When a show is so beloved, it’s only natural for fans to want more—and for networks to want to capitalize on the series' success. And that's when a spin-off is born. Of course, some go on to become critically acclaimed (we’re looking at you, Frasier), but they don't always capture that same magic in a bottle of the original (ahem, Joey). The 2010s were a particularly plentiful time in the history of spin-offs, with countless TV shows trying—and largely failing—to strike gold twice. For every Young Sheldon, there was a CSI: Cyber. If you want to take a trip down memory lane, we’ve rounded up 13 spin-offs from the 2010s you’ve probably forgotten about entirely or wish you could!
1 | Law & Order: LA
NBCBuilding off a beloved 20-year-long franchise like Law & Order with stars like Terence Howard, Regina Hall, Skeet Ulrich, and Alfred Molina may have seemed like a win in 2010. But Law & Order: LA's run that year made it clear that the audience wasn’t nearly as excited as they had been about the show’s previous spin-offs. In fact, the show lost more than half of its initial audience between its first episode and its finale—and TV critic Tim Goodman called it "so predictable and unchallenging." Unsurprisingly, NBC pulled the plug on Law & Order: LA in 2011 after just one season.
2 | Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior
IMDB/CBSThough the original Criminal Minds has been on the air for 14 season—with the show’s 15th and final one airing on CBS starting in Jan. 2020—the 2011 spin-off, Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, never quite found its audience. While the show starred Oscar-winner Forest Whitaker, it ran for just 13 episodes before being canceled in May 2011. And considering the scathing reviews—“If you choose to watch Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior with the sound on (hey, some people have to learn the hard way), then you’ll be treated to a bevy of clichés,” according to The Hollywood Reporter—it’s not hard to see why.
3 | The Real Housewives of D.C.
IMDB/BravoNot even Bravo's Real Housewives can crank out endless hits. The Real Housewives of D.C. cast member Michaele Salahi gained worldwide attention by crashing the 2009 White House State Dinner in November, not long before the show’s premiere in Aug. 2010, But even with all those headlines, The Real Housewives of D.C. became the franchise's first spin-off to fail to secure a second season, airing just 11 episodes before being canceled.
4 | The Finder
IMDB/FOXThe Fox hit Bones managed to captivate audiences for 12 seasons. But its 2012 spin-off, The Finder, only survived 13 episodes. The show, which followed Iraq War vet Major Walter Sherman (Geoff Stults)—a man whose traumatic brain injury makes him uniquely talented at locating things, people, and patterns—was dubbed a program you could watch without "making your brain sputter to life” by The Hollywood Reporter. It eventually met its end in May 2012 after just one season.
5 | CSI: Cyber
IMDB/CBSWhile CSI spin-offs CSI: New York and CSI: Miami aired for nine and 10 seasons, respectively, CSI: Cyber got just two seasons before getting the axe from CBS. Despite its cast—Oscar winner Patricia Arquette, Dawson's Creek alum James Van Der Beek, Shad Moss (AKA Bow Wow), and pop star Hayley Kiyoko—the show couldn't quite deliver the same compelling storylines of its predecessors. As TV critic Amy Amantangelonoted, "It’s simply not that exciting to see someone sitting at a computer typing, no matter how intense or menacing the look on his or her face."
6 | The Pauly D Project
IMDB/MTVSure, DJ Pauly D earned a lot of fans on Jersey Shore, but his 2012 spin-off hardly earned an uproarious response. It ran for a single 12-episode season on MTV in 2012, premiering in March and ending in June of the same year. And while Jersey Shore did manage to find spin-off success with Snooki & JWoww, The Pauly D Project couldn't capture the same magic. Las Vegas Weekly's Tim Bell called the series “boring,” noting that without his boisterous Jersey Shore buddies, Pauly D was "just a loud, obnoxious guy who dresses terribly and has stupid hair.” Tell us how you really feel!
7 | Chicago Justice
NBCChicago Justice, the fourth show in NBC's long-running Chicago franchise—which includes Chicago Fire, Chicago P.D., and Chicago Med—was canceled by NBC after just one season in 2017, proving too much of a good thing is wholly possible. However, the series, which also comes from Law & Order creator Dick Wolf, lives on in a way. The Chicago Justice character Peter Stone (Philip Winchester) joined the ranks of the dedicated men and women on Law and Order: SVU as a Manhattan ADA for the show's 19th and 20th seasons.
8 | Dash Dolls
IMDB/E!Keeping Up With the Kardashians may have a seemingly endless number of spin-offs at this point, but few as short-lived as Dash Dolls. The 2015 show, which followed the lives of employees at the Kardashian sisters’ Dash boutique in Hollywood, ran just eight episodes on E! before being canceled. After its premiere, TV critic Amatangelo prophetically wrote, “It's a Kardashian TV world. But we don't have to watch it.”
9 | Kris
IMDB/FOXDash Dolls wasn’t the only failed spin-off of the Keeping Up With the Kardashians franchise; and it also wasn't the first. In 2013, matriarch Kris Jenner tried her hand at a career as a talk show host, even managing to get her daughter Kim Kardashian and son-in-law Kanye West to reveal the first photo of their then-newborn daughter, North West, on the show to help draw an audience.
Unfortunately, even a publicity stunt that major wasn’t enough to keep fans coming back for more—Fox aired just 16 episodes of Kris over a six-week period before pulling the plug.
10 | Real and Chance: The Legend Hunters
IMDB/VH1While it may seem strange to change courses with a successful franchise, like, for instance, switching from a dating show to one about cryptids, that’s exactly what VH1 tried to do with Real and Chance: The Legend Hunters in 2010. The show starred brothers Ahmad “Real” Givens and Kamal “Chance” Givens, two former contestants on the dating show I Love New York, who previously had their own dating spin-off, Real Chance of Love. But this new spin-off saw them hunting mythical creatures, like Bigfoot. It aired for just one 10-episode season before being canceled.
11 | Ghost Hunters Academy
IMDB/SyfyWith the proliferation of ostensibly school-related hit programming, like VH1’s Charm School, in the mid-2000s, it seemed only natural that other franchises would get in on the action. And thus, Ghost Hunters Academy was born. The show, which followed individuals training to become ghost hunters, aired 12 episodes between Nov. 2009 and July 2010 before being canceled by Syfy.
12 | Audrina
IMDB/VH1MTV's spin-off The Hills may have been popular enough to air for six seasons after Laguna Beach ended on MTV, but not all of its stars found spin-off success. Case in point: Audrina Patridge, one of the show’s main cast members, got just a single 10-episode season out of her own eponymous VH1 reality show, with an average of just 610,000 viewers tuning in each week. And that was after MTV passed on airing the series at all. Ouch!
13 | Ravenswood
IMDB/ABC FamilyWhile Pretty Little Liars had seven successful seasons and a dedicated fan base, its 2013 spin-off, Ravenswood, had no such luck. The show, which kept some of PLL’s talent, like Tyler Blackburn, on board, only ran for a single 10-episode season before being canceled due to its low ratings. And while Pretty Little Liars fans may have enjoyed the show, giving it a 75 percent fresh score on Rotten Tomatoes, critics were less kind, with Vulture calling it “so uninspired” and the A.V. Club deeming it, simply, “boring.”
