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1A '''companion show''' is a non-fiction show intended as a complement to another show, usually fiction. You usually get one episode of the companion show for each episode of the main show. There are two main types of companion show, although there is some overlap between the two.
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3The first is a {{documentary}}-style show, offering a look behind-the-scenes of the main show, showing how special effects are done, and with the cast and crew discussing the characters, plotlines, sets and costumes, and anything else the producers of the show want to highlight. The style is similar to the sort of featurette you might get on the DVD of the series.
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5The second type is a more fan-based show. The presenters will almost always be telegenic fans or popular former actors or runners-up of the main show who transitioned to hosting, and discuss the latest episode, highlighting their favourite and least favorite moments and characters, as well as commenting on the unfolding storylines and possible theories of how the plot will develop. Expect some audience involvement, by e-mail, text message or telephone. Some shows have a studio audience to lend their comments.
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7In the United States, this practice was popularized by Creator/{{AMC}}, who introduced such a program as a lead-out for its highly-popular series ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' beginning in its second season. Other cable series have since followed in their footprints. In North America, these are colloquially known as an "aftershow" (not to be confused with an AfterShow), since they often air immediately after their respective show.
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9RealityTV shows sometimes have companion shows as well, although usually some of the elements of companion shows are included in the main show.
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12!!Examples
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14* ''Series/AustralianSurvivor'' has two. ''Talking Tribal'' is a weekly panel show featuring guests talking about the events of the past week's episodes. ''The Jury Villa'' airs after contestants are eliminated and added to the jury, focusing on them moving to the post-elimination resort where they reunite with their fellow eliminated players and enjoy a full meal and warm room for the first time in weeks, while also discussing who they may vote for in the Final Tribal Council.
15* In the United Kingdom, ''Series/{{Heroes}}'' has both types of show. ''Heroes Unmasked'' is a documentary (with voice-over by Anthony Head), focusing on different elements (usually different characters) of the show each week, and broadcast after each episode on [[Creator/TheBBC BBC2]]. ''Heroes: The Official Radio Show'' is a fan-based radio show (with podcast), with fan e-mails read out (and some fans phoning in).
16** For season two, G4 aired an American companion show that, over its run, managed to get most of the cast on. It was called ''The Post Show''.
17* ''Series/DoctorWho'' had two companion shows. ''Series/DoctorWhoConfidential'' is a behind-the-scenes show, and ''Totally Doctor Who'' was a children's show, with a mixture of things including games, behind-the-scenes segments and reviews of the episode; perhaps most notably it was through ''Totally'' that the series three animated serial ''The Infinite Quest'' was shown (with voice acting from Anthony Head). As on October 2011, both shows have been cancelled. In 2014, a much shorter version of ''Confidential'' was introduced on the red button channel, called ''Doctor Who Extra''.
18* ''Series/{{Torchwood}}'' has its own version of ''Doctor Who Confidential'' with much shorter episodes, known as ''Torchwood Declassified''.
19* ''Series/{{Hustle}}'' has ''Series/TheRealHustle'', a documentary series which focused on demonstrating common scams on members of the public, and explaining how people can protect themselves. It is so distinct from ''Hustle'' that it is fairly easy to watch in its own right, and ran for almost just as long as its parent series.
20* ''Series/StrictlyComeDancing'' has a weekday [[Creator/TheBBC BBC2]] show called ''Series/StrictlyComeDancing: It Takes Two'', with interviews and behind the scenes footage, among other things. It also features some truly awful puns in its captions. Such as (brace yourself): "The Penny's Dropped" for Penny Lancaster-Stewart after she recently went out of the competition.
21* The second season of ''Series/TwentyFour'' in the UK had ''Pure 24''.
22* ''Series/{{Lost}}'' in the UK had ''UK Lost'' (a podcast) while Season 2 was being shown on Channel 4. Presented by Ian Lee and others, it was the fan-based variety of show, including, among other things a discussion of fan theories e-mailed in, including more than a few Main/EpilepticTrees. It also provide updates on ''ARG/TheLostExperience'' the AlternateRealityGame. When the show moved to Sky, the name changed to ''The Lost Initiative''.
23* ''Series/BigBrother'' had ''Big Brother's Little Brother'' which featured interviews and behind-the-scenes footage, and ''Big Brother's Big Mouth'', which was more of a ''Talking Dead''-type show with celebrity guests and viewer contributions. When the show moved from Creator/Channel4 to Creator/Channel5, they were merged into a new companion called ''Big Brother's Bit on the Side''.
24** There was also ''Big Brother's Big Brain'', where psychologists examined the goings-on in the house; it would later be renamed ''Big Brother: On the Couch'', and was later replaced by ''Big Brother's Bit on the [[PunBasedTitle Psych]]'' -- which aired in place of ''Bit on the Side'' on Saturdays). Eviction night would also get an aftershow on 5 Star, ''Big Brother: Live from the House''.
25** The Canadian version of the show started the ''Big Brother Side Show'' in season 2, where previous houseguests Peter and Gary talked about the events in the the house and interview the most recent evictee.
26* ''The Xtra Factor'' for ''Series/TheXFactor''
27* ''Britain's Got More Talent'' for ''Series/BritainsGotTalent''
28* ''The Apprentice - You're Fired'' for the UK's ''Series/TheApprentice''
29** The companion show for ''The Restaurant'' punned on this with ''The Restaurant: You're Fried!''.
