Let’s be honest: Del Boy would absolutely greenlight a spin-off. He’d see it as a massive merchandising opportunity. "Spin-off? Lovely jubbly! We'll do mugs, t-shirts, and a board game where you try to flog broken microwaves to old ladies!" The man had no spiritual reverence for art; he saw a market. And maybe that’s the secret. Only Fools was never high art. It was a brilliant comedy about scrappy Londoners making the best of a bad hand. A spin-off should just be that: scrappy, funny, and a bit desperate.
The Only Fools and Horses spin-offs you might have forgotten about
What about a show set in the present day? A new Trotter? Imagine a young lass, maybe Uncle Albert’s great-niece, trying to flop knock-off phone cases on Shpock. She’d be battling Amazon, not the market inspector. She’d be using TikTok, not a dodgy car phone. That could actually be funny and relevant without feeling like a parody.
But the one thing they must, absolutely must avoid is recasting Del, Rodney, or Grandad. That would be like trying to replace the Queen with an actor. You just don't do it. Leave the holy trinity on the shelf. Build new characters around the fringes of that world.
My honest, slightly drunk opinion
Look, I’ll watch it. You’ll watch it. We’ll all be glued to the screen, complaining about how it's "not the same" while secretly hoping it gives us one tiny moment of that magic. That moment where a joke lands so perfectly you forget to breathe. The spin-off lives or dies on the writing. If the script is tight and the heart is in the right place, it could be a success. If it’s a cash grab, it’ll sink faster than the Boycie yacht after a hole-punch joke.
So, pour yourself a Babycham, or whatever the hipsters are drinking these days. The Trotter family business is, apparently, open for a new franchise. Whether we buy the stock or not? That’s up to us. And if it’s terrible? Well, we can always just rewatch the original DVDs. Again. This time next year, we might have a decent spin-off. Or we might have a right old mess. Either way, it’ll be a journey. And a bit dodgy.
