Cartman
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Post by Cartman on Sept 11, 2021 19:10:47 GMT
This was touched on in the Only Fools and Horses thread, and the offshoot, The Green Green Grass was mentioned, which wasn't good. A couple of others spring to mind, one was Max and Paddy s Road to Nowhere, which was a very poor spin off from the brilliant Phoenix Nights, and an almost forgotten one, Going Straight, which was a follow up to the superb series Porridge.
I was and still am, a huge Porridge fan, but Going Straight was very bad in comparison. I think this was for two reasons, in Porridge Fletcher was the go to man for the rest of the cons, and he was the glue which held it together, in Going Straight, he was a nobody with a dead end job. Also, the other good characters from the nick were no longer in it.
Any more?
I've just thought of another one, Don't Drink the Water. It was an offshoot of On the Buses where Blakey went to live in Spain. It was dire. OTB had run out of steam anyway by the end and Reg Varney had bailed out late on, without Jack and Stan to argue with it didn't work.
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Post by Arthur Pringle on Sept 11, 2021 23:06:09 GMT
'Secret Army', the BBC drama about a French Resistance network helping downed RAF pilots to return to England spawned a pretty disastrous spin off serial 'Kessler'. Kessler concerns the hunt for the SS officer of the title 30 years after the end of WW2. Unlike Secret Army which is generally well written & acted, Kessler is a misfiring 'Boys From Brazil' type story which doesn't work well at all.
Interestingly, the final episode of 'Secret Army' which like Kessler is set 30 years after the end of the war, has never been shown on tv & is missing from the dvd set, the only way to see it is online. The Secret Army wikipedia page states- "This episode was withdrawn from transmission for unknown reasons, and has never been broadcast". It's thought it wasn't broadcast partly because it had a strong anti Communist tone to it.
Can't say I've watched a full episode of the 'Are You Being Served?' follow up 'Grace And Favour' as what I've seen didn't tempt me. The last series of AYBS was weak enough but resurrecting the characters years later was a mistake, it almost always is with any show. I consider the BBC Auf W Pet a 'spin off' of the first two series & haven't paid much attention to them despite the first 2 series being amoungst my favourite shows. They bear so little relation to the ITV series & the scripts are so weak that I don't even think of them as being Auf W Pet, much like Ray Daley era Minder holds no interest.
I quite like bad spin offs & remakes as they serve to underline how good the originals were.
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Nightfly
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Post by Nightfly on Sept 12, 2021 0:00:22 GMT
Robin's Nest was a poor spin off from Man About The House A big part of the fun of MATH was the hapless bachelor trying and failing to "win over" (for want of a better term), Chrissie and Jo. To have Robin settle down and open a bistro didn't give much scope for a storyline after the initial few episodes.
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Cartman
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Post by Cartman on Sept 12, 2021 7:34:26 GMT
Good shout on Kessler, I watched it at the time and haven't seen it since, Secret Army, which it was derived from was very good.
I'd forgotten about Grace and Favour, I wouldn't have bothered with that as I didn't much like Are You Being Served. Agree on the BBC remakes of Auf Weidersehn Pet, they were very poor, especially in comparison to the two superb ITV first series, in fact I have up on the last BBC one before it ended, it was so bad.
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Three Litre
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Post by Three Litre on Sept 12, 2021 8:19:14 GMT
Rock and Chips (I think) was the one from Only Fools, never appealed to me.
Good thread Carty.
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Three Litre
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Post by Three Litre on Sept 12, 2021 8:21:36 GMT
I was and still am, a huge Porridge fan, but Going Straight was very bad in comparison. I think this was for two reasons, in Porridge Fletcher was the go to man for the rest of the cons, and he was the glue which held it together, in Going Straight, he was a nobody with a dead end job. Also, the other good characters from the nick were no longer in it. The other characters made Porridge as they were needed for Fletch to riff off, it doesn't work if only Fletch has the good lines.
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Three Litre
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Post by Three Litre on Sept 12, 2021 8:25:15 GMT
Barlow was a spin off from Softly, Softly way back in the 70's which didn't do that well.
Possibly a bit like Going Straight they tried to rely on one character too much.
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Three Litre
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Post by Three Litre on Sept 12, 2021 8:50:22 GMT
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Post by Brown Granada on Sept 12, 2021 13:25:24 GMT
Don't drink the water was a spin off from On the busses where Blakey moves to Spain. I've just started watching it on youtube. It's quite funny but wasn't anywhere successful as OTB.
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Vienna
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Post by Vienna on Sept 12, 2021 14:47:36 GMT
This was touched on in the Only Fools and Horses thread, and the offshoot, The Green Green Grass was mentioned, which wasn't good. I don't ever remember watching a single episode of this spin-off for OF&H. Apparently they made 32 episodes over several series so it must have been OK viewing. Sad news to here last week that John Challis (Boycie) is battling cancer. Vi
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