If you’re a fan of Supernatural, you know that the much anticipated spinoff Wayward Sisters is on its way. And last week, they gave viewers a “back door” pilot episode focusing on the female hunters saving Sam and Dean. It was a good episode and did a great job of introducing the spinoff. It got me thinking about spinoffs in general and what works when sending them off on their own. 

Television spinoffs are nothing new. Sure, we all know about the multiple versions of Law and Order, CSI and NCIS. But the first true spinoffs began back in the 1970s, with Maude and The Jeffersons spinning out of All in the Family, Rhoda from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laverne and Shirley from Happy Days, Bionic Woman from Six Million Dollar Man… seriously, there were loads of them. And it hasn’t stopped, though now we get a lot more drama spinoffs than comedies.

The reasons for a spinoff can be many (and these days a lot of it is ratings related), but the main motivation is a popular character or premise. If a story style is working really well on a show, maybe it can work well on a second show with a change of setting or slightly different character types. Or if fans seem to have really taken to a particular character or two, maybe they’d do well in their own show where creators can explore a different aspect of the same “world”. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t (anyone remember Love Boat: The Next Wave? What about Baywatch Nights?)

I think spinoffs work best when here’s a natural progression for a character or storyline. Too often, new characters suddenly pop up in a series and you know they’re going to be in a spinoff, but they’re given barely an episode or two to establish themselves before popping up on the new show. So the spinoff has to spend a chunk of its first season making viewers care. This is where Wayward Sisters is so far ahead in spinoff land – the majority of characters have been on episodes of Supernatural over the past few seasons. Fans already know the characters, their backgrounds, their motivations… even the plot for this one episode has been going on for a while.

Yes, original content is great and, when done well, always appreciated. But spinoffs are not a bad thing, especially in the world of geek. It lets us further explore and expand our fandoms. And it means we’re not stuck watching all of those legal and medical dramas!