CREDIT: Colin Bentley/Paramount+ with SHOWTIME
Not every successful television series needs to become a sprawling franchise. Sometimes a great ending should simply be allowed to remain a great ending. But every once in a while, a show creates a supporting character, unexplored corner of its universe, or unanswered question that’s simply too good to leave behind.
The best spin-offs don’t merely repeat what worked the first time. Better Call Saul transformed a supporting character from Breaking Bad into the center of an entirely different kind of tragedy. Frasier took one member of the Cheers ensemble and built another classic sitcom around him. Even shows set in massive franchises can succeed when they find a new perspective instead of trying to recreate the original.
With that in mind, we’re looking at television shows that have already given Hollywood everything it needs for another story. Some would work best as full series. Others only need a two-hour movie or limited series to give audiences one more trip into their world.
TL;DR
- Succession could turn Gerri Kellman into the ultimate corporate fixer.
- Hacks already has a workplace comedy hiding in Jimmy and Kayla’s talent agency.
- Severance could explore Lumon’s history without answering every mystery of the main series.
- Brooklyn Nine-Nine practically set Rosa Diaz up for a private-investigator spin-off.
- Mad Men could jump forward and follow Sally Draper into a completely different era.
- Other strong candidates include The Bear, Yellowjackets, Fallout, The Last of Us, Only Murders in the Building, Schitt’s Creek, and The Good Place.
12. Only Murders in the Building – Detective Williams
Only Murders in the Building has never had a shortage of eccentric suspects, celebrities, neighbors, and murder victims, but one recurring character could easily step outside the Arconia and headline an entirely different mystery series.
Da’Vine Joy Randolph’s Detective Donna Williams has spent years dealing with Charles, Oliver, and Mabel turning murder investigations into podcast material. Give Williams her own show and reverse that relationship. Instead of amateur detectives stumbling into police business, audiences could follow an actual detective navigating bizarre New York crimes while constantly encountering wealthy eccentrics, true-crime obsessives, and aspiring podcasters trying to interfere.
It could retain the comedic mystery tone of Only Murders while becoming more of a procedural — and Randolph has more than enough screen presence to carry it.
11. The Good Place – Tahani Becomes an Architect
The ending of The Good Place gave nearly every member of Team Cockroach a fitting conclusion, but Tahani Al-Jamil’s final destination contained a fantastic spin-off premise.
Rather than walking through the final door, Tahani decided to train as an architect responsible for creating afterlife tests. That’s essentially a television series waiting to happen.
Each episode could introduce a new deceased human and an elaborate scenario designed to determine whether they’re capable of becoming better. Tahani’s tendency toward name-dropping, extravagant planning, and occasional insecurity would make her hilariously overqualified — and completely unqualified — for the job at the same time.
More importantly, it could explore new philosophical questions without undoing the original show’s ending.
10. Schitt’s Creek – Alexis Takes New York
Alexis Rose walked away from Schitt’s Creek as arguably the family member who had changed the most. She arrived as a spoiled socialite constantly recalling increasingly ridiculous stories about international boyfriends, celebrity parties, kidnappings, yachts, and questionable diplomatic incidents. She left as someone determined to create a career of her own.
That’s where the spin-off begins.
Following Alexis as she attempts to establish her public-relations business in New York could produce an entirely different comedy while maintaining the heart of Schitt’s Creek. Her bizarre past could continually collide with her increasingly responsible present as former friends, ex-boyfriends, celebrities, and socialites suddenly reenter her life.
And naturally, occasional visits from David, Moira, Johnny, and Twyla would be mandatory.
9. The Last of Us – Tommy Before Jackson
The world of The Last of Us is enormous, but another series doesn’t necessarily need to introduce completely new characters.
Tommy Miller’s missing years offer more than enough material.
Joel and Tommy survived together during some of the darkest years following the outbreak before their relationship fractured. Tommy eventually became associated with the Fireflies before settling into the community at Jackson. Much of that journey exists outside the main story.
A limited series following Tommy could explore the brutal early years of the apocalypse from a different perspective while showing how two brothers developed radically different ideas about survival. It could also provide a deeper look at the Fireflies without interfering with the central relationship between Joel and Ellie.
8. Yellowjackets – Misty Quigley
There might not be another television character quite like Misty Quigley.
She’s intelligent, resourceful, frighteningly enthusiastic, desperately lonely, and capable of switching from helpful citizen to potential psychopath without changing her expression. Christina Ricci’s adult Misty could comfortably anchor a dark comedy, psychological thriller, murder mystery, or some bizarre combination of all three.
A Misty spin-off wouldn’t even require wilderness mythology.
Put her in a completely new situation. Give Misty a job, an investigation, or an apparent conspiracy that allows her obsessive personality to take control. Maybe she becomes an unofficial citizen detective. Maybe she accidentally uncovers an actual serial killer. Maybe everyone assumes she’s guilty of something for once when she’s completely innocent.
With Misty, almost any scenario becomes dangerous.
7. Fallout – The Ghoul
Fallout already takes place in one of the most expandable universes on television. Vaults can exist almost anywhere, factions rise and fall throughout the wasteland, and hundreds of years separate the destruction of civilization from much of the story audiences are following.
That makes Walton Goggins’ Ghoul an ideal candidate for a spin-off.
Instead of a traditional ongoing series, imagine an anthology-style Western following different periods from his long existence in the wasteland. One episode could take place decades after the bombs. Another could jump forward fifty years. Entire civilizations, settlements, enemies, and companions could enter his life and disappear before the next chapter.
