Television spinoff

A spin-off in television is a new series which contains either characters, a different character or theme elements from a previous series. They are particularly common in situation comedy. A related phenomenon, not to be confused with the spin-off, is the crossover.

Some spin-offs are "engineered" to introduce a new character on the original television series, just so that that character can anchor the new spin-off – 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 series, a later remake of a preexisting show, is not a spin-off. An exception 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 spin-off. When a show undergoes a name change, it is not necessarily a spin-off.

Neither is a reboot series, a term recently invented for motion pictures, which can also occur in television (e.g. The Battlestar Galactica series of 2003 is a reboot, not a spin-off of the 1978 version). This is distinct from a revival in that there is little or no attempt to retain continuity, or casting, with the original. A recent example is the 1987 series Beauty and the Beast, rebooted as the 2012 CW television series Beauty & the Beast, which keeps only the main premise of a female law enforcement official aided by a man-beast, the New York City locale, and the names of the two main characters.

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