Sheryl Lee Ralph, left, and Quinta Brunson in Abbott Elementary.Gilles Mingasson/The Associated Press
Glance at the current network TV schedule and the first thing you’ll notice is that franchises, remakes and spinoffs outnumber original ideas. For every new entry, such as the Denis Leary-led Going Dutch or Tim Allen’s Shifting Gears, there are several FBIs, Chicagos or NCISs holding up the grid.
Other new series such as Doc or High Potential are based on successful international formats, while now-established shows such as Will Trent or The Rookie were inspired by books. Elsbeth? A Good Wife spinoff. Matlock? A remake of the classic 1980s drama, albeit a creative one with Kathy Bates and a clever twist. Watson? That would be CBS’s second Sherlock Holmes-inspired drama after the network’s seven-season run of Elementary. Night Court, The Equalizer, The Conners … the list continues.
Even George and Mandy’s First Marriage is another Big Bang Theory spinoff, one that stems from Young Sheldon. It brings the world back into the multicam, live-audience space ahead of the new top-secret spinoff co-creators Chuck Lorre and Bill Prady are cooking up.
Spinoffs are nothing new, of course. But in a world of streaming, FAST (free ad-supported streaming television) channels and international access, TV creativity should be endless. Instead, it seems as though traditional channels are increasingly afraid to venture beyond the familiar.
But really, who can blame the executives snatching these shows up? As networks fight to retain cord-cutting viewers, established IP and a predetermined fanbase are keeping audiences hanging on. Networks no longer want to bank on an intricate and expensive serialized drama because binge-watching has replaced appointment viewing. Inexpensive procedurals with a built-in story each episode are easy to catch and commitment-free. Even live events are shifting to the streamers, where audiences can tune in later.
Populating a schedule with nostalgia, inexpensive crime or medical shows and workplace comedies in the vein of The Office, such as Abbott Elementary and St. Denis Medical, makes sense. It’s the new wave of trusted comfort viewing because audiences know exactly what to expect, especially in a world where there’s plenty of anxiety surrounding the unknown.
These formats also do well internationally, and are among the top-selling properties for producers. Funnily enough, many of these familiar series also do well with OTT viewers (those who consume content over the internet), making them a triple win for networks with a streamer attached or those with FAST channels. Being able to go back and binge multiple seasons and various iterations of the same type of procedural is appealing to viewers who just want to lean-back and decompress.
When Suits popped up on Netflix, it became the most-watched series and led to the coming spinoff, Suits: L.A. Matlock, NCIS: Origins and Tracker were among the most popular shows in January on Paramount+, alongside streaming originals Landman and Dexter: Original Sin (another spinoff). New generations continue to discover Grey’s Anatomy thanks to its vast library of episodes on Netflix. Friends, The Big Bang Theory and The Rookie regularly trend as some of Crave’s most-watched selections, and Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, Criminal Minds and Supernatural also consistently perform well on their respective streamers.
The take-away is that these series are easy to invest in, their shelf life is longer than some of their more complex counterparts and they’re cheaper to make because the producing companies already own the IP.
As the popularity of these projects rises, so too does mediocre TV. When was the last time a truly great scripted series punctuated the social conversation? The latest water-cooler shows, such as Shogun, The Last of Us or House of the Dragon, are based on previous formats. They also don’t compare to the prestige of some of the series from the Golden Age of Television, when The Sopranos, The Wire, Breaking Bad and The West Wing inspired think pieces and books on the subject.
The real question is: Will television continue to go in this direction, particularly as younger generations rely on user-generated content and social media to entertain them, or are we just at a low point in the ever-evolving TV cycle?
The good news is, there’s hope.
It can be hard for a new series to stand apart from the stream of averageness, but uniqueness, great writing and a killer concept aren’t dead. As shows such as Stranger Things and Squid Game wrap in 2025, the emergence of series such as American Primeval, The White Lotus, Only Murders in the Building, The Bear and Severance leaves us optimistic that creativity still exists.
Good, original TV is still out there. These days you just have to look harder to find it.
