5 sitcom spin-offs that never happened

Throughout the run of some of our favorite and most popular sitcoms on television, a lot of them have made their way to expansions into spinoffs, focusing on characters who we could not get enough of. Be it The Big Bang Theory leading to Young Sheldon, or Breaking Bad giving us Better Call Saul. Spinoffs have done fan service way better than anything else, giving the audience a better look into the characters that stayed with them.

However, spinoffs are not always successful. Take the Friends sitcom Joey, which barely lasted for two seasons or The Lone Gunmen from The X-Files, which makes the recipe for spinoffs a little more difficult than other sitcoms, which is probably why so many of them are shelved before they see the light of the day.

These unrealized shows live rent free in pop culture what-if territory, right alongside alternate endings and canceled final seasons. Here are five sitcom spin-offs that were so close to happening, you can practically hear the canned laughter, yet somehow never made it to your screen.

The Farm

Dwight Schrute may have been in his prime at Dundler Mifflin, but wait until you see him in full character on his farm. Throughout The Office, we get several moments about how amazing Dwight is as a farmer. The spin-off for the sitcom was supposed to follow Schrute's character and his life on the farm.

The seventeenth episode of the ninth season, an episode titled The Farm, already served as a pilot for the show. Paul Lieberstein wrote and directed the episode and was all set to be the showrunner for the spin-off.

Last year Rainn Wilson, who plays Dwight, opened up about the spin-offs cancellation on The Last Laugh podcast where he said,

"They were just not interested at all in Office spinoffs at the time. Had they taken The Farm, they’d probably have another billion dollars in the bank. Even now, all the people that have seen The Office 20 times, they’re going to watch The Farm at least once or twice. Would it have been as good as The Office? No. No way. Not even close. Would it have been good? Would it have been solid? Would it have been a good solid comedy? Yeah, it would have, and we would’ve done some really cool stuff. And I think they really missed out.”

How I Met Your Dad

Before How I Met Your Father ever became a reality, How I Met Your Mother almost took a very different spin-off route. Enter How I Met Your Dad, the show that came dangerously close to existing and then quietly vanished.

Announced in 2013, the sitcom was supposed to be a spiritual sibling to the hit sitcom, and would have followed Sally, a woman in New York figuring out her life, her failing marriage and the question of who she would end up with in the future.

CBS ordered a pilot, and the cast alone turned heads. Greta Gerwig was set to lead as Sally, with Meg Ryan voicing her future self. The supporting lineup included a stylish best friend, a tightly wound gay brother, his warm-hearted husband, and a hot nerd with unrequited feelings. On paper, it sounded fresh, funny, and perfectly of its time.But behind the scenes, things fell apart.

A Modern Family spin-off about Mitchell Pritchett and Cameron Tucker

Would we have watched a spinoff of Modern Family that followed just Mitch and Cam? Yes we would! After the finale, we see the couple moving on to live in Missouri for Cam's job, and that is exactly the premise the sitcom would have followed.

Behind the scenes, the wheels were already turning. A script was written by longtime showrunner Christopher Lloyd alongside executive producers Paul Corrigan and Brad Walsh. The concept was simple and charming: Follow Mitch and Cam as they adjust to small-town life, parenting, and a whole new cultural landscape far from Los Angeles. Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet both signed on, despite there being no network commitment at the time.

However, after a major Disney executive reshuffle, ABC passed on the script. Internally, the feeling was that the sitcom's idea did not quite live up to the original series, with added concerns about the show’s overall setup. In an interview with Graham Bensinger, Eric Stonestreet, who plays Cameron, spoke about the cancellation and said,

“Chris Lloyd and a couple of the writers wrote a really great script that spun Jesse and I off in our life in Missouri, and they said ‘no’. They just said, ‘We don’t want to do it. And I think it hurt Jesse and I’s feelings. I think it hurt Chris Lloyd’s feelings.”

Windward Circle

If you ever had complaints about Milo Ventimiglia's less time on screen during Gilmore Girls, then Windward Circle would have fixed that. This spinoff for the hit sitcom would have revolved around Ventimiglia's character Jess Mariano and his relationship with his father Jimmy. Set in Venice Beach, the sitcom would have followed Jess and his life in California as he looks for a stable life while navigating the complicated nature of his relationship with his father.

The episode Here Coes The Sun was actually a backdoor pilot to the spinoff, but it was later canceled in 2003 because the cost of shooting it in Venica was too much.

Valley Girls

After Gossip Girl signed off, fans had the gift of Valley Girls, a spinoff that would have shown viewers exactly how Lily van der Woodsen became Lily Van der Woodsen. The spinoff had a backdoor pilot in the second season where the episode followed a teenage Lily Rhodes after she gets kicked out of boarding school and heads to California with her sister Carol.

The cast was being led by Brittany Snow as a young Lily, while Krysten Ritter played Carol. The show would have leaned into their relationship as siblings and their lives growing up, bringing in an emotional core that Gossip Girl almost always sidelined with it's depiction of all that glam and fashion.

However, things ended up not working as CW passed on the script. It's something that Gossip Girl fans still talk about, and would have been a wonderful addition to the sitcom's success.

Edited by Nibir Konwar

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