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    • Capsule Pitch Description: Description
    • Implementation: Implementation

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    Examples across Genres 


  • Do Over (2002) / That Was Then (2002)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: 80's flashback to High School.
    • Implementation: One was a sitcom, the other a drama. In both of them, the protagonist starts as a depressed, adult salesman in his thirties. Their lives are in ruins, along with those of the people they once cared about. They blame that on certain decisions they took in high school. Then a freak accident sends them back in time, reliving their high school years. They have a chance to Set Right What Once Went Wrong.

  • Clean House (2003) / Hoarders (2009)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Shows about people with irritatingly or pathologically cluttered homes.
    • Implementation: Hoarders is the more serious and deserving of the documentary label, considering that pathological hoarding is an actual mental illness, while Clean House's comedic streak and focus on the cleaning aspect places it better on Reality TV.

  • House (2004) / Lie to Me (2009)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: FOX dramas featuring eccentric, wisecracking, and disillusioned doctor/detectives based on real people and played by eminent British actors.
    • Implementation: Tim Roth doesn't attempt an American accent and Lie to Me focuses more on the detective aspect.


  • Burn Notice (2007) / Royal Pains (2009)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: A man is blacklisted from his profession and moves to an exotic location to sell his services privately.
    • Implementation: Essentially the same premise, but substituting spy for doctor. Another aspect the shows share is the wisecracking and incompetent brother of the main character. Both are on the USA Network.

  • The Walking Dead (2010) / Game of Thrones (2011)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Shows where the world is being threatened by zombies, incidentally called "walkers" (White walkers in the case of the latter).
    • Implementation: Both shows are adapted from literary works, with The Walking Dead being adapted from the comics of the same name, while Game of Thrones was from the book A Song of Ice and Fire. While both shows also deal with the concept of Humans Are Bastards, TWD deals with this and the zombie threat directly, while GoT deals more with political power struggle.

  • Wentworth (2013) / Orange Is the New Black (2013)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Shows that explore life in a women's prison.
    • Implementation: Orange is The New Black is a dramedy (drama-comedy), whereas Wentworth is a dark and serious drama. Likewise, Orange is an American show whereas Wentworth is Australian.

  • Rosemarys Baby (NBC horror, 2014) / Extant (CBS sci-fi, 2014)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: An elegant African-American woman is pregnant with a mysterious child who may have a huge impact on the human race.
    • Implementation: Both kids are from supernatural sources (Satan and aliens (presumably), respectively) Rosemary's Baby will doom humanity while Extant's could save it (though probably not in the same manner, possibly more like a genetic upgrade).

  • The People v. O.J. Simpson: American Crime Story (2016, FX) / O.J.: Made in America (2016, ESPN)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Two works about O.J. Simpson and his 1994 murder trial.
    • Implementation: American Crime Story is a dramatization/reenactment of the infamous murder trial, while O.J.: Made in America is a five-part documentary from ESPN's "30 for 30" series that features interviews with the key players and even unreleased 911 audio.

  • Legends of Tomorrow (2016, CW) / Timeless (2016, NBC)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: A ragtag team of time travelers protect history while hunting a supervillain.
    • Implementation: Legends is a superhero show and a spinoff of Arrow and The Flash (2014), featuring popular heroes (and villains) from both shows along with new characters. Timeless is an original series and more of a straight-forward adventure with some conspiracy elements. Notably, both have a character trying to change history to bring their dead family back to life; in Legends, he's the hero, but in Timeless, he's the villain. Also, both shows have covered some of the same historical ground, such as an episode with George Washington and another with Al Capone and Elliot Ness.

  • Jane the Virgin (2014, CW) / Telenovela (2015, NBC)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Modern, light-hearted americanized interpretations of traditional latin american soap operas.
    • Implementation: Jane the Virgin is a direct adaptation of a soap, though still using Broad Strokes, and it's an hour-long dramedy.. Telenovela is an original work, a Single Camera Sitcom taking centered around the production of a soap opera, wherein the actors' misadventures mirror the soap's characters'.


  • Schitt's Creek (2019) / Fosse/Verdon (2019)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Two very different TV shows aired episodes called "Life is a Cabaret" featuring Show Within a Show of Cabaret, which aired on the same night in some places.
    • Implementation: Schitt's Creek is a quirky comedy that featured the show in a Musical Episode; Fosse/Verdon is a drama portraying the making of the film.

