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  • The success of Guardian led to the creation of The Untamed. The latter series became an even bigger success than the former and led to the creation of other Live Action Adaptations of danmei novels, including Word of Honor and Immortality.
  • American Beauty is said to have inspired the idea for Desperate Housewives.
  • Batman (1989) inspired the short-lived The Flash (1990) on CBS as is obvious from both the general tone of the show and Danny Elfman's recycled score.
  • Sesame Street is such a strong leader that it inspires rivals and hurts its own viewership.
  • CSI precipitated a host of forensic science shows involving (to quote the show) "beautiful people doing high-tech crime work", even to the point that shows not inherently about forensics now spend more time on the subject (e.g. the medical examiner on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit).
    • CSI itself was inspired by an earlier wave of forensic-science documentaries, on channels like Discovery and Court TV.
    • Quincy, M.E.
    • An interesting case of recursion has occurred with CSI: Cyber, which was clearly inspired by Criminal Minds (itself inspired by the success of the original CSI).
  • Survivor opened the floodgates of competitive Reality TV early on during Turn of the Millennium.
  • In-Universe in the robot combat shows BattleBots, and Robot Wars, if a certain weapon does really successfully in one season, expect lots of imitators in the following season.
  • Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? and Pop Idol inspired scads of prime-time million-dollar quiz shows and talent contests, respectively:
  • America's Got Talent had Jackie Evancho, a very young girl who unexpectedly sang the opera aria "O Mio Babbino Caro". After that, there were many other unexpected singers of "O Mio Babbino Caro", including a Marilyn Manson look-alike, a big muscle man, another very young girl, and a woman in a bikini. It's almost a Stock Character. And they all sang it up in the soprano range like Jackie, too!
  • The heavily character-driven, strangers-in-a-strange-land suspense formula of Lost inspired plenty of other shows, such as Invasion, Jericho (2006), Heroes, Surface, and Threshold. Many of these were cancelled before they barely even began to delve in their Myth Arc. Coincidentally, there is a Lost episode titled "Follow the Leader."
    • After Lost's finale, a slew of new shows have started claiming to be "the next Lost" in order to round up the Lost fans looking for something new to watch. FlashForward (2009), V, and The Event have both tried rather unsuccessfully to take Lost's place and new programs Stargate Universe, Riverworld, and Terra Nova made the attempt as well.
    • The concept was sent up in a MADtv skit. "You'll be asking yourself questions like, 'Who's the girl with the glasses, and why does she have scales on her leg?'"
    • Lost was blatantly copied (in the vein of an Asylum film) by 2010's "Dark Island". A science team (totally not the freighties) is sent to deal with zombies and a SMOKE MONSTER on a mysterious island.
    • J. J. Abrams had already created a fair amount of the concept with his earlier Alias.
  • Tales of the Gold Monkey, a modern take on 1930s Two-Fisted Tales, was being pitched by Donald P. Bellisario throughout the late 70s, but it wasn't until the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark that the concept was picked up. Subsequently, Gold Monkey received its own imitator in the form of Bring 'Em Back Alive, which was hurriedly green-lit to compete with Bellisario's creation for the period pulp audience cash cow. Sadly, neither survived for more than a single season.
  • Friends resulted in a continuing string of ensemble Sitcom/Soap Operas, set in the city and populated by (supposedly) 20-somethings.
    • One might argue Friends was one of the ensemble Sitcoms inspired by Seinfeld. As George says in one scene set in Monk's coffee shop, "Every sitcom today just has four morons sitting around telling each other how bad their day was." Another would be Mad About You which co-creator Paul Reiser pitched to NBC as "Seinfeld, but Married".
    • These three shows' open approach to sex has led to a more frank tackling of sexual situations on TV comedy rather than being just the basis for one or two dirty jokes (fittingly, sex lost its taboo status during this time).
    • Among the Friends-inspired: Partners, a rather similar show about the lives, loves, and careers of 20somethings; Coupling (the British Friends); Babes in the Wood, (the earlier British Friends); and later possibly How I Met Your Mother.
    • In her book, Bossypants, Tina Fey asserts that Friends is also directly to blame for the long string of bland urban comedies exclusively starring attractive, well-to-do, heterosexual white people.
  • Power Rangers inspired several other adaptations of toku series, such as Denkō Chōjin Gridman as Superhuman Samurai Syber-Squad, random Metal Heroes series as VR Troopers, Kamen Rider BLACK RX as Masked Rider, and Juukou B-Fighter as Big Bad Beetleborgs.
    • This is an odd case, as three of the imitators—VR Troopers, Masked Rider and Big Bad Beetleborgs—were all made by Saban Entertainment as a way to leech off Power Rangers, which they also made. Masked Rider was a total flop and the other two were only mildly successful.
      • Beetleborgs absolutely TROUNCED Power Rangers in ratings and toy sales for both seasons it aired, and was only canceled due to exorbitantly high production costs and a lack of additional source footage. Justin got introduced to Power Rangers Turbo in order to leech off the success of its own imitator; this didn't work so well.
      • It's worth noting that the reason for Mighty Morphin's dinosaur theme is because of this trope; initially, Haim Saban had wanted to use Choudenshi Biomannote , but his pitch was rejected. He later presented a pilot that used footage from the dinosaur-themed Kyōryū Sentai Zyuranger during the 90s — said sentai was likely chosen due to the popularity of Jurassic Park. This pilot was accepted, and the rest is history.
    • Tattooed Teenage Alien Fighters from Beverly Hills is what you get when you rely entirely on your own footage. As is The Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nóg, another one by Saban.
    • Super Sentai itself is guilty of this. Mahou Sentai Magiranger (adapted into Power Rangers Mystic Force) was a fairly obvious cash-in on Harry Potter, and the Pirate theme of Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger (adapted into the second half/season of Power Rangers Megaforce, Power Rangers Super Megaforce) is cashing in on One Piece.
  • Thanks to the success of Lizzie McGuire and That's So Raven, and the stardom of both shows' leads, Disney Channel is saturated with brightly colored, Zany Scheme-laden children's sitcoms and shows with preppy High School settings.
