by Emily Maesar, Associate Editor, TVJawn

In the first installment of this series, I talked about pilots. For a very long time, they were the main way that American shows got made during the rise of television. Almost every show that got on air, no matter how long it stayed there, went through the very intense process of “pilot season.” This has changed dramatically with the introduction of pay cable, cable in general, and streaming. Rather than going through the expensive and time-consuming process of pilot season, many shows live and die in the pitching process—which is often longer and more detailed than it had been in the past. Which is not to say that broadcast doesn’t run pilot season—they do. They’re just much more particular about the whole thing. And all the newer forms of media tend to simply buy a full season and hope they picked a winner. 

However, even at the height of pilot season, there were always ways that broadcast shows could be pitched, bought, and aired without having an episode produced in the traditional way.  Three such ways are spin-offs, backdoor pilots, and first-run syndication. At first glance, I recognize that the first two categories have a fair amount of overlap. Like, a backdoor pilot that results in a show is always considered a spin-off. However, not all spin-off shows start as backdoor pilots, and the creation of either can be vastly different. Not to mention that, considering the numbers of both, more spin-off shows actually make it through a first season when they don’t start as backdoor pilots.

First, though, let’s talk about spin-off shows! Generally, a spin-off show is a new series that is loosely based on an original one, but is following different characters, in a different location, often with an entirely different theme or vibe. One of the most famous spin-off shows is probably Frasier, which is a spin-off of Cheers. It certainly follows the traditional formula of a spin-off, but one thing that Frasier has above most spin-offs is its ability to be recognized as its own series. To the point where many people of a certain generation (me and mine) didn’t realize it was a spin-off when they watched it in syndication. It ran for the same number of seasons as Cheers (11, which is wild) and while the average ratings for the series were lower, Frasier won more Primetime Emmys than its predecessor. (It was nominated for fewer awards overall, but its average win percentage was around 38%, whereas the percentage for Cheers was only 20%.)

Spin-off shows tend to happen in a few different ways. You have the Frasier way, where the original show is coming to an end and so one of the stars makes a deal with the creators, network, and studio to develop a related, but entirely new series. One of the longest running sit-coms on American television, The Jeffersons, was also conceived of this way. But then there’s the backdoor pilot. By definition, these are always spin-off shows, but their place in the history of television is often blurred in terms of if something should actually be considered a backdoor pilot. Or if it’s just the introduction of a character who will appear in a new series to create a kind of synergy between the shows and their shared universes. The CW’s Arrow and its many spin-offs come to mind for this. You could consider Grant Gustin’s appearance in season two as Barry Allen to be a kind of backdoor pilot. The introduction of his character for a small arc did conclude with the airing of The Flash the following year. However, shows like Legends of Tomorrow, set in the same universe, would be a cut and dry spin-off without a backdoor pilot, as all the main characters who formed the team were introduced through Arrow and The Flash without the intention of making a new series starring them. And maybe that’s the difference when it’s called into question—the intention of the introduction.

There have been many backdoor pilots, but for every series that actually became something, there is a nearly infinite number of shows that died as dreams. Instead, they become a fun fact to tell your friends who are watching the show for the first time. Did you know that the Gossip Girl episode “Valley Girls” was supposed to be a backdoor pilot for a prequel series? Or that “The Farm” was meant to be a backdoor pilot for a Dwight spin-off from The Office? Even back in the 1960s there were failed backdoor pilots, like “Assignment: Earth” from Star Trek: The Original Series. 

Okay, but what about the money? Maybe that’s not the question that you’re asking, but it’s always been something really fascinating to me. Because the WGA and their rules about credit and residuals are interesting. Let’s use the creation of Frasier as an example. Now, Glen and Les Charles created Cheers, so they would have gotten money in the creation of Frasier regardless—however, they happened to write the episode that Frasier Crane was introduced in (“Rebound” in season three). Had that two-parter been written by any other writers, however, it would have been grounds for them to receive residuals for the entire run of Frasier, even if they didn’t work on the series at all. Which is not to say that Glen and Les Charles didn’t get those residuals, but they likely got them on top of the “based on” residuals (or potentially as a single payout, depending on their deal). 

