When the end of one work also serves as the point of departure for a Spin-Off.
These kinds of spinoffs fail just as often as, possibly more often than, the other kinds of spinoffs. Usually, the audience has simply tired of the previous show and doesn't feel up to investing themselves in it a second time. Other times, the critical element of the previous show that hooked the audience is missing from the spin-off entirely. After all, it's the series finale — everything's already been wrapped up. What else is there left to do in that universe?
On some rare occasions, this type of show will actually achieve a fraction of the old show's success. In extremely rare cases, they may actually match it. This explains the long trend of networks continuing to attempt this type of show in spite of the much longer list of failures.
The line between this and a series that simply changes its title can be somewhat vague. For instance, is Sanford simply a Revival of Sanford and Son without the "Son"? Or is it a different series? Was Archie Bunker's Place a different show than All in the Family? Sort of depends on who you ask.
This is very common in works with their own 'Verse, especially regarding superhero comics. In such cases, status-quo-changing Crisis Crossovers are the go-to launching devices.
Compare After Show, which is a Sequel Series starring the original work's setting. Contrast Revival, when a show gets more episodes several years after its original run.
Examples:
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Comic Books
- Civil War II: Ewing uses some plot events to both end New Avengers (2015) and launch U.S.Avengers at the same time. U.S.Avengers ended in another event, Avengers: No Surrender, which also served to bring back the titular character of what would arguably become Ewing's magnum opus, Immortal Hulk.
- Journey into Mystery (Gillen): The final issue ends on a huge moment that changes everything. The aftermath of this event leads directly to Kieron Gillen's next book, the second volume of Young Avengers. And the finale of that is a launching point of Al Ewing's Loki: Agent of Asgard.
- Stormwatch: Warren Ellis ends the series with a prologue to his Wild C.A.T.s/Aliens. In it, the entire Stormwatch team is killed off except for characters Ellis would later put on The Authority.
- X-Men:
- After Rob Liefeld gets free reign on New Mutants, the ending becomes basically a setup for his X-Force (1991).
- The second volume, which focuses on an original cast now grown up and teaching a new generation themselves, is very short-lived. It paves the way for books focused more on the students, New X-Men: Academy X.
- X-Men: Messiah Complex is used to close all X-Men books, but writing them allowed the author of NXM to pick up many unresolved subplots and continue them in X-Force (2008).
- Force itself ends in another mega event, X-Men: Second Coming, up from which two new series that pick up where X-Force left—Uncanny X-Force and a new volume of X-23.
Comic Strips
- The final days of Bloom County were devoted to setting up Berkeley Breathed's follow-up project, the Sundays-only strip Outland. Connected to the world of Bloom County by way of being set in an alternate dimension of that world, the new strip was meant to feature a completely new cast of characters (with the only holdover being minor Bloom figure Ronald-Ann Smith); however, Breathed started backporting the cast of Bloom into Outland not long after it began, turning it into more of a continuation of Bloom County than originally intended.note
Live-Action TV
- AfterMASH: Despite the incredible resolution of the final episode of M*A*S*H, it still managed to spawn a follow-up the very next season, starring Colonel Potter, Klinger, and Father Mulcahy. This happened after a vote from the main cast of the former show voted not to continue for another season — these three actors voted in the minority to continue on. The new show took place in a veteran's hospital and attempted to mimic the dramatic turns of the later seasons of M*A*S*H. It lasted for two seasons, never getting high ratings in its first season and being pitted against the intensely popular The A-Team in its second, which effectively slaughtered it.
- Archie Bunker's Place: It's a retooling of All in the Family set away from the family life of Archie and simply onto Archie and his wife. And later, just Archie.
- Beverly Hills Buntz: Right after Hill Street Blues, it follows Det. Norman Buntz and Sid the Snitch as private investigators in Beverly Hills, California.