  • When Chappelle's Show broke out in 2003, the series saw massive popularity thanks to its unprecedented mix of in-your-face racial humor and intelligently-written comedy sketches. After Dave Chappelle's Creator Breakdown (among other things) led to the demise of the show, Comedy Central would go on to produce several other shows over the years with the same framework. note  Unfortunately, fans of Chappelle's Show have claimed that many of these shows lack the same level of humor and comedic impact as the original, and don't have the same amount of memorable sketches. So far, the only series to come close to the critical acclaim of the original Chappelle's Show seasons is the relatively recent Key & Peele.
  • Despite being cancelled years ago, Jackass still has copies around, including Dirty Sanchez, Crazy Monkey, Rad Girls, and the Finnish series Extreme Duudsonit (which actually came before Jackass).
    • Even the stars of Jackass have started to clone their own show, with Steve-O and Pontius' "Jackass, but with animals" show Wildboyz and Bam Margera's "Jackass, but a reality show" Viva La Bam.
    • Some of the Jackass guys helped produce an English language version of Extreme Duudsonit — which they list as the primary influence for Jackass — for an American audience. The resulting show — called The Dudesons — was cancelled by Spike TV after only a couple of episodes, mostly because people didn't watch it because they thought it was a spineless Finnish Jackass clone.
      • Jackass itself was derived in part from the character of Super Dave Osborne, a parody of 1970s stuntmen like Evel Kneivel, played by comedian Bob Einstein. Einstein himself detests Jackass, pointing out in this interview that Jackass is tragically easy to imitate, while the stunts he pulled were a lot harder for viewers to copy.
  • Comedy Central's success with Tosh.0 inspired MTV to create Ridiculousness, which is more or less the same show. Daniel Tosh has even leveled a few Take Thats at Ridiculousness over allegedly ripping off his series.
    • And of course Tosh.0 is basically a more vulgar Spiritual Successor to America's Funniest Home Videos.
    • There's also Web Soup, which shares a lot of the same setup as Tosh.0. (with Chris Hardwick instead of Daniel Tosh. Funny thing, though; the first episode only aired four days after Tosh.0's, making it unlikely that there was any intended plagiarism.
  • The X-Files inspired a number of series featuring alien invasions and supernatural hoohah, such as Dark Skies.
    • The success of The X-Files mythology perhaps also inspired series, such as 24 and Lost, that used serialized storylines, which in turn led to more serialized thriller shows such as Prison Break, Kidnapped, Vanished, Reunion, and Heroes, along with a few that also borrowed the alien invasion premise as well: Invasion, Surface, and Threshold. Most of these series failed due to people being unable (or unwilling) to keep up with so many different ongoing stories — and also due to generally being not very good.
    • There were tons of shows in Japan of this type long before X-Files. In 1966, we have Ultra Q (the predecessor of Ultraman), greatly involving Kaiju. Then, in 1968, two series: Operation Mystery (probably the most like X-Files out of the three) and Mighty Jack (the "movie" was lampooned in MST3K). All three are made by the same company.
  • The massive success of Kamen Rider led to others trying to make similar shows, spawning the "Henshin Hero" era of Toku. Several of these were made by Toei (the makers of Kamen Rider) themselves, and some (most notably Kikaider) would go on to be successes of their own.
  • The success of Kamen Rider Decade, plus the press that went into its movie featuring a Crisis Crossover with every rider ever lead to later instalments of Kamen Rider, along with Super Sentai and Ultra Series featuring returning actors and items based on legend heroes.
  • While the degree to which Star Trek: Deep Space Nine was inspired by/ripped off Babylon 5 is controversial (to say the least), there is less doubt that the former's "Dominion War" arc was inspired by the latter's intricate Myth Arc (although only the most rabid partisans of Babylon 5 would claim that Deep Space Nine ripped it off outright). The B5 myth arc was in turn inspired by story arcs used in foreign television series, and combining it with a long-time comic-book fan's love of continuity to take the concept up to eleven.
  • The success of the pithy, sarcastic Judge Judy spawned a whole slew of pithy, sarcastic judge shows: Judge Mathis, Judge Joe Brown, Playboy Channel's Judge Julie etc. Even the venerable The People's Court replaced Judge Wapner with sarcastic, saucy Latina Judge Marilyn Milian (after brief stints by former New York Mayor Ed Koch and Judge Judy's husband). To be fair, Jerry Sheindlin was a judge in his own right.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer was followed by a slew of Monster of the Week Urban Fantasy series set in The Present Day (Charmed, Supernatural, Reaper, and a number of others) as well as helping to spark a resurgence of action series with female leads, though arguably the somewhat earlier Xena: Warrior Princess was more of a trendsetter in that field.
  • Charmed has also had its own imitators in the form of all-female cast shows centered on witches, particularly The Secret Circle, American Horror Story: Coven, Witches Of Eastend, and The Originals.
  • The day Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. premiered on ABC to massive ratings, Fox ordered Gotham. And then after Gotham premiered to massive ratings, Syfy ordered Krypton, a similar prequel built around the Superman mythos.
  • Gotham (Fox) seems to have set off a bunch of DC Universe live-action TV adaptations in the wake of its hype: Lucifer (Fox), Constantine (NBC), Supergirl (NBC), Hourman (CW), Titans (DC Universe), and the above-mentioned Krypton (Syfy), plus Arrow's spinoff The Flash (2014) (CW). And of course this is arguably part of the general resurgence of live-action comic book dramas that Arrow (CW) and The Walking Dead (AMC) helped kick off. Non-DC properties include Powers (PSN), Preacher (AMC), Daredevil (2015) and the other Marvel shows (Netflix), Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (ABC), Agent Carter (ABC), iZombie (CW), and Riverdale (CW).
  • Shortly after it was announced that NBC had ordered a DC Comics sitcom called Powerless (2017), ABC announced that they were planning their own Marvel sitcom.
  • During the lead-up to the premier of Luke Cage (2016), it was announced that Fox had ordered a pilot for a TV show based on Black Lightning, another former urban Blaxploitation superhero. What makes it interesting is that the show had apparently been floating around for a while, but it wasn't picked up until the rave reviews for Luke Cage started pouring in.