  • The Goldbergs (2013) / Stranger Things (2016)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Both The Goldbergs and Stranger Things were made in the 2010s and were set in the 1980s. Both series include many nostalgic references to the decade in the form of pop-culture, fashion, music, and food.
    • Implementation: The Goldbergs is a sitcom that is based on the childhood of its creator Adam F. Goldberg, and features his experiences growing up in the 1980s in the Philly suburb of Jenkintown. Stranger Things is a science-fiction/horror series that focuses on the dark secrets of Hawkins, Indiana.

  • Batwoman (2019) / Stumptown (2019)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Both series are based on comic book properties that Greg Rucka had a large part in. The protagonists are both LGBT women who were in the military and fight crime in their current lives.
    • Implementation: Batwoman is a superhero/action show, while Stumptown is a crime drama. Batwoman was announced first and the title character debuted first, but Stumptown premiered first.

  • The Two Popes (2019) / The New Pope (2020)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Two made-for-television dramas released less than one month apart and featuring two popes, with one being elected to replace the other who's still living.
    • Implementation: The Two Popes is a Netflix original film about two Real Life figures, Pope Benedict XVI and his successor Francis, while The New Pope is a HBO-Sky Atlantic co-production about two fictional popes in an open conflict, being the sequel to The Young Pope.

  • Greatest #AtHome Videos / Connecting
    • Capsule Pitch Description: TV shows where the COVID-19 Pandemic plays a major role
    • Implementation: The former is a reality show ala America's Funniest Home Videos, while the latter is a sitcom about a group of friends keeping in touch during the pandemic

  • The Righteous Gemstones (2019) / Filthy Rich (2020)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: TV shows about families of extremely wealthy, corrupt televangelists.
    • Implementation: The former is an HBO black comedy about a family of insanely rich televangelists who also operate a number of megachurches, the latter is a FOX soapy drama about a family of billionaire televangelists who own a prominent Christian TV network.

  • Girls5Eva (2021) / Queens (2021)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Musical series about a late 90s-early 2000s-era girl group who gets their second chance at stardom after a rising, younger rapper samples their old (and biggest) hit.
    • Implementation: Girls5Eva is a comedy set in New York City focusing on a pop girl group, while Queens is a drama set in Los Angeles focusing on a hip-hop girl group.


  • Winning Time: The Rise of the Lakers Dynasty (2022) / They Call Me Magic (2022), Legacy: The True Story of the LA Lakers (2022)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Shows about the rise of Los Angeles Lakers basketball team, particularly during Showtime/Magic Johnson era.
    • Implementation: Winning Time is an HBO biopic series focusing on the Lakers during Showtime era, while They Call Me Magic is an Apple TV+ docuseries about Magic Johnson, as for Legacy, it's a Hulu docuseries about the history of Lakers from past to present. While Winning Time is disapproved by the figures portrayed on the show, both They Call Me Magic and Legacy featured the actual people that were portrayed on Winning Time such as Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Jerry West, Pat Riley, and even the children of Jerry Buss.
  • The Last of Us (2023) / Twisted Metal (2023)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Television adaptations of PlayStation video games set in post-apocalyptic versions of America (with alternate histories diverging around the start of the 21st century when the apocalypses occurred) following unlikely duos as they begin dangerous life changing treks from one walled city to another.
    • Implementation: The Last of Us is a more grounded zombie drama about a grieving, closed off father coming to protect a feisty young girl. Twisted Metal is a more comedic action series revolving around Vehicular Combat and a romance between an amnesiac delivery man and an escaped indentured servant.

    Adventure 
  • Tales of the Gold Monkey (1982) / Bring 'Em Back Alive (1982) & Casablanca (1983)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Action-adventure series that embody the Two-Fisted Tales trope.
    • Implementation: Tales and Bring 'Em were quickly greenlit in The '80s once Raiders of the Lost Ark proved to be a success, and as such it's somewhat hard to tell which one really started the fight, while Casablanca cashed not only on the post-Raiders period adventure romance boom but also the nostalgia for the original film.

  • Knight Rider (1982) / Street Hawk (1985)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: An injured police officer is given a new secret identity and a super vehicle to fight crime with.
    • Implementation: This time ABC tries to follow NBC's lead on a motorcycle without a mind of its own. Remote-controlled by the Government.

  • The A-Team (1983) / High Performance (1983)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Action-adventure shows featuring do-gooders for hire.
    • Implementation: Another ABC knockoff of an NBC smash hit.