It would essentially be a post-apocalyptic Western built around one nearly immortal gunslinger wandering through two centuries of American history gone horribly wrong.
6. The Bear – Richie Finds His Place
Few television characters have experienced a transformation as satisfying as Richard “Richie” Jerimovich.
Early The Bear Richie could barely walk into a room without starting an argument. Over time, however, audiences discovered that beneath the anger and insecurity was someone with an incredible ability to connect with people.
A Richie spin-off shouldn’t simply recreate The Bear restaurant somewhere else. Instead, send him into struggling restaurants, hotels, or hospitality businesses that have lost their sense of purpose.
Think character drama rather than makeover show: Richie entering unfamiliar environments and trying to understand what hospitality means to different people while continuing to rebuild his own life.
The character’s combination of chaos, sincerity, humor, and surprising emotional intelligence could sustain an entire series.
5. Brooklyn Nine-Nine – Rosa Diaz, Private Investigator
This one almost writes itself.
Rosa Diaz left the NYPD and became a private investigator, giving Brooklyn Nine-Nine the easiest possible launching point for a spin-off without having to manufacture one.
Stephanie Beatriz could lead a half-hour detective comedy with a slightly darker edge than the original series. Each case could send Rosa into a completely different corner of New York while her intimidating personality clashes with clients who expected a slightly more conventional investigator.
The setup also makes cameos effortless. Jake could become obsessed with one of Rosa’s cases. Amy could attempt to help despite Rosa repeatedly telling her not to. Holt’s influence could continue to shape Rosa even in his absence.
Brooklyn Nine-Nine doesn’t need a reboot. Rosa Diaz Investigations, however? We’d watch immediately.
4. Severance – The History of Lumon
The biggest danger with expanding Severance would be explaining too much.
Lumon Industries is fascinating precisely because viewers don’t completely understand it. A spin-off therefore shouldn’t become a ten-hour Wikipedia page explaining every mystery surrounding Kier Eagan.
Instead, treat Lumon like the setting of an anthology.
Each season could take place during a different period in the company’s history. One might follow an ambitious employee decades before the severance procedure existed. Another could show the development of the technology. A later story could explore one of Lumon’s facilities outside the location audiences already know.
The company has the potential to become television’s version of an endlessly unsettling institution whose history becomes stranger every time audiences see another piece of it.
Just don’t explain the goats.
3. Mad Men – Sally Draper
A Mad Men sequel centered on Don Draper would risk ruining one of television’s most discussed endings.
A series about Sally Draper wouldn’t need Don at all.
Jump forward into the late 1970s or early 1980s and follow an adult Sally entering a world dramatically different from the one her parents understood. Advertising is changing. Media is changing. Corporate America is changing. Women have opportunities Betty Draper never had, but they’re still navigating institutions built largely by men like Don.
The genius of the premise is that Sally doesn’t even need to become an advertising executive. Journalism, publishing, television, fashion, or politics could place her inside an entirely new professional world while preserving Mad Men’s fascination with American identity.
It would be less Mad Men: The Next Generation and more another period drama viewed through someone permanently shaped by the original.
2. Hacks – Jimmy and Kayla
Hacks has one of the most obvious spin-off pairings in recent television.
Jimmy LuSaque and Kayla Schaefer are already living inside their own workplace sitcom whenever Deborah and Ava aren’t around.
A series centered on their management company could follow the pair representing comedians, actors, influencers, writers, washed-up celebrities, impossible Hollywood personalities, and clients who probably shouldn’t have careers in the first place.
Jimmy would desperately attempt to run a legitimate business while Kayla somehow destroys and saves the company several times per episode.
The format would also create an endless supply of guest-star possibilities. Real celebrities could play exaggerated versions of themselves while fictional clients rotate through the agency.
Don’t change anything about the characters. Give Jimmy an office, give Kayla access to the company credit card, and start filming.
1. Succession – Gerri Kellman
Of all the characters Succession could follow into another series, Gerri Kellman might offer the most interesting way back into its ruthless corporate world without simply creating Succession Season 5.
Gerri spent years surviving executives, scandals, Roy family civil wars, regulatory disasters, and Roman Roy’s spectacular inability to behave like a normal human being. That kind of experience makes her perfect for a corporate-fixer drama.
Imagine Gerri leaving the Roy orbit behind and becoming the person powerful companies call when everything has gone catastrophically wrong. Every season — or even every few episodes — could introduce a different corporate disaster involving CEOs, boardroom coups, mergers, scandals, lawsuits, and billionaires convinced they’re smarter than everyone around them.
It could preserve Succession’s acidic view of wealth and power while placing one of its smartest characters in control rather than forcing her to clean up another Roy family tantrum.
And if Roman Roy happened to show up one day asking for help?
Well, that’s what season finales are for.
Which TV Show Should Get a Spin-Off Next?
Spin-offs work best when they reveal something the original television series couldn’t. That’s why the possibilities above aren’t simply excuses to reunite popular casts. Each could shift genres, introduce a different perspective, or explore a character whose story still feels unfinished.
Some might never happen. Others feel so obvious that it’s surprising they haven’t happened already.
But if Hollywood is going to continue looking toward familiar franchises for its next major television hit, we’d much rather see creators take a genuine swing with characters like Gerri Kellman, Rosa Diaz, Richie Jerimovich, or Jimmy and Kayla than simply reboot shows that already received perfectly good endings.
Which television character do you think deserves their own spin-off series or movie?
DC Fanboy! Superman is the greatest comic book character of all time. Favorite movies are Man of Steel, Goonies, Back To the Future