  • The aforementioned Titans, a Darker and Edgier superhero show released on the DC Universe streaming service, was also clearly inspired by the success of the Darker and Edgier Marvel shows created for the Netflix streaming service, such as Daredevil and Jessica Jones.
  • Following the news that Marvel would be creating high-budget shows based on their library of characters (The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, WandaVision, Ms. Marvel, She-Hulk and Moon Knight) for the Disney+ streaming platform, WB announced plans to produce high-budget series based on Green Lantern and Justice League Dark for HBO Max, Disney+'s direct competitor.
  • Merlin is quite an astonishingly direct emulation of the premise and format of Smallville, to the point where a few of the characters are even expies of the parent show's cast, at least to begin with. It quickly developed its own identity, however, something helped by the setting and the stakes — where even a young and Hot-Blooded Superman adheres to Thou Shalt Not Kill, Merlin himself racks up an absolutely horrendous body count without even blinking twice.
  • Sliders became rather sad in its third season, as it started following any leader that presented itself, with episodes that were little more than cheap ripoffs of the movies Twister, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Tremors, Jurassic Park, and The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977).
  • Probably the most incredible chain of such events: The Sopranos was Goodfellas: The Series. Deadwood was "The Sopranos in the Old West", Rome was "Deadwood in Ancient Rome", and The Tudors was "Rome in Tudor England". Surprisingly, the quality of all of these shows vary only from good to excellent. Then the trend became "gritty expensive TV series in a historical setting with lots of blood, sex and Deliberate Values Dissonance" including Mad Men, Boardwalk Empire, Spartacus: Blood and Sand, The Pillars of the Earth, The Borgias, Camelot, Game of Thrones...
    • For a more specific example, The Sopranos was very influential in popularizing the Byronic Hero trope for the main character in television, i.e. a complex, morally ambiguous character who's charismatic and has sympathetic and humanizing qualities, but who is also deeply flawed and commits many horrible deeds thanks to their deep character deficiencies, which are criticized by the show. Notable examples include Mad Men (whose showrunner worked on The Sopranos) and Breaking Bad (with Bryan Cranston even stating that Walter White would not exist without Tony Soprano).
  • There were so many similarities to Cold Squad when Cold Case debuted that the makers of the former took the latter to court.
  • MythBusters inspired a number of popular science shows and launched the Experiment Show genre. Fans complain that many of its descendants, like Brainiac: Science Abuse, simply don't match it in terms of quality. Or explosions. Or, for that matter, quality of explosions. One of the more popular successors was Time Warp which takes the viewers' glee at watching things in slow-motion on the high-speed cameras, but keeps the material fresh by using more than just Stuff Blowing Up. (And the hosts are far more entertaining than some of those other failed shows.)
  • Monty Python's Flying Circus inspired many an inferior imitator (although to be fair the original set an extremely high standard). Some were pretty good: The Kids in the Hall was an excellent comedy.
  • Anytime a particular weapon or design in Robot Wars became really successful it would be heavily copied in later seasons. Some examples;
    • TRACIE from season 1 was designed to run both ways up. The feature caught on and was used by a lot of robots in later wars including Tornado and SMIDSY.
    • Flippers, which briefly became something of a Game-Breaker until people worked out how to deal with them. First used by Recyclopse in season 1, but made really popular by 1: Cassius (Recyclopse's successor) which used its flipper to right itself when turned over (this later became known as the self-righting mechanism, or SRIMECH) and 2: Chaos 2, winner of the 3rd and 4th season which had a very powerful flipper (and also was the first to flip another robot over the fence).
      • The SRIMECH itself; while originated as an Improbable Use of a Weapon (many robots used flippers, or other weapons), some later robots had separate self-righters that did not double as weapons.
    • Crushers, first introduced by Razer in the second wars though these didn't start to catch on until the 5th season when the weight limit was increased.
    • Spinning discs, first used by Hypno-Disc in the 3rd wars and produced heavy amounts of damage, however imitators rarely managed to succeed at this.
  • The revival of Doctor Who has led to attempts at bringing back several other shows, including Survivors and Rentaghost, as well as to the recreation of the "Saturday evening drama" slot, evidenced by Primeval.
    • And in America, it hasn't brought back anything, it's simply added to the long-running "Friday night Skiffy" slot which has been going for at least 15 years...around the time the Saturday evening drama seemed to go away for a bit in England.
    • It also led to a string of TV shows in which classic British heroes were reinvented (Robin Hood, Merlin, Sherlock, etc). Like Doctor Who, some of these shows have been well-received. Others, not so much.
    • The continued success of the Doctor Who revival in The New '10s appears to have been the primary catalyst for no less than four debuting shows in the 2016-17 U.S. broadcast television season featuring timey-wimey premises: Time After Time (ABC), Making History (Fox), Timeless (NBC), and Frequency (The CW), with the more recent successes of Outlander and Legends of Tomorrow (the latter even features Who alumni in its cast) further encouraging the trend.
  • The success of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys led to a raft of other fantasy-adventure shows, including Roar and The New Adventures of Robin Hood.
  • Degrassi: The Next Generation was such a runaway hit in its US broadcast on the cable network Noggin that the channel's teen programming block, The N, was spun off into its own channel. As a result, The N tried to make (or get the rights to) countless shows that repeated the formula: a Soap Opera Dysfunction Junction of teenage (or slightly older) Star-Crossed Lovers whose love is threatened by either No Going Steady or a Love Triangle, In a World… where Adults Are Useless and a Hard Truth Aesop is around every corner, and everything changes constantly. The N even marketed them this way, with Degrassi actors guest-starring in them and Crossover commercials with characters from multiple shows. None of them gained the mega-popularity of Degrassi. They ranged from South of Nowhere, (Degrassi meets Beverly Hills, 90210...in America!), which managed a cult following, to Whistler (Degrassi meets watered-down Twin Peaks), which was poorly promoted and barely noticed outside of Canada, to Beyond the Break (Degrassi meets Baywatch, complete with a former Baywatch actor), which was exactly as cheesy and ridiculous as expected.
