The Art of the Spin-off

We’ve probably all seen them. You sit down to watch your favorite television show, ready to relax and enjoy a visit with your favorite fictional friends, but something is different this week. There are a lot of new characters, or maybe a minor character from the past has returned, but seems to be playing a much larger role, and they’ve brought friends. All the sudden your favorite show has taken off in a different direction for that episode, and that’s when you realize you’re watching a backdoor pilot.

Backdoor pilots happen every season.  A popular show is deemed successful and interesting enough that the studio feels the formula will work again and allows the producer or shows creator to attempt to recreate this kind of hype on another show.  If the pilot is successful they will order the series to production. Spin-offs are nothing new, this season alone there will be spin-offs proposed from 

NCIS :LA and Vampire Diaries just to name a couple. There was news this week that Dick Wolf’s popular first year drama, Chicago Fire, could result in a spin-off having to do with the Chicago Police Department if all goes according to plan.

The idea of a spin-off is a tricky one, sometimes the popularity of a show cannot be explained, people love what they love, but that does not mean that all of those fans will follow to another show. Especially when spin-offs will often have a similar tone as the original because a lot of the same creative forces are behind it and that tone does not always work with other characters. Procedural dramas may be the best place for these kinds of experiments.

NCIS: LA, itself a wildly popular spin-off proves that perhaps there is room for those kinds of shows to result in a spin-off. There is always another layer of police work that seems to become the popular trend, from the classic Law and Order format that spawned a whole slew of adaptations, even as far as Law & Order: UK. Then it was the CSI boom. Now it seems to be NCIS’ turn to take another stab at a hit. It worked out very well for CBS the first and second times, but only time with tell if they strike gold for a third time.

However, one must beg the question, does the same translate to non-crime oriented shows. Private Practice was a rather successful spin-off of Grey’s Anatomy, but still never had the staying power of the original series. As the storylines became more outlandish over the course of the series it was hard for viewers not to think, would it have been better if Addison had stayed at Seattle Grace and never made the move to Los Angeles?

It can be hard for loyal fans of the original show to embrace a spin-off.  To combat this issue they should be seen as stand alone shows judged on their own merit instead of against the original. This can be difficult, especially if the spin-off is created from an already popular character on the original show. With the Vampire Diaries backdoor pilot for the spin-off based on “the originals” is scheduled to air in late April it will be hard not to ask, do we really need this show? Or should the characters remain on the original?  Only time will tell which of these pilots will be picked up, or if fans will follow, but I guess I will be trying to keep an open mind.

The Veronica Mars Movie

The entertainment world was a-buzz with the wildly successful Kickstart campaign started by Rob Thomas and Kristen Bell to get the Veronica Mars movie made. As a fan of Veronica Mars since the first season originally airing on UPN, yes it’s been a while since this spunky teenage detective became a cult favorite. Unfortunately our time in Neptune, California was cut short after a mere three seasons. There was a pitch to get a fourth season of the show, following Veronica a few years down the road when she had moved from the private detective business to an FBI agent. Unfortunately this never happened, and ever since the show ended in 2007 creator Rob Thomas, star Kristen Bell and several of the other actors have expressed desire to make a movie, to really give the fans the ending they deserve. Anyone who watched the third season know that it ended in a completely unsatisfying manner, nothing was resolved. 

Luckily the creative forces behind the series remained passionate about the project, even after years of being rebuffed by the studios. They were told there was not a large enough interest in seeing the series on the big screen. This week this was all proven wrong.

Thomas and Bell took matters into their own hands and brought the issue of funding directly to the fans. Using the popular crowd-funding website Kickstarter they set a funding goal of $2 million over 30 days and the opportunity to get a variety of rewards based on the donation amount. For a $10,000 someone would get a walk on role in the movie that was guaranteed to make the final cut.  The way that Kickstarter works is that everyone who pledges money is only obligated to give it if the fundraising goal is reached during the given time period. That way anyone willing to donate knows that their money will actually go to the intended project.

The tongue and cheek video that promoted their cause featured Bell in her home with the actors that played her boyfriend, father, and another main actor on the show talking about wanting to get the movie made with the same humor that made the show a fan favorite to begin with. The cause went viral, the video was quickly featured on many sites and the fans responded.

The campaign became the fastest Kickstarter in history, reaching $1 million dollars in 6 hours and reaching the $2 million dollar goal in less than 10 hours. Like that the project was green lit, and the money continues to pour in, and with 27 days left to collect the more money they receive, the more they will be able to do with the film.

This campaign put the power back in the consumers hands, instead of the studio heads, this may just usher in a new era for those shows that have long been forgotten about by executives, but whose fans remain passionate about knowing what would have become of their favorite characters. Here’s to a happy ending for Veronica, and who knows maybe next up, the Gilmore Girls and a trip back to Stars Hollow? Well, a girl can dream.