Expy / Live-Action TV

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• Arrowverse
• Doctor Who
• Saturday Night Live
• Star Trek
• The Boys (2019)

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• 666 Park Avenue: The Dorans for the Castevets from Rosemary's Baby.
• Angel:
  • Doyle is rather similar to Whistler, a character who appeared in the Season 2 finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Both are demons, both help Angel out, both serve (or served, in Doyle's case) as intermediaries for The Powers That Be, both are frequently sarcastic... Word of God in fact says Whistler was originally intended as Angel's sidekick, but schedule conflicts with the actor caused them to use Doyle instead. Which creates a certain amount of overlap with Suspiciously Similar Substitute. In "City of" Doyle even wears a hat similar to Whistler's iconic hat.
  • Izzerial ("Izzy") the Devil from the Circle of the Black Thorn, a very obvious one for Satan. Aside from the name, he's a red demon with a forked tail.
  • Illyria has some strong similarities to Eldrad from the Doctor Who story "The Hand of Fear", although it might be a coincidence. Both are former Sealed Evils In A Can eldritch entities who manifest as pretty blue women in skintight catsuits and have autocratic but sympathetic personalities.
  • Angel himself is very much an expy for Batman. Handsome good looks? Check? Heroic nature? Check. Endless courage? Check. It’s so blatant that other characters even make comparisons between the two.
• A.N.T. Farm :
  • Chyna Parks is expy of Raven Baxter , Carly Shay ,and Tori Vega.
  • Olive Doyle is expy of Lilly Truscott and Sam Puckett.
  • Fletcher Quimby is expy of Freddie Benson , complete with being the Butt Monkey (but more worse than Freddie's). Though their personalities differ, as well as liking a specific subject (Freddie's Tech knowledge to Fletcher's Art). Also, of Isaac Mendez of Heroes, to an extent.
  • Angus Chestnut is expy of Gibby
  • Paisley Houndstooth is expy of Cat Valentine minus mentioning her brother.
  • Gibson is expy of Spencer Shay.
• The Aquabats! Super Show!: Carl the Wizard from "Cobraman!" is a live-action version of Strong Bad from Homestar Runner, including the mask, the phony Mexican accent, and the fact he's played by Matt Chapman.
• Babylon 5:
  • Marcus pointed out on-screen that how they are all similar to characters from Arthurian legend. Word of God is that this was meant to foreshadow the reappearance of Anna Sheridan. It worked to some degree, as Marcus' wondering aloud at the end who was supposed to be Morgan LeFay had people on Usenet opining that Anna Sheridan wasn't really dead.
  • One episode also features two comedians who are clear expies of Penn & Teller. Being played by Penn and Teller.
• Better Call Saul:
  • Betsy Kettleman is very similar personality wise to Marie Schrader from Saul parent series Breaking Bad in that they are both stubborn, self-righteous characters with dubious morals. In fact, Betsy Kettleman was named after the actress who plays Marie Schrader, Betsy Brandt.
• Beverly Hills, 90210: Every character in this show has an almost perfect parallel character in the sequel series, 90210. Kelly is now Naomi, Dylan is Liam, and so on into infinity.
• Bottom by Rik Mayall and Ade Edmondson features the same basic characters as all of their acts; Rick and Vyvyan from The Young Ones, Rich and Catflap from Filthy Rich & Catflap, their stage act "the Dangerous Brothers" and their feature film Guest House Paradiso.
• The Bridge (2011): Saga Norén is so remarkably similar to Kathleen Mallory from Carol O'Connell's prose detective novels that it's hard to imagine there wasn't an influence. About the only difference between them is that Kathy is apparently asexual while Saga picks up random guys in bars for sex (and then freaks them out by starting her laptop up and looking at autopsy photos as soon as they've finished).
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Der Kindestod, of Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street.
  • Ted, and The Stepfather.
  • Buffy, as a character, is largely based on Kitty Pryde, a character in X-Men. It's been theorized she was inspired by Regina and Samantha Belmont of Night of the Comet: blonde, Californian morons who find themselves battling the undead.
  • Lothos is one for Dracula because of his pale skin, style of clothing, aristocratic background and vampirism.