  • Blue Thunder (1984) / Airwolf (1984)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Crime-fighting super helicopters, and the people that flew them.
    • Implementation: Both debuting in 1984, Blue Thunder was spun off from the 1983 top-grossing feature film, and drew heavily on it for stock footage. Airwolf debuted 16 days later and was thematically similar to the already successful Knight Rider.

  • Lost (2004) / Flight 29 Down (2005)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Plane crashes on an island; characters must adapt.
    • Implementation: Lost premiered a year earlier and became an overnight sensation. F29D is "Lost" for kids more or less, though the show was actually based on a book and the concept was pitched before Lost got on the air.


  • Cobra (1993, Syndication) / Viper (1994, NBC)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Knight Rider-alikes featuring eponymous red muscle cars and heroes who were "left for dead, but given a second chance and a purpose."
    • Implementation: Both shows were in in production at the same timenote , but Cobra aired first. Cobra was more a straight adventure series with no fantastic elements. (The title Cobra was merely a Cool Car) Viper was actually closer to Airwolf (the heroes stole the Viper (Named "The Defender in-story) to carry on in secret.)
  • Nikita (2010, The CW) / Person of Interest (2011, CBS)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Espionage action series in which a person with a troubled past seeks out a tangential person from their past and prevents that person from committing suicide by convincing them to take part in a battle to right wrongs. Also, they're all presumed dead.
    • Implementation: While both series featured similar tones and approaches to weaving an over-arching story—they even shared a writer, Amanda Segel, who penned some of Nikita's most Person of Interest-like episodes before Person of Interest existed—Nikita's story and characters were all ultimately tied together to the world of espionage, while Person of Interest tackled a wider variety of characters and worlds and was more akin to a super-hero series. Additionally, while Nikita had a very fluid status quo, with significant changes occurring every handful of episodes, Person of Interest was much more tied to its specific procedural formula, which remained in place even as the characters' circumstances changed.

    Crime Drama 

  • Weeds (2005-2012) / Breaking Bad (2008-2013)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Premium cable dark dramedies about middle-aged people turning to drug-dealing following a personal tragedy
    • Implementation: Weeds is about a widowed soccer mom who deals pot, while Breaking Bad is about a chemistry teacher dying of lung cancer who cooks crystal meth. Also, while Weeds started out as a Black Comedy before it underwent Cerebus Syndrome, Breaking Bad was very dark from the beginning... and things only got more bleak from there.

  • Thief (2006) / Heist (2006)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Glamourous gangster drama.
    • Implementation: Subtle character drama vs. glitzy action series.

  • Leverage (2008) / White Collar (2009)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Skilled and rather flamboyant thief/thieves are recruited by the good guys to create some Asshole Victims.
    • Implementation: The difference is with their employers — Leverage’s Nate is initially out for revenge and then takes up the charge to fight evil himself while White Collar’s Con Man is employed by the government.

  • Boardwalk Empire (2010) / Mob City (2013)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Fictionalized chronicle of the rise of organized crime in America during the first half of the 20th century, inspired by a non-fiction book: Boardwalk Empire: The Birth, High Times and Corruption of Atlantic City and L.A. Noir: The struggle for the soul of America's most seductive city, respectively.
    • Implementation: Boardwalk takes place in the East Coast and Chicago during the 1920s and has a corrupt politician turned gangster as main character; City takes place in Los Angeles and Las Vegas during the 1940s and has a crooked cop as main character. Real mobsters and other historical figures appear as secondary characters, two of whom (Meyer Lansky and Bugsy Siegel) are shared by both shows. Boardwalk has many Shout Outs to The Godfather, while City draws inspiration from Film Noir.

  • American Crime (2015) / American Crime Story (2016) & Law & Order: True Crime (2017)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Crime anthology series set in America.
    • Implementation: All follow one different crime case per season, although the crimes in AC are fictional while the crimes in ACS' and L&O:TC are dramatizations of real cases.

  • Giri/Haji (2020) / Tokyo Vice (2022-)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Crime series about the Yakuza with a mixed Japanese and Anglophone cast.
    • Implementation: Giri/Haji is more of an ensemble and incorporates more fantastical elements such as Spirit Advisor sequences, a Dream Ballet, and manga-inspired recaps. Tokyo Vice is based on the memoir of a real journalist and has a more grounded presentation.

  • Candy (2022) / Love & Death (2023)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Miniseries about a murder case in Texas in 1980 involving housewife Candy Montgomery.
    • Implementation: Candy is a Hulu miniseries starring Jessica Biel that premiered under a year before the HBO Max production Love & Death starring Elizabeth Olsen.