    • Part of the reason for the clones not getting better than cult status may be that the Degrassi writers were beginning to get weary with their creation, and doubly weary with imitations of it. The Best Years, a clone created by the head of the Degrassi writing staff, was full of Take That! against Degrassi, and the Crossover commercials quickly changed from grimly earnest to Adam Westing.
  • Even Cartoon Network got in on the action, with The Othersiders (based on Ghost Hunters), Dude, What Would Happen? (based on MythBusters), Survive This (from the creator of and based on Survivorman), and Brainrush (based on Cash Cab). Curiously, all of these shows are live-action. And they're all Discovery shows. We've reached a network level of Follow The Leader!
  • The History Channel has a tendency to air programs similar to whatever blockbuster movie is sweeping the world. Indiana Jones is big this year? Here's specials about real-life treasure hunters and lost civilizations. The Da Vinci Code is popular? Have some documentaries about religious conspiracies and apocrypha. A disaster movie? We've got stuff that examines if the premise is plausible, as well as showcasing a few other possible apocalypses they might use for the next movie. Hitler rarely gets any airtime nowadays, although some might prefer at least some variety in the station again.
  • Britannia High is just High School Musical except, as the name suggests, set in Britain. It fared rather badly — so badly in fact that even among its target demographic, it lost in the ratings war to Antiques Roadshow.
  • USA released Psych, a series about a hyperobservant amateur who solves crimes by pretending to have psychic powers. Shortly after it became a hit, CBS released The Mentalist, a series about a hyperobservant solves crimes by pretending to have psychic powers. However, Psych is more comedic while Mentalist is a lot more dramatic.
    • One episode of Psych actually namechecked The Mentalist referring to it as a "carbon copy", and Shawn himself is a fan of the show, though he prefers people not confuse him with that fake psychic.
    • Another episode has Shawn saying that he has an idea about a psychic show & they should pitch it to CBS...
    • However, Psych itself followed (and eventually replaced) another USA show, Monk, which also featured a freelance Bunny-Ears Lawyer detective.
    • It's been pointed out that both shows, along with several others, including the aforementioned Monk, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, and even House and Life (2007) are all really based off of Sherlock Holmes—an extremely intelligent yet quirky detective solves mysteries by noticing the little details. The only things that Psych and The Mentalist specifically have in common are the "fake psychic" thing and being set in California, and both shows use both of those elements very differently.
  • USA also released Burn Notice, a series about a small group of quirky ex-special operatives who use their skills to help out the little guy. Shortly after it became a hit, TNT released Leverage, a show about a small group of quirky ex-criminals who use their skills to help out the little guy.
    • It's worth noting that the Leverage page used to have "Spiritual Successor" listed on it with no less than 4 examples, and both the Burn Notice and Leverage pages compare the shows to The A-Team.
      • In Australia, reviewers described Burn Notice as "The A Team for grownups".
    • There's now a surge in intelligence community comedies (Covert Affairs, Chaos), which according to the LA Times was started by Burn Notice.
    • The appeal of Burn Notice and Leverage is what also probably led to the creation of White Collar.
  • After Caiga Quien Caiga became famous, "Los Raporteros" began fashioning themselves after Mario and co., with black suits, black glasses, an edgier song ("Como Estamos Hoy, Eh", replacing the softer and more rhythmical "Abarajame La Bañera") and more controversial lyrics.
  • The success of Gran Hermano prompted a wave of Argentinian reality TV shows, including Solos en la Casa, El Bar and Survivor Operación Robinson.
  • The success of La Niñera prompted more Argentinian remakes of American TV shows, including "Amas De Casa Deseperadas (Desperate Housewives)", "¿Quién es el Jefe? (Who's the Boss?)" and the remake that was better than the original: "Casados Con Hijos (Married... with Children)"
  • The success of Rebelde Way prompted more Argentinian tween shows like Patito Feo, Casi Ángeles and Floricienta. Also, this, combined with the success of High School Musical, prompted the Argentinian remake of that movie.
  • After Perdona Nuestros Pecados got canned, a slew of imitators tried to take its place. However, most of them missed the point and mutated into talk shows. Only one of them, Ran 15, actually does what PNP used to do.
  • 100% Lucha was created to fill the void after the cancellation of Titanes en el Ring.
  • Ghost Hunters inspired a wave (different from the wave of paranormal slasher horror movies) about paranormal investigations. Even the History channel got into the act. Such shows include Most Haunted, Ghost Adventures, Destination Truth, and Ghost Lab as well as aborted shows like A Haunting and Paranormal Cops
  • It was unheard of to film a sitcom in front of a live audience until the success of I Love Lucy. The production of I Love Lucy all but innovated everything you'll see in every sitcom since. The fact that it was filmed is what preserves it as the oldest television product that most Americans have ever seennote , since it avoided the pitfalls of using videotape which would be wiped and reused later (since it was very expensive, and many networks were wiping videotape into the 1980s), or only existing today in the form of crude kinescopes (where a motion picture camera was pointed at a television monitor) that have little replay value today.
  • The raging success that was High School Musical was followed by a slew of easily-marketable Disney Channel movies—often featuring the channel's newest stars (Ashley Tisdale, Corbin Bleu, the Jonas Brothers etc). Meanwhile, Nickelodeon tried to get into the act with Spectacular!, a musical movie about a choir (who, for a change, performed "Eye of the Tiger") who failed because their leader insisted on doing the same old routines. The decision to cast Tammin Sursok (a soap star best known in Australia — and to fans of The Young and the Restless, plus this was before Pretty Little Liars) may not have been the greatest idea...
    • Ironically, HSM is basically Grease: The Next Generation.
    • Also MTV made the musical The American Mall. The less said about it the better.
    • You can also follow a very straight line connecting American Idol (specifically, when after a few seasons it became largely beholden to the voting whims of tween girls) to High School Musical to Glee.
    • And from Glee to other musical movies such as Joyful Noise and shows like Smash.
  • The success of Dirty Jobs and Deadliest Catch on Discovery Channel spawned a host of interesting/dangerous jobs Reality TV shows like Ice Road Truckers (History Channel), two about extreme loggers, one about lobstermen (although that might be the originator since a special about lobstermen was essentially a test run for Catch) and Swords, which is about sword fishermen.