  • Season 4's Big Bad Adam is a pretty clear one for Frankenstein's Monster. There's even a scene where he meets a child and ends up killing them, as in the original novel.
• Charmed:
  • Cole is clearly an expy of Angel in Buffy. Reformed demon starts a love affair with female hero, then reverts to evil. Then good again. Then semi-evil (see Season 2 Angel series). Aaron Spelling obviously agrees with the saying 'good writers borrow from other writers; great writers steal from them outright'.
  • The feuding Montana and Calloway families from Season 6 are the Montague and Capulet families from Romeo and Juliet, complete with Star-Crossed Lovers Richard Montana and Olivia Calloway.
• Chico and the Man Main characters Ed Brown and Chico Rodriguez are basically white and Latino versions of Fred & Lamont Sanford, who themselves are Black version of Archie Bunker and Mike Stivic.
• Season 4 of Community has Reinhold, an expy of his brother, Juergen, the annoying German foosball player from Season 3.
• Episode 6 of Tommy Cooper's 1975 series 'Cooper', has Russell Hunter playing police informant Sneaky. He is identical to Lonely, Hunter's character from Callan, right down to his unendurable body odour.
• Cougar Town: Has Ellie, an Expy of Jordan from Bill Lawrence's earlier show Scrubs. They are even played by the same actress.
• Danger Man: Patrick McGoohan's character was John Drake. (The series name was changed to Secret Agent in the USA after the first season.) Then McGoohan went on to play the unnamed Number Six on The Prisoner (1967), who is clearly an Expy of Drake. In both series, Drake/6 had a colleague called Potter, both played by Christopher Benjamin.
• The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance features characters clearly inspired by characters from The Dark Crystal.
  • Of all main Gelflings, Deet is clearly modeled the most after Kira. They both have long platinum hair, are a Friend to All Living Things and Speaks Fluent Animal, and are in a Ship Tease with a brown-haired Gelfling lad who functions as The Hero.
  • Likewise, Rian is pretty clearly modeled after Jen. A strapping young Gelfling lad with long brown hair who is functionally The Hero yet often needs help from the female Gelfling(s) he travels with, and is in a Ship Tease with a white-haired female Gelfling who is a Friend to All Living Things and Speaks Fluent Animal. All that said, he's much more effective in combat than Jen.
• Degrassi: The Next Generation: J.T. and Toby are updated versions of Arthur and Yick from Degrassi Junior High, while Sean is an updated version of the earlier show's Rick. (Both Sean and Rick are Troubled, but Cute, but the similarities go further — both live with their adult brother, both had an edgy relationship with a social-activist girl, etc.)
  • Rick, in turn, is an expy of Griff on The Kids of Degrassi Street, who lived with his adult brother after his parents died. Wheels is also a partial expy of Griff, having been orphaned as well, having a nickname based on his last name, and being played by the same actor.
  • Now that most of the cast were put on buses or just commuting, most of the characters introduced in Seasons 7 and 8 are Expies filling in the ro.
• Dexter: Dexter Morgan is similar to Serge Storms: Serge A. Storms: both are south Florida-based serial killers who only target bad guys, with the first Serge novel Florida Roadkill published in 1999 and the first Dexter novel Darkly Dreaming Dexter published in 2001. Per Tim during his 2013 book tour for The Riptide Ultra-Glide, Showtime was even offered a Serge TV show two years before they were offered Dexter.
• Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23: Chloe is basically a human, female Roger (it should be noted that the creator of the former wrote for American Dad). Both characters even used foster children for their own personal gain.
• Farscape: The fourth season villain Grayza has massive similarities, including a near-identical hairstyle and dress sense, to Blake's 7 Big Bad Servalan. In the first season, Crais had lesser but still clear similarities to the Blake's 7 villain Travis, although the two characters became completely different after Crais's Hazy-Feel Turn.
• Fargo: Season One has expies of characters in Fargo - Lester Nygaard is basically a more psychopathic and slightly more adept Jerry Lundegaard, Molly Solverson is a stand-in for Marge Gunderson. Lorne Malvo is an expy of Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men, another Coen Brothers film.
