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- Initiators / Followers
- Capsule Pitch Description: Description
- Implementation: Implementation
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997) / Charmed (1998)
- Capsule Pitch Description: Young people battle the forces of evil in California. Both were hits for The WB network. Hot female witches were involved.
- Implementation: The characters on Buffy were high school and, later, college kids, while on Charmed, the Halliwell sisters were all adults.
- Joan of Arcadia (2003) / Wonderfalls (2004)
- Capsule Pitch Description: Short-lived Magic Realism Dramedies, each featuring a Weirdness Magnet heroine, who's stuck in a dead-end job and starts hearing voices telling her to do things.
- Implementation: Both premiered in the same year.
- Ghost Whisperer (2005) / Medium (2005)
- Capsule Pitch Description: Supernaturally-enhanced crime dramas.
- Implementation: The former sees ghosts; the latter has premonitions. Both are backed by "acclaimed" psychics. Medium started on NBC although it was produced by CBS. Whisperer began on CBS. When NBC cancelled Medium, CBS picked it up and put on the same night back-to-back with Whisperer.
- Supernatural (2005) / Night Stalker (2005)
- Capsule Pitch Description: A pair of humans investigate paranormal and demonic activity while looking for clues about a particular demon.
- Implementation: Night Stalker, a remake of Kolchak: The Night Stalker, starred Dorian Gray and was canceled after one season.
- Supernatural (2005) / Reaper (2007)
- Capsule Pitch Description: Supernatural dramas focusing on hunting monsters from hell.
- Implementation: Both aired on The CW at the same time, with Reaper premiering during Supernatural's third season. Reaper replied on comedic elements more heavily than Supernatural, which was much darker and gritty, and focused more on drama.
- Blood Ties (2007) / Moonlight (2007)
- Capsule Pitch Description: Short-lived Vampire Detective Series.
- Implementation: The similarities are probably more due to the nature of the genre rather than direct copying.
- True Blood (2008) / The Vampire Diaries (2009)
- Capsule Pitch Description: Based on a book/series, featuring the attraction between a[n apparently] human woman and two vampires. Both are distributed by Warner Bros. and aired on networks (HBO and The CW, respectively) owned by WB's parent company.
- Implementation: Diaries' two vampires are brothers, and the older one wants to kill the apparently human woman because she resembles the vampire who sired them; while True Blood is an ensemble show that focuses more on vampire "culture" at large. Plus, True Blood being on HBO means it can be more liberal in the sex, violence and general edginess department.
- Merlin (2008) / Camelot (2011)
- Capsule Pitch Description: A series based on the stories of King Arthur featuring a Mr. Fanservice actor playing Merlin and a beautiful, non-British, Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette actress playing evil sorceress Morgan(a).
- Implementation: Merlin is based around a cast of mostly young unknowns while the cast of Camelot is older and more famous (Colin Morgan vs Joseph Fiennes and Katie McGrath vs Eva Green.) Merlin is unashamedly High Fantasy aimed at family viewing while Camelot is a Darker and Edgier Low Fantasy.
- Camelot (2011) / Game of Thrones (2011)
- Capsule Pitch Description: R-rated premium cable series heavy on medieval political intrigue with an "adult" take on the Medieval Fantasy genre
- Implementation: Again, Game of Thrones is based on A Song of Ice and Fire novels by George R. R. Martin's, while Camelot is based on the Arthurian legends.
- Once Upon a Time (2011) / Grimm (2011)
- Capsule Pitch Description: The basic premise of both is that the characters live in the modern world and Fairy Tales are real.
- Implementation: Grimm (airing on NBC), despite the name, focuses more on general folklore than on fairy tales specific to The Brothers Grimm, while Once Upon A Time (airing on ABC) covers the whole spectrum of famous fairy tales, leaning towards those associated with Disney, which owns ABC, but also other literature such as Frankenstein, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, King Arthur and Robin Hood. Grimm is also darker and more like Supernatural, with the main character hunting the fairy tale creatures, while Once Upon A Time, while still a drama, is usually much lighter, considering the network airing it (ABC) and the company making the show (Disney). More specifically, Grimm is a police procedural with Monster of the Week episodes, while Once is more of a soap opera with fantasy elements.
