List of television spinoffs
Wikimedia list article
A spinoff in television is a new series containing characters or settings that originated in a previous series, but with a different focus, tone, or theme. For example, the series Frasier was a spinoff of the earlier series Cheers: the character Frasier Crane was introduced as a secondary character on Cheers, and became the protagonist of his own series, set in a different city, in the spinoff. Spinoffs are particularly common in sitcom. A related phenomenon, not to be confused with the spinoff, is the crossover.
Some spinoffs are "engineered" to introduce a new character on the original television series, just so that that character can anchor the new spinoff – that episode of the original series is often known as a "backdoor pilot". For example, the character Avery Ryan appeared in two episodes of the Las Vegas-based CSI: Crime Scene Investigation before the premiere of CSI: Cyber.
A revival, a later remake of a preexisting show, is not a spinoff. This is the case in Doctor Who, where the 2005 series which begins with a new Doctor but maintains the existing continuity. An exception to this rule can be made to series such as The Transformers where the lines of continuity are blurred. If a television pilot was written but never shot, it is not considered a spinoff.
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