• Father Ted creators Arthur Mathews and Graham Linehan typically have a trio of characters that fit similar archetypes. Compared to other series Black Books and The IT Crowd, there's the (flawed) sane one,^note Ted, Fran, and Jen. the idiot,^note Dougal, Manny, and Roy. and the unsociable one.^note Father Jack — violent and alcoholic, Bernard — hates everyone, and Moss — socially awkward.
• The main characters of Firefly are based on the crew of the Betty from the original draft of Alien: Resurrection – both written by Joss Whedon. Most of them ended up altered significantly in the final film (for example, the film version of Hillard bears none of the resemblance to Zoe that the original-draft version does), but it's still obvious that Jayne is based on Johner. The ship Serenity herself is also based on the Betty.
• Fresh Meat: Kingsley is the same character as Simon from The Inbetweeners. Both were played by the same actor and Fresh Meat could even plausibly follow on chronologically from The Inbetweeners. Especially plausible because Kingsley never talks about his life before he became a university student. It's not implausible that he is Simon, and simply chooses to go by Kingsley because he wants to distance himself from his past life.
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air premiered in September of 1990. That same year, two long-running NBC shows—Amen and The Cosby Show, brought on Cousin Oliver characters who were prototypes of him—a streetwise kid taken in by wealthy relatives/friends.
• The four main characters Game Shakers shares some similarities as previous Dan Schneider shows iCarly and Victorious with Kenzie being a Brainy Brunette like Tori, Babe being the Genki Girl like Carly, Hudson being a Cloudcuckoolander like Spencer and Cat and Trip being the Only Sane Man like Freddie and Andre.
• Eclipse from The Gifted (2017) is based off of Sunspot from the New Mutants (particularly as he appeared in X-Men: Days of Future Past), being a Latino mutant with solar powers.
• Shawn from The Good Place is an expy of Kevin from Brooklyn Nine-Nine — both are dry-humored, completely deadpan men who generally dress in droll office wear. Both are played by Marc Evan Jackson, and both shows share a co-creator, as well as several writers, directors, and actors.
• In Gotham, Jerome Valenska and his identical twin brother Jeremiah are the Joker in all but name, to the point that the showrunners left it ambiguous on whether either twin becomes the Clown Prince of Crime, which the latter eventually fulfills the role in the finale.
• The Great White Hype: Samuel L. Jackson playing the Reverend Fred Sultan, an Expy of Don King, if Don King had style.
• Hell on Wheels: Cullen Bohanan has the exact backstory of The Outlaw Josey Wales.
• Hot in Cleveland: In both cast and premise (Four single, sexually active women, one of whom is played by Betty White, sharing a house), of The Golden Girls. To wit:
  • Melanie = Rose, the naive, ditzy one.
  • Joy = Dorothy, the bitter one.
  • Victoria = Blanche, the diva.
  • Elka = Sophia, the sardonic, immigrant mother figure.
• Holly & Stephen's Saturday Showdown, the last Saturday Morning Kids’ Show on ITV, had two hyena puppets called Scratch and Sniff, played by John Eccleston and Don Austen, whose main interest was eating the kids in the audience. They were very similar to Bro and Bro, two wolf puppets played by Eccleston and Austen whose main interest was eating the kids in the audience of the Saturday morning show What's Up Doc? ten years earlier.
• The Hour: Hector Madden is basically the 50s British Don Draper.
• House: Considering how much the show was based on the Sherlock Holmes stories, clearly the expies are there. House is Sherlock, obviously, the Insufferable Genius with his Deadpan Snarker side and substance abuse issues. Wilson is Watson, the Straight Man to House's Wise Guy. Stretching it a little further, Dr. Cuddy is Inspector Lestrade, who used to do House's legwork and has the same "I hate you, but you're too valuable to get rid of" tone we see in Lestrade.
• The Joe Schmo Show intentionally made its characters reality show archetypes as part of its premise. Gina "The Schemer" was based on Richard Hatch from the first season of Survivor. Hatch was inauspicious early on to the point of David Letterman turning him into a Butt-Monkey, but it turned out he was Crazy-Prepared psychologically and physically (although overweight at the start of the show, he'd lost a substantial amount of weight in preparation) and played the game expertly and went on to win. Ironically, Gina was voted out at the end of the first Joe Schmo episode, and guess who she quoted verbatim in her parting speech.