    Medical Drama 
  • Dr. Kildare (1961) / Ben Casey (1961)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Early medical drama centered around a handsome young doctor and a wise, older doctor as his mentor.
    • Implementation: Two of the first mainstream TV medical dramas, the series’ premiered 5 days apart, and each ran for 5 seasons from 1961-1966. Both shows premises were similar, though their main characters were polar opposites. Richard Chamberlain played Dr. James Kildare; a blond, pretty boy intern who, while just learning his profession, was caring and kind. Vincent Edwards played Dr. Ben Casey; a dark, brooding neurosurgeon hunk, who was constantly arguing and scowling at his superiors. Both were immensely popular, becoming pop culture rivals in the press, and on teenagers’ bedroom walls.

  • ER (1994) / Chicago Hope (1994)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Chicago-based Medical Drama
    • Implementation: Both mixed elements of gritty medical realism with focus on the personal lives of the staff, but ER emphasized the former while Hope emphasised the latter.

  • Scrubs (2001) / Green Wing (2004)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Surreal ensemble hospital-based comedy-dramas swinging wildly from silly to dark, following a new doctor in a Will They or Won't They? relationship.
    • Implementation: In Scrubs (most) of the weirdness comes from the Fantasy Sequences, and what happens outside JD's head is usually realistic, while Green Wing takes place in a fundamentally dreamlike world. One key difference - Scrubs actually has serious medicine-based storylines, while the hospital setting of Green Wing is mostly an excuse to bring together a cast of Dr. Jerks.

  • Doc Martin (2004) / Distant Shores (2005)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: ITV comedy drama about a big city doctor relocating to a coastal village full of eccentric residents.
    • Implementation: The central character of Doc Martin is an Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist, that of Distant Shores is an Unfazed Everyman.

  • HawthoRNe (2009) / Nurse Jackie (2009)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Post-ER hospital dramas focusing on flawed but heroic nurses.
    • Implementation: Aside from different races of the two leads, Jackie is a bit Darker and Edgier, what with Jackie having an affair with the pharmacist who's also her dealer.

  • Masters of Sex (2013) / The Knick (2014)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Premium Cable period shows dramatizing the early days of one branch of medicine.
    • Implementation: Showtime's Masters of Sex is about (a fictionalized version of) the Masters/Johnson sexology study of the late 50's, and has been compared to Mad Men. Cinemax's The Knick is set in (a fictionalized version of) the early days of surgery, in a NYC hospital, and is best know for being "the Steven Soderbergh TV show"

    Military Drama 
  • Six (2017) / Valor (2017)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: American special forces members are captured by African terrorist groups. Their respective support units back in the United States must race against time to save them before the terrorists hand over their prisoners to ISIS.
    • Implementation: Six focuses more on the family drama of its Navy SEALs, while Valor plays off the fact that its female lead is the first woman in an Army special forces helicopter unit, that she has feelings for her captain while she is already dating an intel officer. Valor also has a Government Conspiracy within the CIA that relates to the terrorists.

  • SEAL Team (2017) / The Brave (2017)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Focuses on American special operators whose missions take place in foreign countries to deal with international incidents that could undermine the security of the United States. Both shows have 3 episodes with near-identical plots.
    • Implementation: SEAL Team is about a DEVGRU unit and their family drama. The Brave is about a Defense Intelligence Agency Special Operations Group who are dispatched around the world to solve various crises concerning the U.S. Unlike SEAL Team, the personal lives of the main cast aren't very relevant to the show and it is focused entirely on the missions abroad they conduct.

    Talk Show 
  • Hot Seat with Wally George (1983) / The Morton Downey Jr. Show (1987)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Hour-long trash TV show about hot button issues, hosted by a loud-mouth conservative man who openly heckles his guests, all to the wild applause of their audience.
    • Implementation: Both shows started as local programs before expanding into national syndication. Morton's show aired five days a week, and each episode would focus on the same issue throughout. Wally's aired once a week, and each episode tended to broach a variety of topics. Wally also leaned heavily into current events, taping each episode just three days before the airdate.


  • The View (1997) / The Talk (2010)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Talk shows hosted by a diverse group of (usually) five women who start with a roundtable discussion about current affairs.
    • Implementation: For the most part, they're identical, though each show has something of a focus on material produced by their parent company (ABC/Disney for The View, CBS for The Talk.)

