Contrary to popular belief, you can have too much of a good thing. That’s exactly what happens whenever a breakout TV show hits airwaves and every Hollywood studio rushes to create their copycat series. Here are ten great shows that had way too many imitators.
The Twilight Zone
The Twilight Zone was way ahead of its time and offered viewers a glimpse into fractured, terrifying alternate realities. This horror anthology show also kick-started a huge wave of lookalike anthologies. Even today, shows like Cabinet of Curiosities and Black Mirror carry on the iconic old show’s spirit.
Star Trek
Star Trek spawned a lot of imitators, and we’re not even talking about other shows that bear the original’s name. From Firefly and Babylon 5 to Battlestar Galactica and The Orville, sci-fi TV shows about exploring deep space just have to thank Star Trek for blazing a trail for them.
Law & Order
Dick Wolf essentially invented the modern police procedural format with his 1990 show Law & Order. Of course, this original show has countless alphabet soup spinoffs, but it also spawned imitators like CSI (and its many spinoffs), NCIS, and Criminal Minds. Points docked from Criminal Minds for not using an acronym in its title!
Lost
Lost wasn’t the first show to lure audiences in with unsolvable mysteries and deep lore—that space was already done better by David Lynch with Twin Peaks over a decade earlier. However, since Lost’s great first season (and hilariously bad subsequent seasons) many TV shows have used the opening premise of a plane crash and survival in a deserted setting to great effect.
The Sopranos
The Sopranos helped lay the blueprint for prestige TV dramas as we know them today. It also catapulted HBO to the spotlight and made premium cable something glossy and desirable. Tony Soprano’s role as a conflicted antihero influenced dozens of gritty crime dramas, from Sons of Anarchy to Breaking Bad.
Game of Thrones
It’s hard to remember these days, but the fantasy genre all but vanished from TV before Game of Thrones brought it back with a vengeance. While the 90s were replete with fantasy shows like Hercules and Xena, it took George RR Martin’s gritty setting of Westeros to get mainstream audiences interested in swords-and-sorcery settings again in the 2010s.
Mad Men
Speaking of the influence of The Sopranos, Mad Men is all but a spiritual successor to the HBO series. Created by Sopranos writer Matthew Wiener, Mad Men got audiences hooked on the concept of period dramas about morally corrupt rich people. Shows like Succession and The White Lotus owe their existence to Mad Men.
Sherlock (BBC)
Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman are electrifying in the first three seasons of the BBC series Sherlock. The show’s modern-day retelling of the classic Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories proved to be a huge hit with audiences. It was so popular, in fact, that it sparked renewed interest in Sherlock Holmes stories, leading to direct imitators like Elementary and Sherlock-adjacent shows like The Irregulars. The show’s particular take on detective fiction also went on to inform numerous crime dramas, like Broadchurch.
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Adventure Time
Adventure Time was a huge hit when it debuted and reignited interest in classic Western-style animation. It was so popular, in fact, that the show’s iconic “rubbery” animation style has become derisively known as the “Cal Arts House Style” by animation fans who are sick of its cultural dominance.
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The Office
The Office, itself an adaptation of a British series of the same name, was inescapable during its initial time on TV. Its mockumentary style spawned dozens of imitators, some of which were even good! Parks and Rec, for instance, started as a rote clone of the format before shifting into its own hilarious thing.
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