  • The first season also included an extremely obnoxious character Steve Hutchinson, played by David Hornsby, who liked to be called "The Hutch" and was constantly picking on a gay Hispanic character called Kip. He was obviously based on The Real World's most famous season, Season 3, where an extremely obnoxious Narcissist who went by "The Puck" picked on the gay Hispanic man Pedro. Pedro had AIDS, which they obviously didn't replicate with Kip, but otherwise that conflict was obviously based on that season.
  • The second season had Ambrosia, who was quite clearly based on Omarosa from The Apprentice.
• The titular Kamen Rider is one of these of the main character of a previous Shotaro Ishinomori work, Skull Man. Ishinomori had originally wanted to do a live action adaptation of Skull Man, but because of how mature it was it ended up being altered into Kamen Rider, who was essentially a family-friendly version of Skull Man. This later came full circle with Kamen Rider Skull.
  • Besides partially borrowing Skull Man's design, Kamen Rider also took a lot of character elements from the titular lead of another Ishinomori work, Cyborg 009. Both 009 and Kamen Rider were kidnapped by a mysterious organizations (Black Ghost and SHOCKER) that converted them into Cyborgs, only to escape and fight against said evil organization.
  • Ironically, Kamen Rider himself would receive a number of expies in other Toku heroes such as Henshin Ninja Arashi, Kikaider and Akumaizer 3.
• Kamen Rider Stronger The show was basically Kabuto's prototype in terms of the suits.
• The cast from Power Rangers Megaforce were intended as call-backs and homages to the five original rangers from Mighty Morphin, right down to their colours and personalities. This included:
  • Troy the Red Ranger, a disciplined, focused and skilled martial artist (Jason).
  • Emma the Pink Ranger, who was athletic yet girly, a flower lover, has a hidden talent of singing, and once borrowed her predecessor's complaint of the helmet messing up her hair (Kimberly).
  • Jake the Black Ranger, who was enthusiastic, upbeat and athletic (Zack).
  • Gia the Yellow Ranger; tough and confident, yet still fits in with the girly Pink Ranger, and smart enough to keep up with the Blue Ranger on most occasions (Trini).
  • Noah the Blue Ranger, a TV Genius and Non-Action Guy (Billy).
• The L.A. Complex: Abby was originally planned to be Manny Santos. When they made the choice not to make a Spin-Off, she gained a new name but kept the same actress and the same background down to hometown and her boyfriend back home's of job.
• Land of the Giants: Irwin Allen's series features Alexander Fitzhugh, a Con Artist who is definitely similar to Zachary Smith, the Breakout Character from Allen's previous series Lost in Space.
• Every episode of Law & Order: UK was based on an episode of the original series—episodes that Dick Wolf considered among his favorite and/or the best, and the characters were as well:
  • Snarky, world-weary, twice-divorced alcoholic Ronnie Brooks was obviously based on Lennie Briscoe.
  • Young, handsome, hot-tempered Matt Devlin was based on Mike Logan, as was his replacement Sam Casey, but his replacement Joe Hawkins is based more on Ed Green.
  • Natalie Chandler = Anita Van Buren
  • James Steel= both Ben Stone and Jack McCoy, but his replacement Jacob Thorne appears to be solely based on McCoy.
  • George Castle and Henry Sharpe= Adam Schiff
  • Phyllis Gladstone=Danielle Melnick
  • The only two characters who aren't clearly based on original characters are Alesha Philips and Kate Barker, yet they still fall into the "pretty young woman" role that became a staple of the original once Robinette left.
• The League of Gentlemen: Geoff Tipps, Ollie Plimsoles and subsequently Mr. Jelly from Psychoville, all of which were written performed by Reece Shearsmith.
• Lost: An expy of Mac (It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia) appeared in two episodes as a member of the Others; he was even played by Rob McElhenney. It was pure genius. The first time he appeared as just an extra who was knocked unconscious by Kate. The next time was his slight ascension in which he displayed very Mac-like qualities, such as his manner of speech when talking about the Smoke Monster and complaining that Kate didn't remember attacking him in his first appearance. Of course this being Lost and not Philly, he didn't last long.
