The straightest line for Star Trek would be:
Star Trek → TNG → DS9
TNG is definitely not a spinoff of TOS from the OP’s critera, and as mentioned above I don’t really personally count DS9 as a spinoff of TNG since it doesn’t primarily star Miles O’Brien (but others might count it).
From the OP:
Any other TV shows that one of the spinoffs had a spinoff that involved the same characters played by the same actors?
I, personally, think of it as a spinoff, as the Cardassian-Bajoran conflict had been established in TNG, but by your OP definition, the link is more tenuous, as Miles O’Brien (until joined by Worf, much later) is the only carryover between the two series, and O’Brien was a secondary character in TNG. (Miles’ wife Keiko was also a recurring character on TNG, but in an even smaller role.)
At this moment, I happen to be watching the TNG episode “Ensign Ro,” (the first appearance of the Bajorans), which reminded me that the producers of DS9 originally intended to include Ro Laren (a Bajoran Starfleet member) as a member of the main cast. But, when actress Michelle Forbes declined to join the cast, they reworked the idea of the Ro character, creating Kira Nerys.
I think Spartacus TV show almost works except the shows aren’t genuinely sequential.
You had the original season of Spartacus Blood and Sand.
When the lead actor who played Spartacus developed cancer they took the existing “universe” and some existing characters but created a prequel series before Spartacus. Is that a spin off or just a prequel? That was Spartacus Gods of the Arena which was a single season.
Next came Spartacus Vengeance and Spartacus War of the Damned. They are simply continuations of Blood and Sand with a new actor portraying Spartacus since sadly the original actor succumbed to the cancer.
However they now have a second spin off Spartacus House of Ashur which takes an existing character, actually one who died in Vengeance, but shows what would have happened if he had lived on in the same “universe.” Ashur (same character and actor) appears in all three shows. Many other characters appear in archive footage.
TCMF-2L
I only ever saw the first episode of The Walking Dead, so I don’t know but it’s had so many spinoffs that surely it qualifies?
That makes sense I think, mostly, but I think an argument could be made for Lower Decks being a spinoff, on the basis of how often it refers back to other series in the universe.
Picard is definitely a spinoff.
It might fit some definitions of a spinoff, but it does not regularly star the same actors from the previous series playing the same character, which is the OP’s definition.
Anyone want to become rich and/or famous?
Make a family tree of American Sitcoms. Sell prints and jigsaw puzzles.
Kind of like the “Shared Universe With St. Elsewhere” chart, or the awesome charts that Popchart makes…
A couple of dozen of the original actors (from various ST series) have reprised their roles in Lower Decks. It happens all the time.
I reread the OP and I may or may not be defining spinoff more strictly than they intended. The OP said:
Any other TV shows that one of the spinoffs had a spinoff that involved the same characters played by the same actors?
I interpreted that to mean “a series where a cast member leaves the original series and takes up a regular starring role in the new series”, in which case Lower Decks very definitely does not count as a spinoff. If the OP means “a series set in the same universe as an earlier series in which characters from the original series at some point make a guest appearance”, then it does.
In this thread I have been operating on the stricter definition. By the looser definition you can say that Star Trek Prodigy is a spinoff of Voyager.
(Also, since Lower Decks has characters from “various ST series”, which one will you say it spun off from? TNG because it has Riker? DSN because it has Quark? Voyager because it has Tom Paris? Enterprise because it has T’pol?)
I think of Lower Decks as a “shared universe” series.
OP here-
The answer to the shows I was asking about is similar to the All in the Family spinoff shows, recurring characters George and Louise get their own show (The Jeffersons) then a recurring character from that show, (Florence) gets their own show,Checking In.
Thank you for clarifying. I think that’s only a subset of ‘spinoff’ type shows (perhaps we could call it ‘character-actor spinoff’ as opposed to maybe ‘universe spinoff’ or other types) but it’s your thread, your rules so no problem.
Those are pretty annoying. I mean, it’s annoying when they shoehorn a completely different concept of show into a backdoor pilot/ launch episode just because the first show is popular.
It’s one thing to have a character from a sister agency appear on an existing show to introduce that organization, a la Gibbs on JAG to launch NCIS. There’s enough similarity of universe and format that it isn’t jarring.
Having Mork appear on Happy Days is less coherent - except that came first and the spin of idea afterwards. The one that comes to mind is Gary 7 launching on a Start Trek episode. That’s far from the worst offender, but my mind has blanked them out.
Series crossovers also got tedious. No, I don’t want to have to watch an episode of NCIS Whatever to see the the end of a plot started on Hawaii Five-Oh. But that’s a different rant.
One spinoff was from The Dukes of Hazzard. They took small town Deputy Enos off to the big city to spread his mild charm. That didn’t spinoff - it didn’t do well at all.
The last two were in the same universe, with some cross over episodes, but I dont think the BH was at all.
That would have been cool. But ST-ToS was failing in the ratings. You know they could do that today.
Here’s one episode of several.
My mind thankfully blanked out the horrors.
Was it planned that way from the git-go? Who among the general public knew about it when it was first run broadcast?
I recall seeing the episode as a kid when it was new. But the idea that this was somehow a trial run for Gary Seven or any other aspects of his interaction with ST was IMO invisible as one watched the episode. IMO he was just another foil for the the bridge crew to defeat.
Roddenberry had originally written the episode in '65 and '66 as a standalone pilot, with no connection to Star Trek; after none of the networks bought the script to film a pilot, he reworked it as a Trek episode script in '67 and '68, to be a backdoor pilot for the Gary Seven series, especially as Trek (which was in its second season at that point) was in danger of being cancelled. I’m not at all sure that the general viewing public knew any of that, when it originally aired.
IANA Trekkie / Trekker. I have now (and had as a kid then) unsophisticated tastes in entertainment.
I’ll be damned if I see that episode as a 30 or 60 minute ad for Seven as some kind of protagonist in a weekly recurring series. If that was meant to be his character’s (and surrounding story’s) “screen test” to gauge audience interest, I can’t see how it could have done anything but flunked.
Especially if aired with zero lead-up advertising. This wasn’t 2020-plus, where if the show was interesting, millions of people would be posting about it while it was airing, thereby encouraging millions more to re-stream it 6 hours later. It was a one-and-done broadcast and any delta from Star Trek’s usual ratings was purely down to luck about weather or day of week or baseball or …
I actually don’t necessarily dislike crossovers; they’re often a good way to establish in-universe continuity. But I agree… the ones where they’re basically a two hour episode spread across two different shows in the same place/same time are annoying. I mean, I like crossovers in general, but I don’t really like being compelled to watch some other show to find out what happened in mine.