10 TV Show Sequels That Failed Miserably

Baywatch nights
Courtesy: Everett Collection

TV series’ are a strange thing. No matter how popular they are, once they’re done, they’re done. Where movies can have countless sequels, TV shows tend to stay finished once the finale credits roll. But then again, judging by how these TV sequels turned out, there’s possibly a reason why that’s the case. Here’s ten TV sequels that totally failed.

The rules for these are that they have to feature some of the main characters or key cast in the new show, they continue the original plot of the show to some extent, or side plot of character development, or that they are simply set in the same location as the former show.

 

1. Man to Man with Dean Learner – Sequel to Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace

Darkplace was a massively underrated British sitcom. Generally well received by critics, the show struggled due to a late slot (10:30pm) and due to a general confusion as to what the show actually was because the show was generally played totally straight in adverts. The show was suppose to be a lost 80s TV horror show, but actually filmed in the 00s, the series blended purposefully poor acting with shoddy sets and effects for humour. The series was also interspersed with talking head style interviews with the ‘actors’ playing the characters. It was basically actors playing actors who were playing characters in Darkplace. Got it? If you said no then fair enough, and Darkplace struggled.

Channel 4 liked it enough to give its creators more work, but seeing as the show was essentially one gag stretched over 6 episodes, they decided to try something new. Man to Man with Dean Learner was a fictional talk show starring Richard Ayoade as Dean Learner (Darkplace’s ‘producer and star’). In each episode he would interview Matt Holness who would play different characters each week, including one appearance by Garth Marenghi himself.

Sadly, the show was just a bit shit. No easier way to say it then that. It was filmed in 2005, but Channel 4 didn’t really know what to do with it. Seeing a stinker on their hands the show was limply sneaked out in September 2006. Sadly, to date this is the last we’ve heard of Learner and Marenghi, but maybe we’ll still get War of the Wasps one day.

 

2. Weirdsister College – sequel to The Worst Witch

Before Harry Potter we had another magic student who graced our television screens: Mildred Hubble. Okay, it’s not as catchy a name as Harry Potter and didn’t quite match the heights of Pottermania, but The Worst Witch was a fairly popular children’s TV series from 1998 to 2001. Jill Murphy began writing the Worst Witch books in the 1970s and Murphy continues to write them today, although they are do not have regular releases with more decade passing between The Worst Witch All At Sea (1993) and The Worst Witch Saves The Day (2005), however, this has helped the series’ longevity and kept its cult status.

It was also previously adapted into a TV movie in the eighties and 2017 saw the show rebooted. ITV’s The Worst Witch came at the tail end of the nineties and with Mildred attending an all girls school which attracted a large female following, which was lacking from much of the CITV lineup. However, kids grew up and so to continue the show we saw Mildred going to college in Weirdsister College. The show didn’t manage to hit the same audience as The Worst Witch and it also hit at the tail end of 2001, smack bang in the centre of Harry Potter hysteria. Weirdsister College couldn’t compete with a Hollywood movie budget, and in comparison the series felt cheap and a bit basic, and was cancelled after one season.

The Worst Witch returned in 2005 as The New Worst Witch and attempted to capitalise on the Potter craze, but after two seasons that too was cancelled.

 

3. Crusade – sequel to Babylon 5

After Babylon 5 finished, a TV movie called A Call To Arms continued the universe of the show and was, as you can guess from the title, about a war known as the Shadow War. At the end of the movie, Earth is infected with a virus that will kill all life on the planet after 5 years, unless a cure can be found, so it’s up to the crew of the Excalibur: a prototype research ship to explore the galaxy searching for a cure.

I recall Crusade being shown in the UK super late on a Friday night, and was a great little series featuring a terrific cast led by Gary (‘What’s Happening’) Cole. The show was actually more akin to the likes of Star Trek than it was to Babylon 5 and saw the crew going on intergalactic adventures, exploring where no one had gone before, albeit with a Babylon 5 flavour. The show was due to have a 5 year story arc, just like Babylon 5 before it, but even before the show aired, problems arose.

The TNT network made 13 episodes, but after doing research the network management lost faith in the project, after discovering that Babylon 5 fans didn’t really watch much other TNT content, and that general TNT viewers didn’t watch Babylon 5, so Crusade was cancelled even before the first episode aired. The Sci-Fi Channel attempted to purchase the show to continue, but simply couldn’t afford it. It’s a real shame, because Crusade was the closest anyone had come to replicating the likes of Star Trek, but also creating something totally different at the same time.

 

4. Caprica – prequel to Battlestar Galactica

Okay, bit of a cheat this one, as Caprica isn’t a sequel but a prequel. However I’ll allow it as it furthers the original show’s plot while coming after it. So there.

