The way people talk about it these days, you’d think the Marvel Cinematic Universe invented the multiverse of interconnected storylines and characters, but the concept of an interconnected world with multiple entry points has been the realm of television for basically as long as television has been around. With every successful TV show comes a sea of spinoffs, each more convoluted than the last, attempting to recapture the magic of what came before. Sometimes, it works out. Sometimes, it works out even better than the original.

Every now and then, the stars will align and audiences will connect with a spinoff even more immediately and with more fervor than they did with the source material, and the new version will take on an identity of its own, maybe even surpassing its predecessor in popularity to the point that fans might forget that their favorite show was originally a small part of something else in the first place. The only thing a network loves more than a successful spin-off is a spin-off that eclipses its parent show, allowing its characters and plot arcs a new sense of freedom.

For this list, we’ve chosen ten of these very spinoffs that managed, against all odds, to be bigger and better than their roots. All of these shows ended up lasting longer and gaining more popularity with their fanbase than their predecessors, sometimes so completely that new fans might not even know they started off as something else. Whether they began as sneaky backdoor pilots for planned series or as starring roles for characters who were already fan-favorites in a different show, all of these have one thing in common: they managed to see the kind of success that their predecessors never did.

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