Most Memorable TV Spinoffs Over the Years

Just the beginning! From The Vampire Diaries to The Bachelor, many TV shows have found a continuation for their stories in the form of a spinoff show.

For a hit show like Beverly Hills, 90210, the next chapter was a reboot that followed the original characters — but had a special twist. The original show aired for ten seasons from 1990 to 2000 and then continued with a new series, titled BH90210, that allowed the actors to play heightened versions of themselves.

“It’s like a big therapy session with our writers, Chris [Alberghini] and Mike [Chessler],” Tori Spelling exclusively told Us Weekly in August 2019. “We were, like, just telling them stories so they could get our voices and then make fictionalized versions of us, but also we would just tell, like, the craziest stories. It’s really fascinating to hear all of us together try to tell a story because everyone had different perceptions of how it happened, but we have definitely utilized all those little stories throughout the season, the first season. And some things are completely made up.”

While the cast couldn’t have been more excited to return to their old characters, the 2019 series was panned after just one season.

Spinoffs aren’t solely for scripted shows, however. The Hills, which was created as a spinoff of Laguna Beach, was brought back to life years after originally going off the air. The series ran from 2006 to 2010, only to return in 2019 with multiple members of the original cast — including Spencer Pratt, Stephanie Pratt, Heidi Pratt, Audrina Patridge, Whitney Port and Brody Jenner.

Stephanie revealed that the drama factor only increased with the new version of The Hills.

“I’m dying to watch it, and we haven’t seen anything. No one can even comprehend this series,” Stephanie told Us Weekly exclusively in June 2019 about her expectations for the revival, The Hills: New Beginnings. “If they thought the original Hills was, like, drama and the best show ever, this is just — it’s 2020 Hills, 2019/2020. It is just on fire.”

Stephanie added that not seeing one another in a while helped add to the conflict between the cast during filming. “I think everyone’s going to be shocked by how many falling outs, fights and story lines there are,” she told Us.

From reality to supernatural, Legacies proved what a beloved show could accomplish. After The Vampires Diaries found its success during its initial 2009 to 2017 run, it inspired The Originals, which aired from 2013 to 2018.

Danielle Rose Russell then reprised her role from The Originals on Legacies, and she found the transition easier because of the fans that joined her for the journey.

“Actually, it’s been easier than I’d have expected it to be. It wasn’t so drastic. I think because, doing The Originals, I had a very similar situation. I wasn’t just thrown into it. I had only ever done films that never had this huge fan base,” Russell said during a conversation with Collider in November 2018. “I acted just to act. And so, coming into The Originals and Legacies and that fandom for the first time, I didn’t know how to handle it at first, but I have a better grip on it now. I’m excited to do good in the world with it, instead of just letting it eat me alive.”

Scroll down for more TV shows that inspired popular spinoffs: