"Redmond Justice" may be dragging its way to a slow and grinding close, but fear not, antitrust drama fans: there's a spin-off in the works. Yes, just as Baywatch begat Baywatch Hawaii, everyone's fave trustbusting show is already looking to push into strange, new realms. Specifically, having tapped the American justice system for just about all they could get, the show's producers are looking to set the sequel in Europe. We haven't heard what the new show will eventually be called, but right now the decidedly lame working title appears to be "EuroJustice." No word yet on whether David Hasselhoff will be joining the cast.

Faithful viewers Al Barten and Porsupah both noticed that news of the show's production has made it onto sites such as Wired and The Register. So far, the pilot's plot seems to be standard sequel fare-- same story, new set, a few new faces, more car chases, bigger explosions. This time around, instead of the United States government slapping Microsoft with an antitrust lawsuit, the Redmond Giant is being investigated (er, "probed") by the European Union. And instead of allegations of tying in Windows 95 and 98, the EU is looking to the future; they're alleging violations in the still-not-quite-released-yet Windows 2000 which may allow the company to "gain a stranglehold over server software and ultimately electronic commerce." Something to do with proprietary APIs preventing competitors from being able to make their applications run as well as Microsoft's own on a Windows 2000 server. Drafts of later scripts allude to "forced changes" of Windows 2000 to alleviate the problem.

Now, while the premise is somewhat intriguing, personally, we have to wonder how well this spin-off will fare without most of the cast that made the original show a spectacular success. No David Boies, no Judge Jackson, no Dick Schmalensee ("SCHMALENSEE!!"). Heck, even Microsoft's bumbling legal team will likely be replaced by a European counterpart. We wish the new cast and the new show the best of luck, but they've got some mighty big black sneakers to fill. On the plus side, at least we won't have to endure hackneyed sequel tactics like hearing Boies say "I'm getting too old for this sh..."