Late last year it was announced that a revival of Dallas was on the cards as TNT and Warner Brothers considered producing a new version of the classic 1980s soap for a whole new generation of television audiences. Dallas was one of several so called ‘super-soaps’ of the 1980s which captured mass audiences with a mix of over-the-top storylines and larger than life characters. We take a look back at Dallas and its fellow super-soaps of the 1980s such as Dynasty and Falcon Crest.

Last week the controller of drama commissioning at the BBC, Ben Stephenson, warned that some of the corporation’s longer running dramas could be culled to make way for newer, innovative dramas. While it’s since emerged that series’ such as Casualty, Holby City, Waterloo Road and New Tricks are relatively safe a question mark hangs over the future of show long running dramas such as Waking the Dead, Hustle and Silent Witness. So where could the axe fall if indeed it does at all? In this special report we list those shows that could very well be cancelled by the corporation to make way for newer productions.

NBC recently announced it was developing a new Law & Order spin-off set in Los Angeles adding another addition to the franchise which was spawned several spin-offs already and two remakes abroad. So we take a look at the Law & Order franchise from the defunct spin-offs to the British and French remakes.

Television is littered with spin-offs at the moment examples being Torchwood, Holby City, Private Practice, Caprica and the various CSI/Law and Order shows. So we cast our eye over our favourite dramas and come up with a few spin-offs we’d like to see.