    Misc 
  • Blue Peter (1958) / Magpie (1968)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Magazine programmes with wholesome and informative fun for British kids, with charitable appeals and badges awarded for achievement.
    • Implementation: Blue Peter (BBC) began as a rather staid and studio-bound affair (suits, ties etc.) but moved towards a livelier presentation with more outdoor locations following the arrival of John Noakes in 1965. Magpie (ITV) copied Blue Peter’s format from the start, while employing more hip language and graphics.

  • Top Gear (1977) / Driven (1998) / Motor Week (1997)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Motoring television programs focusing on the newest car models and road tests.
    • Implementation: All three shows follow a similar format to each other. In Top Gear (BBC) and Motor Week (Men & Motors), the presenters would present items on their own. Driven (Channel 4) has the presenters interacting with each other and a road test of three identical class cars known as "Driven 100". Driven and Motor Week feature people who have been on or would go on to work on Top Gear, including Jason Barlow, James May, Chris Goffey and Richard Hammond.

  • Top Gear (2002) / Fifth Gear (2002)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Motoring television programs focusing on the newest car models and road tests.
    • Implementation: The Top Gear revival (BBC) produced by Jeremy Clarkson and Andy Wilman covers cars in a similar manner to the original run, but with some wacky segments and challenges, which became more common in the program's later seasons. Fifth Gear (Channel 5) follows a similar format to the original run of Top Gear and features some of the same hosts, such as Jon Bentley, Tiff Needell and Vicki Butler-Henderson.

  • Top Gear (2002) / The Grand Tour (2016)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Motoring television programs focusing on the newest car models and road tests.
    • Implementation: The Grand Tour (Amazon Prime) was produced by Andy Wilman, who formerly worked on Top Gear (BBC), and features some ex-Top Gear members, such as Richard Porter and Brian Klein, along with Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May as presenters. Both Top Gear and the Grand Tour share similar elements, such as racing drivers setting the fastest lap times around an airfield and various challenges. While Top Gear became Lighter and Softer under the hand of new presenters, such as Matt LeBlanc and Chris Harris, the Grand Tour has more risque content that was prominent during the Clarkson, Hammond and May era of Top Gear.


  • Beakman's World (1992) / Bill Nye the Science Guy (1993)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Kids shows that focus on learning science, often in goofy and irreverent ways
    • Implementation: Whereas Beakman was a fictional character, Bill was an actual scientist (an engineer to be more precise). Whereas Bill stuck with one topic throughout an episode, Beakman switched topics frequently. Whereas Bill focused on the science almost exclusively (if imaginatively), Beakman also had a small, wacky recurring cast and a little non-science-related zaniness.

  • The Adventures of Dudley the Dragon (1993) / Groundling Marsh (1995)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: 65-episode Canadian children's puppet series with lessons about saving the environment as a major educational focus.
    • Implementation: Dudley The Dragon was originally based on a play called The Conserving Kingdom which also had an environmental focus. Groundling Marsh focused on a group of critters living in a marsh facing troubles that humans caused. Both shows also starred James Rankin.

  • Wimzie's House (1995) / Tweenies (1999)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Four toddler-aged friends have fun at a home daycare.
    • Implementation: This duel refers to the United Kingdom runs of the two shows, as they premiered in 1999, with Wimzie being one of the Nick Jr. channel's launch programmes and Tweenies being shown on the BBC. While Wimzie's House utilizes puppets for its' cast, Tweenies has people in costumes playing the roles of the characters.



  • Zoom (1999) / The Sunny Side Up Show (2007)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Magazine shows with energetic fun for kids, with ideas sent in by viewers.
    • Implementation: Zoom featured teenagers called Zoomers receiving crafts, games, brainteasers, plays, and fan mail sent in by viewers The Sunny Side Up Show (Sprout) copied Zoom’s format from the start, while instead employing birthday cards, pictures, videos, and artwork, as well as Chica, a puppet co-presenter who received her own show.

  • Even Stevens (2000) / Lifewith Derek (2005)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Sitcom focusing on a Sibling Rivalry between two teenagers, in which the boy is a troublemaking Lazy Bum and the girl a perfectionist straight-A student.
    • Implementation: Even Stevens is an American show while Life with Derek was made in Canada. The family in Life with Derek is a stepfamily while the Stevens are fully biological. Both shows concluded with a TV movie about the family going on vacation.