30* ''I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here! '''Now!''''' for ''[[CaptainObvious I'm A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!]]'' (since re-named ''Extra Camp'')
31* After Creator/{{AMC}}'s attempts to lead-out of ''Series/TheWalkingDead'' with reality shows failed, ''Talking Dead with Chris Hardwick'' debuted as a companion, discussing the new episode after it aired. After it did unexpectedly well, AMC decided to have the last episodes of ''Series/BreakingBad'' have another Hardwick-hosted show called ''Talking Bad'' lead out of that.
32** In 2017, after ''The Walking Dead'' wrapped up for the season, the show was reformatted as a straightforward interview show, ''Talking with Chris Hardwick'', rather than put on hiatus until ''Series/FearTheWalkingDead'' returned.
33* The ill-fated Fox Reality Channel had ''Series/AmericanIdol Extra''; it was more like the British examples, and typically featured an interview with the most recent eliminated contestant, as well as behind the scenes segments and guest performances by past contestants.
34* Parodied by ''Series/TheLateLateShow with James Corden'', when CBS was airing reruns of its primetime dramas to fill the void between the end of ''Late Show with Creator/DavidLetterman'', and the premiere of ''Series/TheLateShowWithStephenColbert''. A few June 2015 episodes featured a cold opening sketch entitled ''Talking [[Series/TheMentalist Mentalist]]'', where James and his guests discussed the rerun of said show that CBS had just aired.
35** It even got a companion show of its own, ''[[ShapedLikeITself Talking Talking Mentalist]]'', where Corden's bandleader Reggie Watts talks about the last episode of ''Talking Mentalist''.
36*** Hardwick himself made a cameo when it became ''Talking Series/HawaiiFive0''. Corden returned the favor by appearing as a guest on the aforementioned ''Talking with Chris Hardwick'' on April 30, 2017.
37* ''Series/{{Vikings}}'' has ''Real Vikings'', a documentary series that focuses on outlining the real-life history and folklore that inspired the historical drama.
38* ''After Trek'', hosted by [[Podcast/NerdistPodcast Matt Mira]], discusses the preceding episode of ''Series/StarTrekDiscovery'' (Season 1) on CBS All Access with members of the show's cast and occasionally real scientists and scientific advisors for the show, and is also available on Netflix.
39** Season 2 replaced ''After Trek'' with ''The Ready Room'', hosted by Naomi Kyle and released to Facebook Live. Creator/WilWheaton took over the role of host as the show covered the first seasons of ''Series/StarTrekPicard'' and ''Series/StarTrekLowerDecks'' then back to ''Discovery'' with Season 3.
40* Brian W. Foster hosts ''Talks Machina'', the aftershow for ''WebVideo/CriticalRole'' on Twitch and Project Alpha. The show has a very informal atmosphere as Brian and the cast of the show all know each other in real life. Standard moments include Brian introducing the show by checking "Are we on the internet?", making self-deprecating jokes about his own life, and deliberately mispronouncing words and the names of guests. Viewers can submit questions for the cast to answer, and Alpha subscribers get an extra section at the end dubbed ''Talks Machina After Dark''. Prizes are given to fans for the best art and gifs based on the most recent episode.
41* ''Series/TheGreatBritishBakeOff'': The fifth series has introduced an accompanying show called ''The Great British Bake-Off: An Extra Slice'', in which Jo Brand and a couple of guests console the eliminated contestant and discuss the week's show.
42* [=AfterBuzz=] is an entire podcast network dealing in these.
43* Until 2018, domestic broadcasts of the Indian Premier League cricket had a post-game-type show called ''Extraaa Innings T20'', which mixed typical analysis from panelists into a talk show with tons of celebrity guests who were cricket fans, from Bollywood actors to even Wrestling/TheNewDay ([[Wrestling/BigELangston The Big E]]'s father played cricket in Jamaica). This ended in 2018 when the IPL moved from Sony's channels to Star Sports -- which was more interested in producing conventional studio programming.
44* ''Series/TheLastLeg'' began as this for Channel 4's coverage of the UsefulNotes/ParalympicGames, but proved so popular that it was turned into a regular series outside of the Games.
45* ''WebVideo/{{Hermitcraft}}'' has a companion show called ''Hermitcraft Recap'', run by Pixlriffs, [=ZloyXP=] and Lyarrah, three fans of the server. It does what the name implies, recapping the events and mishaps that went down on the server that week, which is very necessary considering the sheer amount of people and videos to watch, and the amount of shenanigans the group gets up to.
46* The first episodes of ''WesternAnimation/TheOwlHouse'' had the accompanying web series ''Look Hoo's Talking''.
47* The UK version of ''Series/HellsKitchen'' had a companion show titled ''Extra Portions''.
48* Maintaining the British preference for a PunBasedTitle, ''Series/DancingOnIce'' had ''Dancing On Ice: Defrosted''.
49* The Canadian version of Creator/{{MTV}} was credited with having first introduced the concept to North America, with an aftershow for ''Series/LagunaBeach'' titled simply ''[[ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin The After Show]]''. The program was part of LoopholeAbuse for compliance with the channel's CRTC license (the channel was a [[NetworkDecay/TotalAbandonment Total Abandonment]] flip of a talk show channel and was still required to air mainly talk programming, and due to the "genre protection" rules of the era, it was restricted in airing large amounts of music-related programming out of defense for then-competitor, but later sister, Creator/MuchMusic. But this was when MTV was really starting to slip away from music to begin with). However, it eventually became popular in its own right, to the point that it was picked up by the U.S. MTV, and there was a huge lineup of fans trying to get into the audience for the post-GrandFinale episode.

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