• The Man from U.N.C.L.E.: In the Reunion Movie "The Return of The Man from U.N.C.L.E.: The Fifteen Years Later Affair", George Lazenby shows up during a car chase in a tricked-out Aston Martin.
• Merlin: To the first series of Smallville: the superpowered teenager who can't reveal his secret (Merlin and Clark); his father figure who knows his secret (Gaius and Jonathan); his best friend who will one day learn his secret (Chloe and Arthur), his first love interest whose destined to end up with a friend of his (Gwen and Lana); his future enemy pre-Face–Heel Turn (Morgana and Lex); said enemy's antagonistic father (Uther and Lionel). And later, his ally who knows his secret (Lancelot and Oliver) with a team of warriors (Knights of Camelot and the Justice League). And the dark, supernatural mentor with morally grey intentions (Jor-El and the Dragon)
  • Writer Julian Jones has admitted that their version of Tristan and Isolde are based on Mr. & Mrs. Smith (2005).
  • Queen Annis bears more than a passing resemblance to Boudicca, and there's some speculation that Princess Mithian was based on the more familiar characterization of Guinevere, being both high-born and in a (temporary) Arranged Marriage with King Arthur (the show's real Guinevere being a servant girl widely known as Gwen).
  • Though not strictly a character, the Mage Stone in To Kill The King is clearly the Philosopher's Stone, presumably changed in order to avoid comparisons with Harry Potter.
  • The Cup of Life is clearly the Holy Grail.
• Monarch: Legacy of Monsters: General Puckett takes over the role that the fictionalized version of General Douglas MacArthur originally had in the MonsterVerse's previous, now de-canonized account of Godzilla's past with Monarch in The '50s; of the U.S. Army officer who authorized the Castle Bravo atomic bombing in an attempt to kill Godzilla in 1954, over protests from Monarch, and who contributed to Monarch's growth in its early days.
• Murdoch Mysteries:
  • Badass Bookworm Murdoch is one for Sherlock Holmes.
  • Michael Seater has stated in this featurette that James Gillies is the Moriarty to Murdoch's Holmes.
  • Sally Pendrick can be read as one for Irene Adler Norton, the only woman to defeat Sherlock Holmes. Both women were singers, both had scandalous pasts that involved photographic evidence, and both initially defeated their sleuths (before the sleuths ultimately figured things out). (The difference is that Irene wasn't really a criminal, and Sally very definitely was.)
• No Ordinary Family: Lucas Winnick's animal based powers, slightly scraggly appearance, and eagerness to inflict violence with his new claws and teeth make him an expy of Sabretooth from the X-Men.
• The Old Guys: Roy and Tom are expies of Mark and Jeremy of Peep Show, with the same writing team.
• Once Upon a Time: Captain Hook is an expy of Captain Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean.
• Open All Hours: Kathy Staff's character, Mrs. Blewitt, is, as Staff herself noted in a making-of documentary, essentially the same character as the one she plays in Last of the Summer Wine, Nora Batty (also written by Clarke).
• The titular character in Parker Lewis Can't Lose was pretty brazenly based on Ferris Bueller; The Other Wiki even describes the series as "strongly influenced by the feature film Ferris Bueller's Day Off."
• The Pizza Head Show was a series of commercials for Pizza Hut made in The '90s by Walter Williams, creator of Mr. Bill. Pizza Head was basically Mr. Bill as a talking slice of pizza, suffering all sorts of Amusing Injuries thanks to the meddling of Steve the Pizza Cutter (standing in for Sluggo).
• In Powers a number of characters are based on characters from DC and Marvel comics, just as their counterparts from the Powers comic, most notably, Triphammer, who's based on Tony Stark.
• Pretty Little Liars: Alison is an expy of Laura Palmer. Both are beautiful, popular high-school girls with dark secrets well beyond their years, both are Posthumous Characters remembered fondly by their towns despite their true Byronic Hero natures, and their passing leaves their friends with more questions than closure. Alison even has an FBI agent named Cooper (a woman, in this case) investigating her death, and she leaves behind a video that's very similar in content and plot-relevance to one left by Laura.