Few would have imagined how successful the remake of the campy 70s Battlestar Galactica would be, becoming one of the greatest Sci-Fi shows of the naughties. But yet it did as Battlestar Galactica ran for four seasons as well as a couple of TV movies and was a huge fan favourite in sci-fi circles. So it’s not surprising that the show had a follow up in the form of Caprica.

The show’s creators wanted to make a totally different type of show and Caprica largely follows the creation of the Cylons, androids created from humans who would later turn on their creators, and would become the main protagonists of Battlestar. The show didn’t have much space-y-ness going on, instead focusing on urban locations, also it had much more grounded storylines, focusing on political, corporation and personal plots, which differed greatly from Battlestar.

But as with all things, ratings are a great issue, and Caprica didn’t have people tuning in in droves. In the United States, the show managed around 1.5 million at most with many episodes getting well under the 1 million mark. With this, the network Syfy took the decision to cancel the series, and also failed to air the last 5 episodes, which were all shown at a later date. The show received a good response from critics and was nominated for a number of awards, but this wasn’t enough to save it.

 

5. Grace & Favour – sequel to Are You Being Served?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pnuDv3uRiec

When I found out that there was a sequel to Are You Being Served?, I had two questions: “really?” and “why?”. That’s a bit mean though, because while I didn’t like department store based comedy Are You Being Served?, many people did. In fact, in a country where sitcoms usually only last for three seasons at most, it’s insane to learn that Are You Being Served? ran for a decade. After debuting in 1972, it pushed the envelope for TV sitcoms by including risque and innuendo based humour.

However, Are You Being Served? also fell into some of the great, bad sitcom tropes, with a movie in 1977 that saw the cast all go on holiday together, with hilarious consequences! Then nearly a decade after the show ended, Grace & Favour debuted. The show follows the plot that the owner of the Grace Brothers Department Store had died and left his manor to his employees, which explains why they’re all there. Classic British writers Jeremy Lloyd and David Croft do deserve praise for attempting something different, as the show featured a continuous story arc, as opposed to Are You Being Served?, which had a new story each episode.

While the show did well enough to get a second season, comedy had moved on throughout the 80s and into the 90s and Grace & Favour seemed a little dated, and the show’s humour simply didn’t translate to modern audiences.

 

6. Seaquest 2032 – sequel to Seaquest DSV

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GrqLOiGkaNo

Seaquest 2032 technically is part of the same series of Seaquest DSV, as it’s classed as the third season. However, due to cast changes, and with the timeframe being so different, you’d easily class this as a follow up to DSV. Seaquest DSV turned a lot of heads when it debuted in 1993, with Steven Spielberg as executive producer and Jaws star Roy Scheider as Captain Nathan Bridger. The show came with lots of excitement, especially as it was advertised as Star Trek, but set underwater.

However, when DSV debuted people found it was little like Star Trek, with the show tackling issues like the environment, politics and crew relationships. DSV was also marred by disputes between network NBC, the production team and the cast, leading to an unhappy marriage of sorts. The second season attempted to bridge the Star Trek gap, bringing in genetically engineered life-forms, aliens, time travel and a ‘monster of the week’ feel to the show. Scheider publicly hated the second season and said in an interview:

“It’s childish trash… I am very bitter about it. I feel betrayed… It’s (the new season) not even good fantasy. I mean, Star Trek does this stuff much better than we can do it.”

So as you can imagine, he did not want to return as star for a third season.

Seaquest 2032 follows on from Seaquest DSV with the Seaquest itself appearing in a field, after it had been abducted by aliens in season 2. Much of the cast changed, leaving only Jonathan Brandis, Don Franking and Ted Raimi as the original cast members. Roy Scheider did actually appear in 2032, but only in a cameo role, with Michael Ironside taking the role of Captain Oliver Hudson. Seaquest 2032 focussed mostly on international politics and this was met with positive reactions from critics, however the damage had been done. The ratings continued to drop and Seaquest 2032 was cancelled after only 13 episodes.

 

7. Baywatch Nights – sequel to Baywatch

It’s hard to explain how truly massive Baywatch was. It shouldn’t have been, but it was. Nowadays, Baywatch is looked upon with a sort of campy nostalgia and, judging from the recent Dwayne Johnson Baywatch vehicle, people would rather remember it as a bit of fun and not the worldwide phenomenon that it was. That being said, Baywatch’s initial run was a total bomb. Cancelled after a single season, it was revived by star David Hasselhoff and the show’s producers. It would run for another 10 seasons.

Now, don’t get me wrong: Baywatch is awful. It’s personal relationships interspersed with saving drowning people and lots and lots of flesh, running and slow motion. The success of this show led to Baywatch getting a spin-off called Baywatch Nights. This show however did continue the story of David Hasselhoff’s Mitch Buchannon who joins a detective agency ran by the Sgt Garner Ellerbee (Gregory Allen Williams) after he suffers a midlife crisis. You couldn’t make this up. Actually, no, they did!