  • Black Hole High (2002) / Tower Prep (2010) & House of Anubis (2011)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Kids shows about a group of teenagers trying to find out the secrets of their rather creepy Boarding School.
    • Implementation: The students of Tower Prep all have some type of supernatural ability to help them escape, whereas Anubis is more like a whodunit to find out why their friend Joy disappeared. Simply, Tower is like a Lighter and Softer Prison Break, while Anubis has a mystery arc like Twin Peaks. Also, while Tower debuted first, Anubis is based on Dutch show Het Huis Anubis (2006-2009) that aired before either of them. Finally, Black Hole High aired before anything and ran on half-hour episodes. A Dramedy with an emphasis more on comedy that incorporated science-fiction.

  • The Suite Life of Zack & Cody (2005) / Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn (2014)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Mischievous 'tuplets going on crazy adventures. Brian Stepanek is also present.
    • Implementation: Suite Life focuses on twins in a hotel where Brian plays their eccentric repair man, Arwin, while NRDD focuses on quadruplets in a sports shop where Brian plays their father. (Funnily enough, if Arwin were to achieve his goal, he would also be Zack and Cody's father.)

  • The Good Night Show (2005) / Giggle And Hoot (2009)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: A puppet and a human wind down viewers for bed.
    • Implementation: The Good Night Show started off in the "Goodnight Garden" in 2005, but moved to the "You and Me Tree" in 2011. Giggle and Hoot only featured one location throughout its entire run, Jimmy Giggle's house.


  • iCarly (2007) / Victorious (2010) & A.N.T. Farm (2011)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Kid Coms about talented and/or creatively expressive children.
    • Implementation: Victorious and ANT Farm have nearly identical premises — talented and gifted children attend a high school while hijinks ensue — but oddly enough more people think ANT Farm has more in common with iCarly given the amount of character and especially relationship expies.

  • iCarly (2007) / Bizaardvark (2016) / Coop & Cami Ask the World (2018)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Sitcoms about young content creators going on wacky adventures in the age of YouTube-esque social media.
    • Implementation: All three shows see their protagonists at the helm of a web show or channel: iCarly, Bizaardvark, and Would You Wrather?, respectively. iCarly and Coop and Cami are home-based operations, while in Bizaardvark, the series takes place in a large headquarters for their show's fictional website, Vuuugle. Additionally, Bizaardvark centers on a number of different web series while the other two focus on one.

  • Wizards of Waverly Place (2007) / The Haunted Hathaways (2013)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: A supernatural family tries to interact with the outside world without revealing their true powers.
    • Implementation: Wizards of Waverly Place focuses on a family of wizards that, through often comedic moments, tries to keep their powers a secret while struggling with school, relationships, and the hardships in life. The Haunted Hathaways replaces the wizards with the ghosts of a single father and his two children as a new family moves into their home.

  • Imagination Movers (2008) / The Fresh Beat Band (2009)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Edutainment Show involving a four-member musical group.
    • Implementation: The Imagination Movers was an actual band that started 5 years before the show did, while The Fresh Beat Band was created for their own show.

  • Jonas (2009) / Big Time Rush (2009)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Sitcoms about boy bands who much balance their music careers with living ordinary teenage lives.
    • Implementation: Jonas was a vehicle for the already existing Jonas Brothers. Big Time Rush, meanwhile, had the titular band specifically created for this show.

  • Big Time Rush (2009) / I'm in the Band (2009)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Shows about young men who rather arbitrarily end up in the music industry in bands. Tween Sitcoms premiering at around the same time.
    • Implementation: One has FOUR young adults for the male audience to look up to and the tween (and teen) girls to swoon over (hence the Boy Band), while the other only has one (and he's Putting the Band Back Together) and is otherwise targeted toward boys. One show has more music production (Big Time Rush)

  • Zeke and Luther (2009) / Pair of Kings (2010)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Both shows are about two teenage boys who often get into crazy situations and also have a younger family member trying to mess with them.
    • Implementation: Both of these shows seem to draw inspiration from and are comparable to Drake & Josh. Pair of Kings aired a year after Zeke and Luther did.


  • Victorious (2010) / Shake it Up (2010)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Kid Com, one about a girl at a performing arts school, another about two girls joining each other on a dance show.
    • Implementation: Both shows usually involve wacky situations. Victorious often involves singing, plays, and other various skits. Shake It Up features a Show Within a Show concept, much like the other Disney/Nick live action matchup.