  • She can also be seen as a darker version of both Blair Waldorf and Lily Kane.
  • Spencer is basically a darker Veronica Mars. She can also be Sherlock Holmes (she even has his initials)!
• Rawhide: Wishbone, the bearded cook, is an expy of Charlie Wooster, the bearded cook of Wagon Train fame.
• Revolution: Aaron seems to be this to Hurley, but with a Race Lift. Rich guy whose money is now worthless? Check. Big guy who is a vast source of comic relief? Check. Apparent aversion to physical tasks (at least partially due to his size)? Check.
• Rhyme and Reason, an ABC game show from 1975, was an expy of Match Game on CBS in that entailed two contestants and a panel of six celebrities. The panel must finish a poem and match the rhyming word the contestants had written down. While Match Game was still riding the ratings crest, Rhyme And Reason was cancelled a year later.
• Robin Hood: Richard Armitage's portrayal of Guy of Gisbourne in the BBC's show: give him an eyepatch, and he'd be Space Commander Travis.
• Saved by the Bell: The New Class: Most of the original cast were basically the old class with different actors. Apparently it didn't go over well, because the cast was largely overhauled early on.
• Scrubs: Some of the new interns in Season 8 seem to be Expies of the main cast.
  • Katie Collins is explicitly nicknamed "Mini Elliot" (and is even caught making out with another intern in a pink bra in one scene, similar to what often happens to Elliot, who often takes her shirt off for one reason or another and is always wearing a different coloured bra every time).
  • Derek Hill has some similarities to Turk, but Turk realizes that he acts in a serious and arrogant manner.
  • Howie Geller is a mixture of JD, Doug and The Todd.
  • Dr. Sonja "Sunny" Dey is almost exactly like the short Indian girl with the squeaky voice, only taller.
  • Nurse Roberts friggin dies... and then the actress Aloma Wright comes back like five episodes later to play Nurse "Shirley". J.D. Lampshades this by calling her Lavern-again. She is never seen after this.
• Schitt's Creek has Twyla, who is an expy of Ursula, the ditzy waitress from Mad About You.
• Schmigadoon! bases its characters on musical theater archetypes and characters, some more blatant than others. Genre Savvy Melissa is on-hand to identify the more obvious ones.
  • Emma to Marian Paroo, an intelligent, forward-thinking small-town woman who works in a "smart" job (Marian is a librarian, Emma is a schoolmarm). Like Marian, she has a much-younger brother with a lisp who acts as the town crier. She even cites the same "dirty" authors expunged in The Music Man: Geoffrey Chaucer, Francois Rabelais, and Honoré de Balzac. Lampshaded by Melissa, who recognizes her character as being right out of The Music Man (and The King and I, another musical with a forward-thinking schoolteacher heroine) and tells Josh how to progress Marian's story.
  • Gabriele to Baroness Elsa Schraeder. Like the Baroness, she is a beautiful, rich blonde of noble descent who is supposed to marry the cold, perfectionist widow love interest (Jorge). She even shows up in a similar outfit to the Baroness in the film (coiffed hair, dangling earrings, gold dress, white gloves). Lampshaded by Melissa, who recognizes their situation as being right out of The Sound of Music, and expects her to be a Graceful Loser. Melissa even mentions that the original Baroness may or may not have been a Nazi; "Blerky" says of course she's a Nazi.
• Some Assembly Required has characters who are obviously based upon characters from Mr. Young, Dan Signer’s previous YTV sitcom. Note that this only applies to the teenage characters, and that Aster doesn’t have a counterpart as there are six main teens on SAR compared to only five on Young.
  • Jarvis is based upon Adam, as both are the protagonists, who are teenagers put into an adult job and quickly use their youthful brains to their advantage.
  • Piper and Echo are both the tomboy of the two lead female characters and are the main love interest of the protagonists. The main difference is that Piper is a Perky Goth while Echo is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and that while Adam likes Echo, Piper is into Jarvis.
  • Bowie and Derby are both the goofballs of their respective group and childhood friends of the protagonists. While they’re not dumb, they aren’t smart either and have poor common sense.