  • Perhaps attributable to the success of Monk, a lot of "quirky investigative genius solves crimes" shows have popped up of late: Psych (the guy is a fake psychic), The Mentalist (the guy is a former fake psychic), Lie to Me (the guy is a Living Lie Detector), Bones (quirky forensic scientist), Raines (the guy is haunted by hallucinations of the murder victims until he solves the case), Body of Proof (Insufferable Genius medical examiner), Castle (the guy is a wisecracking mystery novelist), and arguably to a lesser extent Dexter (the guy is himself a serial killer) and Pushing Daisies (the guy can bring the dead back to life).
  • The protagonist of the new Body of Proof on ABC has been criticized for being a combination of House (brilliant doctor with mild pain problems who is usually right) and Temperance Brennan of Bones (quirky forensic scientist with poor social skills).
  • The success of the Twilight franchise had an effect on TV as much as it did with literature and movies for a time.
  • Survivorman was about survival expert Les Stroud being dumped into the wilderness and trying to make his way to civilization before a Rescue Chopper comes to him in a given period of time. Man vs. Wild features survival expert Bear Grylls being dumped into the wilderness and trying to make his way to civilization. There were several differences between the two shows, such as Bear's camera crew vs. Les toting around several dozen pounds of cameras, and Les pragmatic approach to Bear's more extreme version. M v W also stages situations for Bear to demonstrate unlikely or worst-case techniques. These points are explained in more detail on both pages.
  • After Walking with Dinosaurs, there came a whole onslaught of documentaries with CGI dinosaurs. When Dinosaurs Roamed America, Dinosaur Planet, and Jurassic Fight Club, to name a few. Including Tyrannosaurus Sex. Yes, really.
  • Life After People became the highest rated program in the history of The History Channel when it aired in January 2008. Just a few months later, The National Geographic Channel aired Aftermath: Population Zero which was practically the exact same show. Both shows are practically the television adaptation of the explosively popular book "The World Without Us," published in 2007.
  • Food Network has started making a large number of culinary-themed reality shows where one contestant is eliminated per show (or per round, in self-contained shows), a la American Idol. In addition, they now have a new show called Chefs vs. City, which is single legs of The Amazing Race with culinary-themed challenges, only two teams, in a single U.S. city, and the prize is "bragging rights."
    • Not long after Restaurant Stakeout, a show where the host and restaurant owners use security cameras to figure out which employees are tarnishing the reputation of the owners' restaurants made its debut on the channel, Mystery Diners, a show with a nearly identical premise except with a shorter runtime and considerably more dramatic tone, turned up.
  • It seems more than likely that the remake of V was inspired by the success of the remake of Battlestar Galactica.
    • As well as the remakes of The Bionic Woman and Knight Rider, though those didn't do so well.
      • And Stargate Universe, the cancellation of many of these series has inevitably led to the death of the Science Fiction Genre on TV.
  • Star Trek and Lost in Space both trod heavily, in their different ways, in the footsteps of Forbidden Planet.
  • And it cannot be a coincidence that Doctor Who debuted on TV only a couple of years after George Pal's film version of H. G. Wells' The Time Machine won an Oscar.
  • Desperate Housewives inspired a slew of TV shows set in perfect suburban settings, such as Weeds, The Gates, and Pretty Little Liars, being touted as "Desperate Housewives for teens." While this is a concept that has been around for years, many more premiered when DH did. Desperate Housewives also inspired a series of reality series about actual housewives and their social circles called Real Housewives (of Orange County, Atlanta, etc.). Most of them run on the Rule of Drama.
  • Jerseylicious on Style is an obvious copy of Jersey Shore. In general there have been a lot of New Jersey-related reality shows since Jersey Shore became incredibly popular.
  • The Osbournes jump-started the "everyday lives of celebrities" series of reality shows albeit mostly with B- to C-list tabloid fodder. It was followed by Keeping Up with the Kardashians, Living Lohan, etc.
  • Top Gear. 3 overseas series for the official count, and several more with the same but different names.
  • The success of Star Trek: The Next Generation led to a slew of new Sci-Fi shows being made.
  • Pawn Stars has inspired a host of imitators related to antiques and valuable artifacts:
    • Other pawn shop shows, such as TLC's Pawn Queens, which is essentially a Distaff Counterpart of Pawn Stars, and TruTV's Hardcore Pawn, focusing on Detroit pawnbroker/scumbag Les Gold and his sleazy family;
    • Shows revolving around the purchasing of goods kept in storage lockers, like Auction Hunters and Storage Wars;
    • Shows dealing with auctions, such as Auction Kings;
    • Shows where merchants visit ordinary people and buy things that seem like worthless junk but can be resold at higher prices, such as American Pickers and its Canadian Spin-Off Canadian Pickers.
    • And now, A&E has Barter Kings coming really soon.
  • Duck Dynasty turned out to be a hit, resulting in a slew of "Rednecks doing things" shows, many of which missed the fact that the Duck Dynasty guys are extremely self-aware about redneck stereotypes and often poke fun at themselves rather than playing it completely straight.
  • ABC Family is doing this to itself now. After the success of The Secret Life of the American Teenager, it is releasing more melodramatic teen dramas, such as Pretty Little Liars, Switched at Birth, The Nine Lives of Chloe King, etc.
  • Animal Planet has given River Monsters this treatment by creating another fishing show called Hillbilly Handfishing. It also led to the creation of Monster Fish on Nat Geo Wild. The show's follow-the-leader status was made even more blatant by the tendency to do episodes on fish that were featured on the previous season of River Monsters.
  • Five years after its launch we saw Mad Men clones in the form of BBC 2's The Hournote , ABC's Pan Am (which could also be called Mad Men ON A PLANE!), and NBC's The Playboy Club. Although those shows had the benefit of being released while their originator was on hiatus, only The Hour got a second season. (It did not get a third.)
  • The high ratings of NBC's broadcasts of Peter Pan led to CBS hiring Julie Andrews and Rodgers and Hammerstein to make them the even more successful and often-remade Cinderella. Also, the acclaim Andrews received for her performance in My Fair Lady influenced CBS' decision to cast her in a Rags to Riches story.
