CSI: Vegas and NCIS: Hawai‘i got canceled within one week of each other this season, marking disappointing results for two top TV franchises. Both CSI and NCIS ranked as the No. 1 scripted broadcast TV program in the United States at one point, and both of those shows spawned successful spinoffs… and at least one that was not so successful.
Dick Wolf can relate. His long-running Law & Order franchise has had its share of flops, and even his successful One Chicago universe has had one of its shows flicker out. Criminal Minds, meanwhile, suffered losses with its first two offshoots (or only two offshoots, if you consider Criminal Minds: Evolution to be a continuation instead of a spinoff). Read about all of these short-lived spinoffs below.
Law & Order: Trial by Jury (2005–2006)
Bebe Neuwirth, Amy Carlson, Kirk Acevedo, Fred Thompson, and Scott Cohen starred in this fourth Law & Order series, which also marked the final screen appearance of Jerry Orbach, who reprised his role as Detective Briscoe in the first two episodes. “The thing that makes this show totally different from the other three shows is that it is the first one that has a differing point of view,” Wolf said in an NBC press release before Trial by Jury premiered. “Law & Order, Special Victims Unit, and Criminal Intent are all told from the vantage of law enforcement or the prosecutors. This show has a 360-degree point of view, where you’re going to see both defendants and defense attorneys and judges and jurors.”
But Trial by Jury didn’t catch on with viewers like Law & Order (23 seasons and counting) and SVU (25 and counting) — and NBC held it in contempt, so to speak, after dropping from first place to fourth place among the broadcast TV networks. Wolf considered Trial by Jury’s cancellation after 12 episodes “extraordinarily upsetting” and was “more than blindsided” by the decision, as he told The Associated Press.
Law & Order: LA (2010–2011)
The fifth Law & Order series at least lasted a full season — though it was a disrupted by a midseason casting shakeup. Out were Skeet Ulrich, Regina Hall, and Megan Boone; in was Law & Order vet Alana de la Garza; and staying on were Alfred Molina, Terrence Howard, Rachel Ticotin, and Corey Stoll. Confusing matters, NBC shelved some of the pre-shakeup episodes and then aired them at the end of the season, meaning Ulrich’s murdered character seemed to make a miraculous resurrection onscreen.
“I think we just didn’t get it off the ground right,” Bob Greenblatt, then chairman of NBC Entertainment, told reporters after Law & Order: LA was canceled, per The Futon Critic. “It was put on the schedule without a pilot last fall before I arrived. There was all kinds of chaos going on: the show did well, then it was taken off. In a different scenario, that might have worked better, but we just thought it wasn’t a strong enough player to continue into next season.”
CSI: Cyber (2015–2016)
The original CSI lasted 15 seasons, CSI: Miami lasted 10, and CSI: NY lasted nine. But CSI: Cyber — which starred Patricia Arquette, James Van Der Beek, Peter MacNicol, Shad Moss, Charley Koontz, Hayley Kiyoko, and Ted Danson as investigators of cyber crimes — only lasted two. “It’s an amazing franchise and a very solid show,” CSI creator and Cyber co-creator Anthony Zuiker said while the latter was still airing. “Because the future of crime is cyber, there’s no reason why it shouldn’t continue.”
Alas, CBS opted to forgo a third season. Even though Cyber made money overseas as a CSI offshoot, the show struggled in the ratings, attracting only 6.79 million viewers and a 1.0 demo rating with its Season 2 premiere, which was low for the network, according to Deadline. Still, Cyber made history with the backdoor-pilot episode “Kitty,” which aired in 171 countries on March 4, 2015, and broke the Guinness World Record for the largest television drama simulcast of all time, as Variety reported at the time.
CSI: Vegas (2021–2024)
CBS tried to recapture the glory of what was once the No. 1 show in the country with a CSI revival dubbed CSI: Vegas. Marg Helgenberger, William Petersen, and Jorja Fox reprised their roles — though not in the same season — and Paula Newsome, Matt Lauria, Mandeep Dhillon, Mel Rodriguez, Ariana Guerra, Jay Lee, and Lex Medlin joined the crew.
Whereas the original CSI once enjoyed more than 31 million viewers, CSI: Vegas’ viewer tally hovered in the 3 million range. The numbers improved in Season 3, even hitting a series high in March 2024, but CBS canceled CSI: Vegas the following month. “It was truly a pleasure [and] honor to work/play alongside such a fun [and] talented company of storytellers,” Helgenberger wrote on Instagram at the time. “Immeasurable thanks [and] gratitude to all for making this experience such a memorable ride. And to all the fans, we did it all for you.”
Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior (2011)
A backdoor episode of Criminal Minds led to the very similar spinoff Criminal Minds: Suspect Behavior, in which another Behavioral Analysis Unit team unit brought UnSubs to justice. Oscar winner Forest Whitaker led the Suspect Behavior team, supported by Janeane Garofalo, Matt Ryan, Michael Kelly, Beau Garrett, and Kirsten Vangsness (who pulled double duty, as a series regular of both shows).
Suspect Behavior got the boot shortly before the end of the first season, having averaged only 9.3 million viewers in the episodes that had aired so far. Those disappointing numbers, a conspicuous lack of buzz, and Whitaker’s presumably large paycheck led to Suspect Behavior’s demise, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders (2016–2017)
As the original Criminal Minds continued what would become a 16-and-counting-season run, CBS tried out another spinoff in 2016: Criminal Minds: Beyond Borders. This entry in the franchise, at least, mixed up the formula a bit: Gary Sinise played a unit chief of the International Response Team, tasked with solving cases involving American citizens abroad. Daniel Henney (who’d later join the Criminal Minds mothership), Tyler James Williams, Annie Funke, and the aforementioned Alana de la Garza filled out the rest of the cast.
CBS canceled Beyond Borders after two seasons, however, after the show averaged 5 million viewers in its sophomore outing, per Variety. By comparison, the original Criminal Minds was averaging 7.5 million viewers at the time.
Chicago Justice (2017)
All the success of Wolf’s One Chicago franchise — Chicago Fire and Chicago P.D.’s season tallies are now in the double digits, and Chicago Med’s isn’t far behind — might make fans forget all about its short-lived fourth series. Chicago Justice was a legal drama starring Philip Winchester, Jon Seda, Joelle Carter, Monica Barbaro, and the late Carl Weathers.
But Justice was the lowest-rated series of the bunch, and NBC threw the book at it after its first season. “It just became somewhat of a real estate issue and just looking at how many of these Chicago shows we can sustain,” Greenblatt told Deadline at the time. “We thought they are all good, but it seemed like Justice was the most conventional — it was the closest to a Law & Order show — so we thought maybe this is the one we should sacrifice.” (Winchester later took his character to Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, while Seda returned his to Chicago P.D.)
NCIS: Hawai‘i (2021–2024)
CBS gave NCIS: Hawai‘i its walking papers in April 2024, choosing not to give the show even a shortened fourth and final season, despite producers agreeing to a massive budget cut, according to Deadline. Lachey wrote on her Instagram Stories that she was “gutted, confused, [and] blindsided” by the decision.