named The Golden Palace), only to find that it's financially in the red and has only two employees (Don Cheadle and Cheech Marin). If you're wondering "How does The Golden Girls work without Bea Arthur's Dorothy?", it didn't. The Golden Palace was quickly canceled but eventually paved the way for the animated Golden Girls 3033 (yes, it's real).
LIVING DOLLS (1989)
Wildly popular '80s sitcom Who's the Boss? had a spinoff you've never heard of, starring Halle Berry and Leah Remini. How is that possible? First, the backdoor-piloted Living Dolls had nothing to do with Who's the Boss aside from a couple of guest appearances by Alyssa Milano. Second, Berry (5'5") and Remini (5'3") played aspiring models, which requires a suspension of height disbelief on the level of buying a beach lifeguard moonlighting as a detective/alien hunter.
BEVERLY HILLS BUNTZ (1987-1988)
Of all the actors to spin off into their own series from the celebrated cop show Hill Street Blues, future Deadwood creator David Milch went with Dennis Franz. Sure, Franz went on to greatness as Sipowicz on NYPD Blue in the '90s, but handing him a headlining gig was Milch's lousiest notion prior to John From Cincinnati (I see you, TV nerds — stand down). Beverly Hills Buntz managed to be both an unfunny comedy and an unexciting cop drama, which is a hell of a trick.
THREE'S A CROWD (1984)
After eight seasons of Three's Company, ABC decided that Jack Tripper (John Ritter) could carry his own show. The cleverly titled Three's a Crowd gave Jack a girlfriend (Mary Cadorette) and her disapproving rich father (Robert Mandan) ... and that's it. The network even turned down Three's Company expat Suzanne Somers' offer to play Jack's girlfriend in the spinoff — that show would have been a hit. Even better, they could have played private detectives! Genius.
ARCHIE BUNKER'S PLACE (1979-1983)
Around the ninth season of All in the Family in 1978, star Jean Stapleton and show creator Norman Lear wanted to end the series because they thought it was creatively spent. CBS countered with, "But, money!" Carroll O'Connor relented and agreed to soldier on with Archie Bunker's Place, wherein he ran his own bar in Queens and continued to spout his patented rage and TV-friendly racism. Thankfully, Old White Guy Grievance Syndrome was totally cured in the '80s. ♦