  • Knox and Slab are Dumb Muscle characters who are known by nicknames derived from their last names (Knoxford and Slabinsky). While Slab is a bully, Knox is a Surfer Dude.
  • Geneva is a successor to Ivy, as they are Dumb Blonde characters who play a girly counterpart to Piper and Echo. Geneva tends to be dumber and nicer than Ivy, who is somewhat of an Alpha Bitch. While Ivy is presented as a love interest only to Derby, all of the boys in SAR (except for the presumably gay Aster) are shown as having crushes on Geneva, which underscores the fact that she was only hired for her looks.
• Stargate Atlantis: Rodney McKay is basically Gary Meyers from the original Stargate with a different profession. They even look similar.
• Supernatural:
  • Sam Winchester is modelled after Luke Skywalker and Dean Winchester is modelled after Han Solo from Star Wars.
  • The Trickster is a mischievous Reality Warper who enjoys screwing with the heroes while also trying to teach them a lesson and sometimes outright helping them. Essentially he's Q transplanted from the sci-fi setting of Star Trek: The Next Generation into a dark fantasy universe.
  • The writers acknowledge that Castiel is modeled off of John Constantine.
• Super Sentai/Power Rangers:
  • Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger/Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: Daizyuzin/Dino Megazord was based on Golion/Voltron (mecha designer admitted his inspiration), while Dragon Caesar/Dragonzord was based on the King of Monsters himself, Godzilla.
  • Gosei Sentai Dairanger: Iron Faced Chouryou and his superior Archbishop Saw are clearly based on Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine respectively. Chouryou is a black armored knight who is actually the father of the red ranger, who defected to evil and Saw uses electricity to torture is enemies, causing Chouryuo to pull a Heel–Face Turn. Chouryou even debuts with a music theme resembling the Imperial March from Star Wars.
  • The mecha of Ninpuu Sentai Hurricaneger are an expy to the ones from Choujuu Sentai Liveman. Both Liverobo and Senpuujin consist of a red eagle, a yellow lion and a blue dolphin. Like Liveman before it, Hurricaneger also introduces a second Combining Mecha consisting of two land vehicles, which can also combine with the primary robot.
• The Suite Life of Zack & Cody:
  • London Tipton is an expy of Paris Hilton (who was extremely relevant at the time this was being filmed in 2005-2008).
    Teacher: No, I'm talking to the spoiled airheaded heiress in the front.
    London: Gasp! Paris Hilton is here?
• Terrahawks had Winsdor Davies essentially reprise his role of Battery Sergeant Williams from It Ain't Half Hot, Mum as Sergeant Major Zero, the major difference being Williams was human and Zero was a spherical robot.
• Terra Nova: Nathaniel Taylor is Colonel Miles Quaritch from Avatar, down to being played by Stephen Lang. Being nicer doesn't make him any less badass.
• The Tick (2001) couldn't use the animated characters Die Fladermaus and American Maid, so they were replaced with expies Batmanuel and Captain Liberty.
• The Tonight Show:
  • Answer Man (Steve Allen) => Carnac the Magnificent (Johnny Carson) => Beyondo (Jay Leno) => In The Year 3000 (Conan O'Brien).
    • And Allen's "Answer Man" was said by some to be stolen from inspired by Ernie Kovacs' "Mr. Question Man" during the period when the two split hosting duties on the show.
  • Green Car Challenge => Star in a Reasonably Priced Car.
• Torchwood:
  • Davies seems to have brought in a lot of influences from earlier works. Gwen bears a resemblance to Rose in her role. Captain Jack comes across as a hybrid of the Doctor and Stuart from Queer as Folk (UK), while Ianto became more and more like Vince, especially in his relationship to Jack, as the series progressed.
  • A Badass Longcoat who is Really 700 Years Old that investigates the paranormal with a Five-Man Band, which is a more adult Spinoff of a previous show? Wait, what show are we talking about? Just check the main images for Angel. Russell T Davies WAS pretty heavily inspired by Joss Whedon.