    • Peter Pan motivated several networks to make fantasy musicals. CBS even obtained televising rights to The Wizard of Oz to keep up with this trend.
  • Lassie inspired a number of Heroic Pet Story shows, including Flipper and Skippy the Bush Kangaroo.
  • The success of Weeds has led Showtime to do a number of very similar shows with the same base (acclaimed actress stars in show about normal person with a dilemma), such as Nurse Jackie (Weeds with prescription drugs), The Big C (Weeds with cancer) and United States of Tara (Weeds with multiple personality disorder). In fact, this seems to be most of their series output.
  • The Bachelor touched off a slew of dating shows. Then Joe Millionaire came along and tweaked the formula, so in addition to the progenitor, we have about a million versions with a slight twist (he's not rich, he's average-looking, he's a geek, et cetera).
  • Colombian telenovela Sin tetas no hay paraíso (There Is No Paradise Without Breasts) started the trend, apart from a remake with a bigger budget and a movie, of Darker and Edgier soaps in Latin Amerca (such as El Capo, El Cartel de los Sapos). These usually have a smaller duration, and are focused on drug lords, prostitution, corrupted politicians and being a soap disguised as a "serious drama".
  • The huge success of Saved by the Bell led to NBC executives eventually ordering a line of copies, including California Dreams. It eventually killed cartoons on Saturday Mornings for the network.
  • After Hot in Cleveland became a runaway hit, TV Land has been attempting to have lightning strike twice, creating a string of three-camera sitcoms featuring classic sitcom and Film veterans. Retired at 35 (George Segal, Jessica Walter), Happily Divorced (Fran Drescher, Rita Moreno), The Exes (Kristen Johnson, Wayne Knight, Donald Faison). It's contributed to TV Land's Network Decay (instead of showing classic sitcoms, it shows new sitcoms with classic sitcom actors), but they've been well received for the most part, so no one's really complaining too much.
  • Nickelodeon's Double Dare spawned a whole mess of kids' Game Shows in the U.S. with the intent of getting kids (and in some cases adults) Covered in Gunge or running through elaborate obstacle courses. Amongst some of them: Fun House (1988), Slime Time, Treasure Mall, Skedaddle, Uh Oh!, Family Challenge, Wild and Crazy Kids, Figure It Out, What Would You Do?, and countless others.
  • The success of The BBC's Sherlock, a show about Sherlock Holmes in the present day, has inspired CBS to make their own modern-day Sherlock show titled Elementary. The BBC was considering taking CBS to court and claimed that CBS had originally offered to remake Sherlock for American audiences. Possibly to avoid legal action, CBS turned their Watson into "Dr. Joan Watson" played by the Asian-American Lucy Liu (though Word of God was that Joan's casting was race neutral).
  • Dexter:
    • When it was announced that Showtime was considering a TV adaptation of Chew, some thought it was inspired by hit Showtime series Dexter. Both Dexter and Tony Chu work in law enforcement and have disgusting side-activities that help them fight crime. But that's about as far as the similarities go.
    • Dexter may have also paved the way for United States of Tara and Nurse Jackie. Both are dark dramedy shows concerning a person struggling with a mental problem, split personality disorder in the former and drug addiction in the latter.
    • Dexter may have inspired BBC's Luther, which is about a psychotic killer who partners with a cop to fight crime. Luther, in turn, may have inspired NBC's upcoming Hannibal, which is about psychiatrist/serial killer Hannibal Lecter partnering with an FBI agent to solve murders.
  • This happens a great deal with Singaporean television, especially the children's programming. My Classmate Dad is a Body Swap Sitcom that is Freaky Friday (1976) with a lower standard of spoken English. Cosmo and George is about an alien who befriends a human who shows him the ropes of living on earth, which is a startlingly original concept. Maggi & Me, about the relationship between a medium and an attractive female ghost, is very I Dream of Jeannie-esque. The Chinese-language drama serials are almost as bad in this respect. CID is CSI, The Time Machine is uh..., Baby Blues is uh..., Beach. Ball. Babes. is Dead or Alive (specifically volleyball tournament game, that is), and Mrs P.I., is Scarecrow and Mrs. King. The best part is that even if the shows are tenuously original, the English translations of their names, as you can gather, ruin everything.
  • Not only was ABC's Wide World Of Sports one of American television's longest of Long-Runners, it inspired a raft of imitators both domestic (CBS's Sports Spectacular, NBC's Sportsworld, even ESPN itself) and international as well as several spinoffs (The American Sportsman, The Superstars, the Pro Bowlers Tour).
  • TLC does this to its own shows. After the success of Little People Big World, they released more shows and specials about little people, such as The Little Couple and Little Chocolatiers. Similarly, after the success of Jon & Kate Plus Eight, they released more shows about large families, such as Table For 12 and 19 Kids and Counting.
  • TruTV is almost making Follow the Leader its hat. When it is not following the leader on its own shows (Lizard Lick Towing/Southern Fried Stings = Operation Repo) it is following them on other channels, such as the Discovery Channel or the History Channel. (Hardcore Pawn = Pawn Stars, Storage Hunters = Storage Wars, Police POV = COPS, Combat Pawn = Sons of Guns / American Guns). They all have one common thread between them; several of them completely remove the educational aspects of the original shows (if there was one) in favor of pure over-the-top drama, which many suspect is scripted.
  • Worlds Wildest Police Chases inspired a whole slew of television shows about crazy events caught on police cameras. This eventually broadened into a whole genre of "crazy things caught on tape". Destroyed in Seconds, What Went Wrong, Most Shocking, Most Daring etc. Popular subjects include the North Hollywood Shootout and the San Diego Tank Chase. One of the few shows to take the formula and give it a twist is World's Dumbest..., which adds celebrity commentary and views things from a comedic perspective.
  • Quite a few people have drawn comparisons between The Hunger Games and NBC's Revolution. The former's lead character is a teenage girl with a bow. The latter's lead is a teenage girl with a crossbow. As a sci-fi show based on an overarching mystery, Revolution also joins the ranks of Lost imitators like FlashForward (2009), The Event, and Terra Nova.
