The Radio Times have done a poll of the best TV series to Film translation and the winner has come out as The Monty Python films with Mission Impossible(?!) and Star Trek in second and third.

At the other end of the spectrum the big screen adaptations of Are You Being Served and The Avengers top the bill.

You can read more about this on the BBCs web site here: Python films are 'best spin-offs'.

To my mind it's a pretty hit-and-miss list - the Mission Impossible films were nothing like the TV series (past the first half hour of the first film) and were merely a vehicle for Tom Cruise to look "cool".

I won’t even comment on Batman being a comic book adaptation and not one of a TV series . . . (oops, looks like I did . . . ).

And creeping in at the bottom of the "Good" list you have last year's crap-fest Starsky and Hutch!

Who voted for this?!

Brady Bunch would have got my vote.

Also have a soft spot for the Rising Damp, Dad's Army and Please Sir films

Oh dear lord, no. Those films are a slap in the face to two of those shows. One is just as shite as the show was.

Wanna guess which one? (Hint- Not Dad's Army or Rising Damp)

Starsky and Hutch wasn't that terrible. The ending with the 'old' Starsky and Hutch giving the new ones the car was possibly the weakest device ever used in any film ever made ever, but other than that it was alrightish.

It was nice to see Addams Family get a mention. I saw Addams Family Reunion on TV the other week. I think I managed about 8 minutes of it.

Please Sir I like for the kitsch value (love those clothes...the funky dancing...and the cast of obviously mid-20s actors playing schoolkids)

Rising Damp has Leonard Rossiter and Denholm Elliott on top form.

And to those I'd like to ad the Steptoe & Son films

I'm sure Serenity will deserve a future place on the list.

I find the fact that they even did this poll appalling




The Batman movie that is named is the one that stars the TV series dynamic duo, so I would consider that a movie adaptation of the TV series.

So it is, I stand corrected.

I was pleased to see the Addams family do well, the first film (and the second one in places) is a work of twisted genius!

EDIT:

I'm surprised the Doctor Who/Dalek films didn't get a mention (given the Beeb's current vogue for dropping the Doctor Who name wherever possible!).

Monty Python is an odd choice for number...they are not really TV Spin-offs in the sense that they are films that are based on the TV show. Both Brian & Holy Grail have a narrative (of sorts), and don't feature any previous characters (at least by name). More understandable if Meaning Of Life or And Now... were chosen only.

Would Bedazzled, Morons from Outer Space or Shaun Of The Dead be called spin-offs of Not Only But Also, Alas Smith & Jones or Spaced?

Wonder where (if anywhere) Naked Gun, League Of Gentlemen and numerous Saturday Night Live movies were on the list?

I'm hoping next time they'll be able to include Serenity.

I've seen trailers for this and i'm intrigued. But i didn't know it was a series beforehand

Previously it was the short lived, yet amazingly good 'Firefly'

Another one I'd like to mention, if we're allowing spinoffs of sketch shows (a la "The Blues Brothers"), is "Strange Brew," a loose knockoff of Hamlet, with Rick Moranis and Dave Thomas (not the Wendy's guy) as beer-swilling brothers Bob & Doug McKenzie of SCTV fame, and Max von Sydow as the evil brewmaster of the Elsinore Brewery.

fair enough, some looking into this may occur