Mini-episode of a broadcast or cable series, available online or by other new media.
Examples:
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Advertising
- A few of General Mills' different brands were given short series of webisodes to promote their brands, often expanding the cast of each mascots setting with new characters not seen in the commercials, Some examples of this include "Trix Toons" and Lucky Charms' "The Quest".
Anime & Manga
- Azumanga Daioh has a short web chapter that looks like Chiyo recording her class with a camcorder. In actuality, this webisode came out two years before the anime, and had a completely different cast (almost; Minamo's webisode voice actress went on to voice Yukari in the anime).
- Haruhi-chan, a super-deformed Self-Parody of Haruhi Suzumiya.
Films — Animated
- The Animatrix previews that were released online to hype the release of The Matrix Reloaded.
Live-Action TV
- Between seasons 3 and 4, Lost created a series of 13 mobisodes, dubbed "Missing Pieces," which were delivered to cell phones, then posted online. They were later included on the DVD box set for season 4.
- Heroes issued a webseries, "Going Postal" between seasons 2 and 3.
- Battlestar Galactica (2003) has done this three times.
- "The Resistance" ran between the second and third seasons, showing how relations between the humans and the Cylons occupying New Caprica broke down and the Resistance movement formed.
- "Razor Flashbacks" was produced to promote the Razor special. The series is an expansion of the movie's flashbacks to young Bill Adama serving during the Cylon Wars.
- "Face of the Enemy" was released during the mid-season break of the final season. These episodes flesh out Gaeta's disillusion with the Human-Cylon alliance and foreshadows his leading The Mutiny.
- Doctor Who had them for its second new series. They were called TARDISODES.
- The "prequels" for series six episodes also qualify.
- "Pond Life" helped set up the first half of Series 7. There were also webisodes tied to "The Snowmen", "The Name of the Doctor", and "The Day of the Doctor".
- The Office (US) has them. (Compensation to the writers of these became an issue in the 2007-08 WGA strike.)
- Season 8 of Scrubs had a video-blog by Sunny Day, one of the new interns.
- The Chloe Chronicles, which tied into seasons 2 and 5 of Smallville.
- Breaking Bad has done them ever since season 2 began. Most of them are far Lighter and Softer than the show.
- Have I Got News for You tried it with Have I Got News for You: The Inevitable Internet Spin-Off, which mostly featured unused footage from that week's show, outtakes and an audience competition, but seemed hamstrung by the fact that most of the airtime was taken up all the contestants laughing at how ridiculous the word "webisode" was (and that several of the guest hosts didn't really understand the concept).
- Community
- Parks and Recreation
- The Walking Dead (2010)
- Kung Fu 3 D
- The Engine Sentai Go-onger and Kamen Rider Kiva net movies, used as tie-ins for The Movie. While Super Sentai hasn't really used them since (except for Super Hero Taisen), they've become a staple for Kamen Rider — and are frequent sources for the funniest moments in the franchise.
- Episode 4 of NBC's Hannibal was "cannibalized" into a series of webisodes, as it was considered too similar to current events to be broadcast in the US. Outside of the US, it was shown as scheduled.
- Murdoch Mysteries has had three webseries tying in with different seasons.
- Season 4 had The Curse of the Lost Pharoahs, a 13 part animated series based on Crabtree's novel of the same title.
- Season 5 had The Murdoch Effect, a six-part webseries in which Detective Murdoch wakes up in the present day, with 21st century versions of the other main characters.
- Season 6 had Nightmare on Queen Street, a 6 part interactive series in which the viewer is a detective visiting Toronto.
- Red Dwarf has "Red Christmas", a Christmas Episode for the series that was released in 2007 as part of the Red Dwarf Mobile Service.
Western Animation
- Gary the Rat originally started out as these.
- Monster High has quite a few of these.
- The Critic was briefly revived as a web series.
- The Legend of Korra has a trio of web shorts called "Republic City Hustle".
- My Little Pony: Equestria Girls has largely been expanded outside the films and specials by multiple series of web shorts:
- Rainbow Rocks and Friendship Games each received their own series of shorts. Friendship Games and Legend of Everfree also received blooper reels that were released online.
- Summer 2017's Summertime Shorts, consisting of 10 "Canterlot Shorts" and six music videos.
- 2017-18's Digital Series, consisting of three sub-series: Better Together Shorts, Choose Your Own Adventure Shorts, and Summer Vacation Shorts.
- The special Forgotten Friendship was planned as a five-part series of ten-minute webisodes, and after it debuted on TV in a trimmed-down form, it was released as such on a weekly basis, with the previously cut footage restored.