- Boston Legal: It picks up where The Practice leaves off. To elaborate, the latter ends with Alan joining Crane, Poole, and Schmidt. While the former begins with Alan having settled in for what must be a year —if you go by Alan's claim to have known Denny for six years in the series finale. The first season contains perhaps the most references to things that happened to Alan on The Practice, given that are were more carry-over characters like Tara and Sally, and Catherine Piper than there are in later seasons.
- Crusade: It follows the finale of Babylon 5. According to J. Michael Straczynski both shows eventually would have more obviously blended into one extended story if Crusade hadn't been canceled after 13 episodes.
- Frasier: It's the go-to example of a show that performed as well as its predecessor. Frasier ended its run after 11 seasons, exactly as long as Cheers. It stars Frasier, a secondary but popular character, in his home town and dealing with his many psychiatric patients.
- Get Fit with Brittas: It was released and ended several months after the conclusion of The Brittas Empire.
- Golden Palace: At the end of the series, three of the four characters of the The Golden Girls buy a hotel with Don Cheadle as the manager. It lasted only one season.
- Highlander: The last season has several episodes designed to promote potential spin-offs. When the series ended, the network choose to give the immortal Amanda her own series, Highlander: The Raven.
- Joey: Its failure to repeat the success of Friends was due to, as many critics pointed, the lack of interest in simply following one character when Friends was a show about an ensemble. Another problem was that many believed Joey had become too dumb and cartoonish by that point to really be able to carry an entire series on his own.
- Norman Lear: His most famous shows, such as All in the Family and Sanford and Son, get hit by this trope in the form of, respectively, Archie Bunker's Place plus 704 Hauser and Sanford plus The Sanford Arms. It must be noted, however, that Lear was not involved in the production of the last two.
- Lewis: Several years after Inspector Morse ended, Sergeant Lewis's character was revived —now promoted to DCI, and with a rookie partner of his own.
- Lou Grant: After Lou Grant and all his co-workers are fired from the station in the finale of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Lou survives and thrives as the city editor of a busy Los Angeles newspaper and maintains his humanity and integrity throughout the series.
- Stargate Atlantis: Subverted. It was originally intended to be a continuation of Stargate SG-1 in this manner but then SG-1 got renewed by the network, so they made the two shows side-by-side for three more years instead. Notably, this led to the relocation of Atlantis itself to another galaxy, while it was originally supposed to be in Antarctica.
- Stargate Command: Subverted. The ninth season of Stargate SG-1, with its new main characters and new major villain, almost became an entirely new show — which would be called this — that would pick up where SG-1 left off. Ultimately it was decided to just continue with SG-1 instead.
- Three's a Crowd: Spawned from Three's Company after the entire cast aside from Ritter departed at the end of the eighth season.
Tabletop Games
- Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: Its predecessor Warhammer Fantasy ends with the complete victory of evil (Chaos, orcs, vampires, and Skaven) over good, destroying the world for good measure. That's the starting point of Age of Sigmar.
Video Games
- Mega Man Star Force: With some mild notation about how it's 200 years in the future and none of the original cast is left, Star Force is a rather transparent attempt to keep up the flagging Mega Man Battle Network series.
- Remnant: From the Ashes has this in the title and justifiably so. The game is a jumping point from the earlier much different, obscure VR game Chronos and its Downer Ending where that game's Chosen One was played and ended up releasing a great evil further into the cosmos. Remnant II is the sequel to Remnant and expands on its hopeful ending, as humans regain more territory on Earth and the heroes keep scoring major victories against the Root.
Web Videos
- LG15: the resistance: It's set just over a month after the end of lonelygirl15, and features two of the same main characters plus one. Jonas, Sarah, Reed, and the mysterious Hymn of None as they attempt to fight against the sinister LifesBlood Labs.
Western Animation
- Darwin's Yearbook: It was announced less than 5 months after The Amazing World of Gumball ended. It shows Darwin's experience in creating the Elmore Junior High yearbook at the request of Principal Brown.