  • Victorious (2010) / How to Rock (2012)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Two Kid Coms, one about a girl at a performing arts school, the other about an Alpha Bitch who loses her popularity and joins a pop-rock group at her school.
    • Implementation: Like the above, both shows usually involve wacky situations. As mentioned, Victorious often involves singing, plays, and other various skits, while How To Rock mostly features music and devotes the non-musical scenes to exploring the True Companions relationship between the members of Gravity 5 and Kacey's struggling not to fall back into her old ways. This time, both shows are on the same network, Nickelodeon.

  • Jessie (2011) / Sam & Cat (2013)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Spiritual Successors of widely popular shows featuring the breakout star(s) of the previous series in her own show playing nannies/babysitters.
    • Implementation: Jessie is spiritually spun-off from Disney Channel's The Suite Life on Deck, the previous show of Debby Ryan, while Nickelodeon's Sam & Cat is a legitimate spin-off of both iCarly and Victorious featuring the characters Sam and Cat from each respective show. The shows differ not only in the number of headline stars (one vs. two) but in Jessie focusing entirely on a single family, while Sam & Cat prefers to follow the Wacky Hijinks of the two leads leaving the babysitter premise almost entirely forgotten. Interestingly enough, the leads of each series - Debby Ryan and Jennette McCurdy - are real life friends (at least at one point).

  • Lab Rats (2012) / Dog with a Blog (2012)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: 2012 Disney sitcoms about teenagers keeping a very abnormal secret. Both series end with their secrets becoming exposed, to varying levels of success.
    • Implementation: Lab Rats focuses on bionic teenagers that must keep their special powers a secret for fear of government involvement and publicity. Dog With a Blog focuses on a dog that, aside from owning a blog, can talk. His three owners must keep his secret from their parents and the outside world for fear of, once again, government involvement and publicity.

  • Lab Rats (2012) / The Thundermans (2013)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Sitcoms about superpowered teenagers.
    • Implementation: Both shows have been compared to Wizards of Waverly Place, because the shows feature fantasy/sci-fi elements. Lab Rats was actually developed by some of the people who worked on Wizards.

  • Lab Rats (2012) / Mighty Med (2013)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Normal kid(s) discover a new, unseen world of superpowered people that they must keep secret.
    • Implementation: Both shows air on Disney XD, and center around normal teenager(s) who discover people with unusual abilities, and befriend them and work closely with them, though Mighty Med adds the concept of a superhero hospital. Their main adult figure is an eccentric. The protagonists' new hero friends have never experienced the human world before, causing wacky hijinks on their first day. As a general premise, they must keep the existence of their superheroics a secret, while protecting the world. Just as Leo, the protagonist of Lab Rats wishes he had bionics, Mighty Med's protagonist also wishes he had superpowers, and both get that fulfilled later in the series due to an accident. Season 4 of Lab Rats starts dueling back by having its own hero institution—a Bionic Academy in place of a superhero hospital.

  • Crash & Bernstein (2012) / Dog with a Blog (2012)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Disney sitcoms in which a family learns to live life with a talking non-human member.
    • Implementation: Crash & Bernstein has a talking puppet join the cast while Dog With a Blog instead involves a talking dog. Another key differences is that while the divorced mother in Crash & Bernstein knows about the talking puppet, the parents of Dog With a Blog are kept in the dark. Notably, both shows premiered within four days of each other in October 2012.

  • Sam & Cat (2013) / Lab Rats: Elite Force (2016)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: A crossover spin-off that merges the casts of two previous hit shows for the channel.
    • Implementation: Sam and Cat features the eponymous characters from iCarly and Victorious, while Lab Rats: Elite Force was a sequel to the original Lab Rats show that added members of Mighty Med. Both parent shows did a crossover special shortly before the new series (iParty with Victorious and Lab Rats vs. Mighty Med, respectively) involving all the main cast members of both shows. Also, both iCarly and Lab Rats naturally concluded their runs, while Victorious and Mighty Med were each ended prematurely to make way for the spinoff.

  • The Thundermans (2013) / Mighty Med (2013)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Teens cope with a double-life revolving around superheroes.
    • Implementation: In The Thundermans, the double-life the teens are coping with is themselves being superheroes, while in Mighty Med the teens are merely Secret Keepers through their work at a superhero hospital. The main characters in Mighty Med are trying to protect the hospital from the supervillains who wish to destroy it, while the characters in Thundermans merely want to escape the fame they've earned as famous superheroes (though constantly being pestered by supervillains themselves is also and naturally a major motivation).

