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- Initiators / Followers
- Capsule Pitch Description: Description
- Implementation: Implementation
- The Twilight Zone (1959) / The Outer Limits (1963)
- Capsule Pitch Description: An anthology show of fantasy/science fiction stories, always having a narrator open and end each episode.
- Implementation: Similar in premise, though there are a few subtle differences (for example, The Outer Limits was a full hour, whereas in the original The Twilight Zone only season 4 episodes were that long). Both series had at least one revival.
- Lost in Space (1965) / Star Trek: The Original Series (1966)
- Capsule Pitch Description: Wagon Train to the Stars
- Implementation: One is a classic of popular culture, the other is cult kitsch. Notable in that Gene Roddenberry originally pitched Star Trek to CBS, who listened to his ideas on how to pull off a space show on a weekly TV budget, rejected the pitch, then went on to use all the ideas he'd given them to make Lost in Space.
- Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) / Babylon 5 (1994)
- Capsule Pitch Description: Adventure Town IN SPACE! becomes a hotspot for interstellar politics and an important staging point in a war with Scary Dogmatic Aliens.
- Implementation: Fairly different, but with enough surface similarities — and a documented pre-Deep Space Nine pitch of B5 to Paramount — to merit accusations of plagiarism. (For an itemized list of similarities, see this
article.) Deep Space Nine began as more episodic, but started shifting toward more serialization when B5 grew in popularity. Ironically, this had the issue of limiting viewership for both shows: it's hard to be Better on DVD when your series ends before DVDs become prevalent.
- Lexx (1997) / Farscape (1999)
- Capsule Pitch Description: Space Opera shows about a gang of weirdos on the loose in a Living Ship, with a bit more sex and moral ambiguity than usual for the genre.
- Implementation: Lexx was full of idea-driven weirdness and spent its budget mostly on space effects, Farscape stuck closer to the space opera formula and spent its budget mostly on creature effects.
- Lost (2004) / Surface (2005) & Threshold (2005) & Invasion (2005) & FlashForward (2009) & The Event (2010) & Terra Nova (2011) & The River (2012) & Alcatraz (2012) & Revolution (2012)
- Capsule Pitch Description: High-concept mystery show focusing on character development and long mythic arcs.
- Implementation: As seen by the list in the "Clone" column, Lost spawned a bevy of imitators trying to replicate its formula for success.
- Doctor Who (2005) / Primeval (2007)
- Fringe (2008) / Eleventh Hour (2008)
- Capsule Pitch Description: Two "Science Is Both Good And Bad" series.
- Implementation: Both did well in the ratings.
- Virtuality (2009) / Defying Gravity (2009)
- Capsule Pitch Description: 2001: A Space Odyssey With Girls!
- Implementation: Virtuality is from the writer of Battlestar Galactica while Defying Gravity was written by a writer from Grey's Anatomy. Both feature space crews of pretty people in a ship for a long duration of time, to unravel FTL-travel and explore every planet in the solar system, respectively. Virtuality has to deal with a possibly unreliable AI and possibly a hacker; it's implied that Defying Gravity's mission was at the behest of unknown forces.
- Star Trek: Discovery (2017) & Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022) / The Orville (2017)
- Capsule Pitch Description: Space Opera Series inspired by Gene Roddenberry developed for The New '10s and The New '20s.
- Implementation: Star Trek: Discovery is the latest installment of the Star Trek franchise, and is set roughly during the era of the original series pilot "The Cage." The Orville is a workplace dramedy In Space with shades of The Next Generation Era. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is a Spin-Off of Discovery featuring characters originally introduced in "The Cage"; presented in a more traditional episodic format, its first season aired alongside the long-awaited third season of The Orville.
- The Twilight Zone (2019) / Amazing Stories (2020)
- Capsule Pitch Description: Reboots of classic science fiction anthology series developed as a Killer App for fledgling streaming services, with a marquee producer attached.
- Implementation: The Twilight Zone was developed for CBS All Access, and is the third television revival of the series. A major part of the hook this time was the presence of Jordan Peele, fresh off the success of Get Out (2017) and U.S., would serve not only as a producer but as the series' narrator. Meanwhile, Amazing Stories was developed for Apple TV+ and is the first attempt to revive the property; in this case, the hook was that original creator Steven Spielberg would again be serving as a producer, suggesting it would be more in keeping with the original series rather than a modernization.
- The Mandalorian (2019) / The Last of Us (2023)
- Capsule Pitch Description: Drama in which a stern, violent, and ruthless sharp-shooting Anti-Hero, traumatized for decades by the killing of his immediate family, unexpectedly becomes the loving father figure of an orphan with a rare ability and their own Dark and Troubled Past.
- Implementation: The Mandalorian, a Star Wars Space Western, airs on Disney+. The Last of Us, the Live-Action Adaptation of an Earthly post-zombie apocalypse video game, airs on HBO for an older target age group. HBO cast Pedro Pascal in The Last of Us in the wake of the acclaim for his performances in The Mandalorian Seasons 1 and 2, and scheduled the premiere for the same year as the release of Mandalorian Season 3; TLoU episodes #7-9 aired during the same weeks as Mando Chapters 17-19.