This is also usually true if someone writes the episode that a character is introduced in, and then that character appears in other episodes that said writer is uninvolved in writing. Even if it’s not a whole series like Frasier. So, if either of the two failed Supernatural backdoor pilots had gone anywhere then Andrew Dapp (who wrote “Bloodlines”) and Jeremy Carver (who wrote “Dead Men Don’t Wear Plaid”) would have gotten residuals for the run of those shows—even if they weren’t involved in them otherwise. Additionally, if characters originating in those two episodes are used again (which Jody certainly was from Carver’s episode), even within Supernatural, then those writers would get paid residuals for the use of their character.

Generally, though, spin-offs tend to involve characters who are introduced in the pilot, and therefore written by the creator of the show. So, it’s not a big deal who’s getting paid most of the time, they’d just make a bit more money every residual check. And maybe thinking about that is kind of boring, but for someone who wants to write TV someday, it’s actually wildly important to understand. It can also give insight into some of the reasons why certain things might fail, or why some characters either don’t come back or meet their untimely demise. It’s all about the money!

Now, what about the third way that shows get made without running through the traditional pilot season? Ah, the joys of first-run syndication. It’s pretty rare for scripted shows, though, and doesn’t really happen all that much these days, but for a while there it was all the rage. Mostly because of a wonderful little show called Star Trek: The Next Generation. Now, I’ve written about the creation of TNG during my year-long exploration of Star Trek in Captain’s Log, but let’s do a little refresher!

Syndication is a weird little syntax of television in its own right. There are a few kinds of syndication, but the general idea is that once a broadcast show hits an episode threshold (usually somewhere between 80-100 episodes, or roughly five full seasons) then it can be sold into syndication. This is much rarer these days, but it does still happen. (Weirdly HBO is currently doing syndication again, as I discussed with Megan on our TV podcast, Someday We’ll Be Syndicated.) So, it used to be that syndication really happened more locally, like a broadcast network who owned a bunch of local channels would buy the syndication rights for something (let’s say Star Trek: The Original Series) and they could air it whenever they wanted on those channels. 

Since those channels weren’t making their own shows, with the exception of news programming, it allowed them to have more hours of content to air, which would keep people on their station for potential ad revenue. Because TV is all about ad revenue, even today. In a more modern context, it’s less about local channels and more about what channels the parent company owns, though. Like, HBO is currently syndicating True Blood and Silicon Valley to TNT and TBS, respectively, because they own those networks. HBO and all the people involved (with deals) in those shows will get paid, because TNT and TBS still have to pay to license the shows, but it’s much rarer to have a network not owned by the parent company buy the syndication rights to a show.

And then there’s first-run syndication. Many shows that are first shown in syndication, where there is no network of origin, are game shows and talk shows. However, there are a few rather notable scripted shows that had at least part of their life as first-run syndicated programming. A lot of animation fits into this category, but the notable live-action shows include Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, The Abbott and Costello Show, Harry and the Hendersons, Charles in Charge, and Baywatch. (The latter two were in first-run syndication upon their revivals, which is also very interesting!)

For the shows that actually start off in first-run syndication, there is a lot riding on them to be hits, especially without a proof-of-concept. Sometimes they’re spin-offs of something or another, which allows them the grace of not having to make a pilot, but there’s no doubt that first-run syndication is a risk. And it’s one that isn’t often taken anymore, as many shows don’t run more than a season or two.

So, when is a pilot not a pilot? When it comes from nepotism, I think. These three ways of getting shows made have always been difficult because it takes a real kind of faith from the network. Especially when you’re talking about a broadcast show that’s going to run for, theoretically, more than 13 episodes for at least a season. It costs money, and even if the show gets cancelled early, the networks often still have to pay something. So, instead of a pilot, many broadcast networks require something else (usually in the form of another successful show) to greenlight a program without running it through pilot season. Even today, spin-offs of some kind are the ones that are most likely to get picked up by one of the Big Five networks without a pilot. Just because pay cable, cable, and streaming often greenlight a whole season of a show, doesn’t mean broadcast is quite there yet.

But enough about how shows get made. Next time we’ll talk about some of the particulars of what happens once a show is actually running. What are upfronts? How do ratings work? And what is category fraud? I’m excited to explore all the things that made television deeply fascinating, beyond just how it gets started.