  • Mighty Med (2013) / Henry Danger (2014)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: One or two teenagers get hired to work with superheroes at a top-secret after-school job.
    • Implementation: Mighty Med focuses on two comic book-loving teenagers who work at a secret hospital for super-heroes (conveniently located inside of a real hospital) who must keep their secret from their friends and parents. Henry Danger replaces the hospital with the underground lab of a super hero (which is very reminiscent of the second lab from Disney's Lab Rats). Henry, the titular character, lands a job as the paid sidekick of a superhero while keeping the secret from his friends, parents, and little sister.

  • Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn (2014) / Kirby Buckets (2014)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Kid Coms premiering in Fall 2014 that focus heavily on a rivalry between polar-opposite siblings. The only female sibling on both shows is named Dawn.
    • Implementation: NRDD's Dawn Harper is one of four co-leads on the show, and is the most likely of the four to serve as the protagonist of a given episode. Dawn Buckets, however, isn't the star of her show (that would of course be the titular Kirby), and she flip-flops between being the Deuteragonist and main antagonist of the show. Additionally, despite all the fighting, Harper seems to love her siblings deep down (and vice versa), while Buckets seems to genuinely hate her younger brother (and vice versa). NRDD is a standard multi-camera Kid Com with a Laugh Track, while Kirby Buckets is a faster-paced single-camera show in the vein of Ned's Declassified.

  • 100 Things to Do Before High School (2015) / Stuck in the Middle (2016)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: The token "single-camera" sitcom on the respective channel's line-up. Both shows explore the life of a teenage Latina girl as she navigates her crazy life.
    • Implementation: 100 Things is primarily set at a school (as its name suggests), while Stuck in the Middle focuses more on the life-at-home aspect. 100 Things was spun off of a TV Movie that premiered in 2014, while Stuck in the Middle went straight to the TV show.

  • Game Shakers (2015) / Bizaardvark (2016)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Kid Com that revolves around two teenage girls (one a Latinanote  and the other whom wears glasses) whose creative online ideas get them involved in a multimedia startup company.
    • Implementation: In Game Shakers, Babe and Kenzie create a popular mobile game, and after a rapper invests in them start up a new gaming business together. The similarly named Paige and Frankie from Bizaardvark, meanwhile, are "Vuuugle" stars who get accepted into the company's studios after becoming popular on the internet.

  • Andi Mack (2017) / I Am Frankie (2017)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Episodic, Kid Com and Teen Drama hybrids, both always ending in cliffhangers and both lacking a Laugh Track.
    • Implementation: Andi takes place in middle school and is more down to earth, while Frankie is about a robot and takes place in high school.


  • The Wilds (2020) / Yellowjackets (2021)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: Drama about a group of teen girls trying to survive in the wild after a plane crash, interspersed with scenes of their lives both before their crash and after being found.
    • Implementation: Both series were in production at the same time, with The Wilds airing before Yellowjackets. The Wilds takes place on a deserted island, and Yellowjackets in a Canadian forest. While both emphasize their lives before the crash, Yellowjackets also stresses the lives of the characters after being rescued, while The Wilds focuses on their time on the island. Yellowjackets is also much darker.

  • A Special Sesame Street Christmas (1978) / Christmas Eve on Sesame Street (1978)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: A Christmas Special features characters from Sesame Street getting ready for the holiday and singing original songs. Oscar's grouchiness about the celebration bothers Big Bird and friends.
    • Implementation: In a strange instance of a franchise dueling with itself, Special was produced and distributed by CBS and Christmas Eve by PBS, and aired within a few days of each other. Special had guest stars and musical numbers but few Muppet characters, while Christmas Eve has a more clearly defined story arc and more Muppet segments, being worked on by the main staff of the show. Both shows were nominated for an Emmy Award; Christmas Eve won it. The upshot was that Christmas Eve appeared in holiday rebroadcasts and home video releases for decades after; Special was considered a flop and all but vanished.

  • Inventing Anna (2022) / The Dropout (2022)
    • Capsule Pitch Description: 2022 biographical limited series about female fraudsters.
    • Implementation: The former is a Netflix series about Anna Delvey/Sorokin, a fake socialite who claims to be a wealthy German heiress, only to have people found out that she's actually conned the wealthy socialites she's met and she missed her payments for all the hotels she's stayed at, while the latter is a Hulu series about a female inventor of a medical device, Elizabeth Holmes, whose miraculous claims for her device turn out to be not only false, but also dangerous.


Alternative Title(s): Live Action TV

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