  • CBS's reboot of Match Game in 1973 prompted two comedy-game copycats from ABC two years later: Rhyme and Reason and a reboot of You Don't Say!. Respectively they lasted a year, and four months.
  • The Price Is Right's hour-long format has led to a few clones.
    • After Price aired a trial week of sixty-minute episodes in September 1975, NBC expanded Wheel of Fortune and The Hollywood Squares from thirty minutes to a full hour two months later. Both reverted back to thirty minutes after a week with The Hollywood Squares doing so for good. Wheel planned on permanently expanding to a full hour after Price successfully did so but went back to its half-hour version after six weeks.
    • In 1983, NBC combined two game shows owned by different companies, resulting in The Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour. Gene Rayburn returned to host the former segment but Jon "Bowzer" Bauman hosted the latter. This collaboration ended after nine months.
    • Family Feud attempted an hour-long format twice in the 90s. The daytime version expanded to one hour before being cancelled after fifteen months, the last six in repeats. The syndicated version followed suit in the 1994-95 season which wound up being the last. When Feud returned to syndication in 1999, so did the half-hour format.
    • A revival of Let's Make a Deal, which has been airing since 2009, has used an expanded hour-long version without a hitch.
  • The massive worldwide success of Game of Thrones ushered in an era of gritty medieval-ish/sexualized/political dramas, notably Vikings, Camelot, Britannia, The Bastard Executioner, Atlantis, Marco Polo, The Shannara Chronicles, Reign, The Last Kingdom, The White Queen, See (which even has Jason Momoa showing off more Barbarian Hero badassery than he ever could in GoT), and even internationally (El Cid, Barbarians). Fantasy-wise, there's Netflix's The Witcher and a massive TV series adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power by Amazon, which ran directly against the spinoff of Game of Thrones, House of the Dragon.
  • Doc Martin was shortly followed by the similar program Distant Shores, staring Peter Davison as a fish-out-of-water city doctor on the Northumbrian island Hildasay.
  • The Noggin show Sponk! is almost always described as "Whose Line Is It Anyway? with kids."
  • Boardwalk Empire (2010, set in 1920s Atlantic City) was followed by other 'classic' gangster shows set in exotic locations including Magic City (2012, 1958 Miami), Vegas (2012, 1960 Las Vegas), Peaky Blinders (2013, 1919 Birmingham, UK), Bonnie and Clyde (2013, 1930s Texas) and Mob City (2013, 1947 Los Angeles). 2013 also saw two movies that banked either on classic gangsters (Gangster Squad) or 1920s excess (The Great Gatsby).
  • The Dinosaurs episode "Dirty Dancing" has an in-universe example where the TV line-up consists of nothing but shows involving idiot fathers, following the success of the show "Totally Ineffectual Dad". It also includes a Take That! to critics who accused Dinosaurs of being a knock-off of The Simpsons:
    Earl: This is why TV stinks. One show's a hit, they make 50 more just like it, with the same characters and the same premise.
    Baby: Don't have a cow, man!
  • Dallas spawned a whole raft of nighttime soaps, with its own spinoff Knots Landing and Dynasty (1981) being the most successful. Then there was Flamingo Road, Secrets of Midland Heights, Berrenger's, Kings Crossing...
  • In the 1980s, British television Granada began a series of incredibly faithful adaptations of the Sherlock Holmes stories, starring Jeremy Brett as Holmes. After its success, it was eventually followed by a series of incredibly faithful adaptations of Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot stories, starring David Suchet as Poirot and series of similarly faithful adaptations of Christie's Miss Marple stories. This particular case is arguably a Tropes Are Not Bad example, since all three series and their stars are largely acclaimed as being definitive adaptations.
  • After The NBC Mystery Movie became a hit, ABC tried its own Wheel Program concept with The Men (Robert Conrad in Assignment: Vienna, James Wainwright in Jigsaw and Lawrence Luckinbill in The Delphi Bureau) — it didn't last, and neither did any of the elements. Universal, the company behind the Mystery Movie strand (and Jigsaw), tried to replicate the success itself with Great Detectives, shooting three TV movies (The Hound of the Baskervilles with Stewart Granger as Sherlock Holmes, The Adventures Of Nick Carter starring Robert Conrad, and A Very Missing Person with Eve Arden as Hildegarde Withers) for a planned series. No go.
  • ER (which itself was probably following several other leaders) all but revived the gritty urban medical drama, spawning several poor imitators that didn't last very long. Even though it's been off the air for years, you can still see its influence in the medical dramas of today.
  • What's Happening Now!!, the After Show for What's Happening!!, only went into production after the success of The Cosby Show sent executives scrambling for African-American comedies.
  • The top 3 rated dramas of the 2014-2015 season were Empire, How to Get Away with Murder, and Scandal, each of which star African-American leads, while black•ish and Fresh Off the Boat proved to be surprise comedy hits (the former of which stars a black family and the latter of which stars an Asian-American family). This has led to the networks scrambling to find more racially diverse programming, with ABC ordering a new show starring Ken Jeong and HBO launching a writing fellowship to find more diverse creators.
  • In Japan during the 70s, the Ultra Series was at the height of its popularity and television ownership was increasing across the nation. Not surprisingly, many studios decided to cash in on the "Giant Henshin Hero" genre resulting in many other shows and superheroes like Spectreman, Zone Fighter, and Iron King. Even Godzilla got into the trend with Godzilla vs. Megalon's robot hero Jet Jaguar. Funny enough, a couple of the imitators were from Ultraman's creators at Tsuburaya Productions like Fireman, Mirrorman, and Jumborg Ace.
  • The OWN series Greenleaf has been called Empire in a megachurch.
  • In 2002 Animal Planet began the Puppy Bowl, a puppy-based show on Superbowl Sunday. In 2005 it added a kitten half-time show. Hallmark Channel however has an entire Kitten Bowl dedicated to kittens, which began in 2014. National Geographic Channel's nature-based spinoff channel, Nat Geo Wild, began the Fish Bowl in 2015, which is nothing but fish swimming in a bowl. In 2018 Animal Planet followed itself by also producing the Dog Bowl, which is the Puppy Bowl but for older dogs (and is presented by the Puppy Bowl). It should be noted in this case that Tropes Are Not Bad: kittens, fish, and older dogs all have their fans, and given the whole point of all these shows is to promote adopting animals from shelters instead of buying from breeders or stores, it's not a bad thing that there are imitators.