  • Captain John Hart, Captain Jack Harkness's Evil Counterpart is clearly an Expy of Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and is even played by the same actor, James Marsters. He acts a lot like pre-Badass Decay Spike (if not even more unhinged), and Jack even acts a lot like Angel around him.
• The Twilight Zone (1985): In "Cold Reading", the UBS radio adventure series Dick Noble, African Explorer is based on Jack Armstrong, the All-American Boy, which ran on CBS and later NBC and ABC from 1933 to 1951. In the final scene, it is mentioned that next week's episode will pit Dick Noble against invaders from Mars, a reference to Orson Welles' 1938 radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds.
• The Twilight Zone (2002): In "Azoth the Avenger is a Friend of Mine", the title character is one for Conan the Barbarian.
• Two and a Half Men: Judith is a clear Expy of Lillith from Frasier. She's a vindictive ex-wife, is quite neurotic, and speaks in a very similar manner.
• Unhappily Ever After: The main characters were obvious expies of those in Married... with Children. The main difference was that UEA replaced the family dog with a puppet. Since the two shows were created by the same people, they basically sold the same idea to two different networks.
• The Vampire Diaries: April Young has a few things in common with Season 1 Caroline, right down to winning Miss Mystic Falls like her.
• The Walking Dead: More than a few viewers have noticed the resemblance between Glenn and Short Round of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Both Glenn and Short Round are young Asian male Guile Heroes who wear baseball caps. They're also the sidekicks to older white badasses who love their distinctive hats. Even Steven Yeun has noticed this.
• Wings: Joe, Brian and Helen's representations during the first season are quite similar to that of Chip, Dale and Gadget from Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers (which premiered a couple of years before Wings). Joe and Chip were the smart, responsible pilots with the cool jackets, Brian and Dale were the goofy, fun-loving brothers who wore Hawaiian shirts, and Helen and Gadget were the cute blondes that the brothers fought over.
• Bud Spencer (real name Carlo Pedersoli) last role was in an Italian TV series called I Delitti del Cuoco ("The Chef's Murders") where he played a former police commissioner with a passion for cooking, who now owned and ran a restaurant in Ischia, an island near Naples. Given that he played Neapolitan commissioner "Piedone" Rizzo in four movies during the '70s, this later character may be Rizzo after he retired from active duty.
• Ultra Series:
  • Given how many kaiju there are in the franchise, it's no surprise some of them are expies of each other or the giant monsters of other Japanese franchises, such as the Godzilla series. Listing even half of them would triple the size of this page, but the main thing one should know is that many times, the Ultra Series' expies are a deliberate Shout-Out, a Mythology Gag, or even a Whole-Plot Reference to previous Ultra series episodes or a famous kaiju movie.
  • Expying extends to some of the human characters as well. For example, Ultra Garrison's Big Guy Furuhashi from Ultraseven is a very blatant copycat of Arashi from the previous series, the original Ultraman — right down to being played by the same actor.
  • On Ultraman X, Ultraman X resembles Digimon species when he uses MonsArmor functions. As shown, Gomora Armor is WarGreymon, Eleking Armor is Omnimon (or MetalGarurumon X), Bemstar Armor is Crusadermon, Zero Armor is MagnaAngemon, and Zetton Armor is Kabuterimon.
• In-Universe in ''Westworld. Shogun World contain as major characters a dishonouredRōnin, his female partner with a dragon tattoo and the head geisha of the local okiya, who the lead writer admits he just recycled from Hector, Armistice and Maeve; complete with regular robberies of the okiya. When they all wander into Shogun World the Westworld originals [1] meet their duplicates.
• The X-Files: The Black Oil or Black Cancer has a striking resemblance to the Venom symbiote from Spider-Man. Both are evil black alien liquid lifeforms resembling oil that have the ability to attach themselves to people, taking over their bodies and granting them superhuman powers. And just like most incarnations of the symbiote, the Black Oil was originally discovered in a meteorite. The introductory scene of the Black Oil even has resemblances to the symbiote's introduction in Spider-Man: The Animated Series. FBI Agent Dana Scully has more than a hint of Clarice Starling from 'The Silence of the Lambs', an imprisoned Mulder even riffing the whole "Hello Clarice" gag in the final episode.

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