However, the show couldn’t match the success of Baywatch, so for the second season they added science fiction elements and brought in a paranormal expert. The X-Files was huge at this stage, and this was most likely a poor attempt at pulling some of that crowd towards Nights. It didn’t work (of course, why would it?) and the show was cancelled.

 

8. Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension – sequel to Eerie, Indiana

After the success of Twin Peaks in the early 90s, networks were falling over themselves for mystery shows based in small town America. So to find out that Joe Dante — yes that’s Joe ‘Gremlins’ Dante — was serving as creative consultant on just such a show, saw network NBC jump at the chance to produce it. Eerie, Indiana was aimed squarely at children, but still had the trademark suburban dread that Dante was known for, the show was a hit with critics who praised the show for its writing, direction and the fact it was suitable for kids with enough to keep adults entertained too.

However, ratings weren’t as high as NBC hoped, and people seemed a bit confused at to who this show was designed for. In Britain, it was broadcast at 6pm, facing opposition from many of the UK’s biggest soaps. After 19 episodes, the show was cancelled in 1992. The show began to receive reruns on Fox Kids in 1997 and began to pick up traction (also got a morning slot on Channel 4 in the UK summer holidays) and this was enough for Fox to produce Eerie, Indiana: The Other Dimension.

Unfortunately, as The Other Dimension came out a good six years after the original, stars Omri Katz and Justin Shenkarow were too old to reprise their roles as Marshall and Simon, so Bill Switzer and Daniel Clark were cast to play new characters called Mitchell and Stanley respectively. The premise was actually really good, with a crazy cable guy installing satellite dishes all over the town of Eerie, which allow the events of the original series to be presented as if it were a TV show, but in turn this allows the weirdness to spill over into the other dimension.

Sadly, few of the original Eerie team were involved in this follow up, so the show lacked the same spirit as the original show. This may have at least partially been the reason for the show being cancelled after 15 episodes.

 

9. The Royal Today – sequel to The Royal

Heartbeat was a period police drama series set in the 1960s. It was massively popular and after debuting in 1992 it went on to run for 18 series. Set in the fictional village of Aidensfield, it followed the day-to-day life of policing the Yorkshire area half a century ago. In series 12 they introduced a hospital to the show, this served as a backdoor pilot for The Royal, a medical show also set in the sixties.

The Royal was also popular, running for eights seasons itself and from this ITV decided to create a follow on show for The Royal set in the modern day, called The Royal Today. The BBC had had massive success with Casualty and Holby City (both medical shows) running since 1986 and 1999 respectively. ITV wanted a modern medical drama of their own and commissioned The Royal Today. The show had interesting ideas, with each episode showing events over a single day in the hospital and the show being shown daily (except weekends).

The show struggled from the off. For a start, its bizarrely early time slot of 4 pm saw The Royal Today miss most of its core audience, and each episode had only a 30 minute time slot (including one advertisement break). They had designed the show to be more akin to the traditional British soap opera, which are broadcast daily in a 30 minute slot, but this wasn’t enough time for The Royal Today to gain a fan following especially as the story was running day-to-day.

In the end, it was scratching an itch that wasn’t itchy and after only two months The Royal Today was axed due to low ratings.

 

10. AfterMASH – sequel to M*A*S*H

M*A*S*H was never a big hit over in the UK, but in the United States it was huge. Eleven seasons and over 200 episodes the show ended with the fans wanting more; AfterMASH proved that sometimes it’s not a good idea to give it to them. AfterMASH was a continuation of M*A*S*H, following the crew as they come home from the Korean War. The show actually managed to run for two seasons, but that’s the best thing about AfterMASH.

Critics were incredibly negative about AfterMASH, Time magazine voted it as one the 100 worst ever ideas, and TV Guide rated it as the seventh worst series ever created. M*A*S*H in its height had audiences of over 125 million viewers; that the show had sunk this low must’ve been a kick in the teeth to fans of the original series. But things would get worse.

For the second season, CBS decided to put AfterMASH up against NBC’s The A-Team, and ran an advertising campaign featuring the AfterMASH character Max Klinger shaving off the mohawk of Mr T. CBS genuinely believed that AfterMASH would take a chunk of The A-Team’s audience share away from NBC. The A-Team was already a big hit at this point, and AfterMASH didn’t stand a chance. Ratings plummeted and AfterMASH became one of the lowest viewed shows on television. AfterMASH was abruptly cancelled, leaving the show’s last ever episode unaired.

There were other shows that I wanted to feature but couldn’t. Saved By The Bell: The College Years was a show I loved personally as it featured many of the characters I’d grown to love, but the show itself didn’t quite work. Only Fools and Horses prequel Rock and Chips was an interesting idea, but it didn’t have the charm of the 80s show. The Golden Palace was a sequel to The Golden Girls, but never achieved the fame of the former show. Any TV sequels that bombed that you recall? Let us know in the comments!

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