  • Netflix's Making a Murderer provoked an explosion of True Crime documentaries and biographies on television (which was already gaining traction through the podcast Serial and HBO's The Jinx), reacquainting people with the most notorious of murder cases such as the O.J. Simpson trial and the killing of JonBenet Ramsay. The female-centric Oxygen Network even revamped its original format to take advantage of this trend.
  • The moderate success and critical acclaim of FX's The Americans inspired NBC to order Allegiance, a short-lived series with an identical premise but set in the present-day (and without any of the sex or violence that cable will allow).note 
  • Super Train tried to follow the lead of The Love Boat but fell completely off track afterward. And damn near took all of NBC with it.
  • Lads' Army was a British reality series that featured troubled teens and twenty-somethings being forced to endure a 1950s style military lifestyle. The success of that inspired That'll Teach Em — about children attending a 1950s boarding school — and Never Did Me Any Harm — a docu-series about a father making his children follow 1950s discipline. This may have also inspired Brat Camp, which lacked the 1950s theme, but kept the 'punish modern teenagers' concept. There was a collective backlash against these types of shows — pointing out that they were pretty much exploiting child abuse for entertainment (rather than trying to actually help the teens deal with their issues).
  • The Great British Sewing Bee, launched in 2013, is very obviously an imitator of The Great British Bake Off. Of course, it's made by the same company (who don't seem to make much else).
  • Telemundo had a success in their Celia Cruz bio-series. Afterwards they began making various biographical series based on famous Spanish singers such as Jose Jose, Luis Miguel, and Nicky Jam.
  • Both Nat Geo Wild and Animal Planet have a large number of veterinary shows. While Animal Planet has had them in the past, there was a large boom in the 2010s. The popularity of Nat Geo's The Incredible Dr. Pol is a likely reason why.
  • Nat Geo Wild's Animal PD is a tamer version of Animal Planet's Animal Planet Heroes.
  • Documentary series themed around decades were always a thing, but several similar ones popped up during the mid-2010s. CNN has The Sixties, The Seventies, The Eighties, The Nineties, and The 2000s, while National Geographic has The '80s Greatest and The '90s Greatest. Even Investigation Discovery has The 1980s: The Deadliest Decade, The 1990s: The Deadliest Decade, and The 1990s: Totally Scandalous, all about famous murders and disappearances from the 1980s and 1990s. Ironically, they are all likely based of off VH1's decidedly less serious "I Love The 70's/80's/90's/00's" series
  • In June 1996, Guiding Light began a storyline that was clearly a rip-off of the show Touched by an Angel, which had become a smash hit at the time. A mysterious man named Zachary Smith appeared out of nowhere to rescue honeymooning Super Couple Alan-Michael and Lucy, who were caught in a storm and trapped on their sinking yacht. For the next several months, he drifted through town, aiding various people with their troubles, finally vanishing after restoring the lighthouse which had been in disrepair for years. At this point, it was revealed that Zachary was in fact an angel. Unfortunately, unlike its inspiration, the storyline was poorly received, contrary to expectations, hence its abrupt end.
  • TLC has the medical Grossout Show Dr. Pimple Popper, which is about a dermatologist who cuts open and squeezes out pimples and other assorted skin issues (she first became popular on YouTube). A few months later, A&E began airing The Toe Bro, which is a similar show about a foot specialist.
  • The wild success of the family drama This Is Us on NBC likely inspired the ABC series A Million Little Things. NBC managed to follow themselves a few years later with Council of Dads.
  • The popularity of Shining Time Station, the show where Thomas & Friends was first introduced to the USA, spawned a boatload of shows made for the sole intent of introducing an overseas series to American audiences, including Fox Clubhouse, Salty's Lighthouse, Big Bag, The Noddy Shop, Mister Moose's Fun Time, the 1997 version of The Mr. Men Show, Hola Sproutitos, and the 30-minute version of Caillou.
  • In the United Kingdom, preschool channels utilize presenters doing things such as showcasing viewer-submitted content and introducing shows, amongst others. Examples include CBeebies, Channel 5's Milkshake! block, and the British version of Playhouse Disney. These presentations' popularities led to hosted programming blocks on other preschool channels around the world, including Kids' CBC (formerly Playgrounds and Get Set For Life), the PBS Kids Preschool Block, The Good Night Show, The Lets Go Show, and The Sunny Side Up Show.
  • While Winx Club creator Iginio Straffi has had interest in making a more serious Live-Action adaptation of the Winx since 2011, Fate: The Winx Saga takes a lot of notes from the modern darker, edgier and risque re-imaginings of children and teen-oriented properties such as Riverdale, Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, Titans and Shadowhunters with a dysfunctional cast of protagonists, a lot of violence, swearing, sex and drugs alongside some good'ol modern slang.
  • The now-cancelled Jupiter's Legacy was Netflix's response to the adult-oriented Superhero media boom that started with Deadpool (2016) and exploded in popularity with Amazon Prime's The Boys with the show being a dark and gory look to superheroes and superheroics in a modern, selfish and cynical world.
  • The success of Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood inspired the creation of another TV show based around the works of Fred Rogers: Donkey Hodie.
  • The creators of the Pitch Perfect spin-off series Pitch Perfect: Bumper in Berlin admitted that the series was inspired by the Marvel series Loki taking a movie villain and giving him a Redemption Quest. At least in this case, the extent of Bumper's villainy was simply being an unsporting competitor, rather than actually killing people.
  • After Password saved the game show genre from the scandals, copycats of the celebrity/contestant clue-association format sprang up. These include The Object Is..., You Don't Say!, Snap Judgment and Pyramid.
  • Name That Tune spawned a slew of music-themed game show clones, such as Musical Chairsnote , Dough Re Mi, Yours for a Song, What's This Song?, Face The Music, Fandango, The Singing Bee, Don't Forget the Lyrics! and That's My Jam. Across the pond, ITV had Spot the Tune before importing Name That Tune a couple of decades later.

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