- The Leftovers (2014) / The Returned (2015)
- Capsule Pitch Description: Drama ensues when a mysterious event causes the dis/appearance of loved ones.
- Implementation: The Returned is about dead people (sometimes long-dead) who reappear looking and feeling the same as when they died; The Leftovers is about how the disappearance of 2% of earth's population affects the remaining 98% in one town in particular (it isn't pretty).
- The Shannara Chronicles (2016) / Shadowhunters (2016)
- Capsule Pitch Description: Teen-oriented fantasy shows based on popular book series that premiered within a week of each other in 2016.
- Implementation: The Shannara Chronicles airs on MTV, is rooted in pure High Fantasy (albeit with After the End undertones), and is based on Terry Brooks' Shannara books, which were not originally written for teens. Shadowhunters, meanwhile, is an Urban Fantasy show that airs on Freeform, and is based on Cassandra Clare's explicitly YA-oriented The Mortal Instruments books.
- Game of Thrones (final season, 2019) / The Witcher (first season, 2019)
- Capsule Pitch Description: High profile big budget Dark Fantasy shows featuring clashing medieval kingdoms, wizards, dragons, Black Magic, bloody violence, sex and nudity.
- Implementation: Game of Thrones ended after a 8-year long runaway success for HBO while Netflix's The Witcher came in to fill the void left by the former series' end in the epic Dark Fantasy genre.
- The Mandalorian (first season, 2019) / The Witcher (first season, 2019)
- Capsule Pitch Description: High profile streaming fantasy shows centered around a lone drifting Bounty Hunter protagonist who becomes the protector of a child with special powers.
- Implementation: The Mandalorian is the first Star Wars live-action television series and the launch flagship of Disney+ while The Witcher is Netflix's major attempt to fill the post-Game of Thrones void in the Dark Fantasy department.
- House of the Dragon (2022 / 2024) / The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (2022 / 2024)
- Capsule Pitch Description: High profile streaming fantasy shows based off successful fantasy literary series by George R. R. Martin for the former and J. R. R. Tolkien for the latter (both fantasy authors happen to have "R. R." as initials in the middle of their name). Both series are prequels to a main saga set several hundred years before it (Game of Thrones and The Lord of the Rings, respectively), and they premiered less than 15 days apart. The duel carries over for Season 2 of both series in 2024.
- Implementation: HBO's House of the Dragons aims at building off the success of Game of Thrones and chronicles the downfall of the dragon-taming House Targaryen, while Amazon's The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power chronicles the Second Age wars between the peoples of Middle-earth against Sauron hundreds of years before the Third Age's War of the Ring (the conflict chronicled in The Lord of the Rings and its famous film adaptations — though The Rings of Power is not connected to the latter).
- Percy Jackson and the Olympians (2023) / Avatar: The Last Airbender (2024)
- Capsule Pitch Description: High profile streaming fantasy shows based on an iconic piece of 2000s children's/YA media (that started in 2005, no less) known to be incredibly popular & influential among younger Millennials and older Gen Z. Widely marketed as a Truer to the Text adaptation of the original work, following a heavily-criticized film adaptation that was released in 2010. Both are adventure stories with kid heroes, take place in a world where some people are born with innate powers, have a preteen Chosen One as the main protagonist, and star Two Guys and a Girl. Both series also have significant Adaptational Diversity compared to the first adaptation of the work. Both were released within 3 months of each other.
- Implementation: Disney Plus's Percy Jackson is the first major adaption of the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series following the two rather controversial movies from the early 2010s. Netflix's Avatar is the first major adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender following the disastrous movie from 2010.
