10 TV Show Spin-offs That Are Better Than the Original Series

The world of television is rich with spin-offs of every kind: good ones, bad ones, ones that never came to fruition, and ones you didn’t know existed. Sometimes, the spin-off might even outdo its source material. 

Beth Mowbray for Stacker looked at IMDb ratings to compile a list of 10 shows that did exactly that. Some of the entries have become so iconic in their own right that you might not have realized they started out as spin-offs. Before The Simpsons was its own show, for example, it was a series of shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show. 

Happy Days is a bit of a special case, because it wasn’t originally conceived from another show’s material. Creator Garry Marshall developed a pilot for a regular family sitcom, but after it failed to sell as its own series, it ended up premiering as a segment on the anthology series Love, American Style.

Good Times is another special case, because, in Mowbray’s words, it’s “a spin-off of a spin-off.” First came All in the Family, which propagated not one, not two, but seven spin-offs. Among them was Maude, centered on Bea Arthur’s Maude Findlay, Edith Bunker’s (Jean Stapleton) cousin. From that series came Good Times, which follows the family of Maude’s housekeeper, Florida Evans (played by Esther Rolle).

A few entries are the subject of long-standing internet debates over whether the spin-off or the original show was better. Do you prefer Frasier over Cheers, or vice versa? Will Star Trek: The Original Series always be the pinnacle of Star Trek content, or did The Next Generation actually outperform it? 

Here’s what the IMDb ratings say. For more background on each series, check out Mowbray’s full breakdown on Stacker.

1. The Simpsons (1989 - Present)

IMDb rating: 8.7
Original show: The Tracey Ullman Show
Original show's IMDb rating: 7.1

2. Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987 - 1994)

IMDb rating: 8.7
Original show: Star Trek: The Original Series
Original show's IMDb rating: 8.4

3. Boston Legal (2004 - 2008)

IMDb rating: 8.5
Original show: The Practice
Original show's IMDb rating: 7.7

4. The Colbert Report (2005 - 2014)

IMDb rating: 8.4
Original show: The Daily Show
Original show's IMDb rating: 8.3

5. The Originals (2013 - 2018)

IMDb rating: 8.3
Original show: The Vampire Diaries
Original show's IMDb rating: 7.7

6. Frasier (1993 - 2004)

IMDb rating: 8.2
Original show: Cheers
Original show's IMDb rating: 7.9

7. Daria (1997 - 2002)

IMDb rating: 8.1
Original show: Beavis and Butt-Head
Original show's IMDb rating: 7.5

8. Good Times (1974 - 1979)

IMDb rating: 7.4
Original show: Maude (a spin-off of All in the Family)
Original show's IMDb rating: 7.3

9. Happy Days (1974-1984)

IMDb rating: 7.4
Original show: Love, American Style
Original show's IMDb rating: 6.8

10. Xena: Warrior Princess (1995 - 2001)

IMDb rating: 6.7
Original show: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys
Original show's IMDb rating: 6.4