From Hannibal's tastiest meal preps to Slippin' Jimmy's messiest exploits,
these shows are proof that some TV prequels are even better than the stories they came from.
A prequel to a reboot, Caprica hit screens in 2010, a year after the dramatic ending of science
fiction drama Battlestar Galactica. Battlestar had been a relaunch of a short-lived sci-fi adventure
from 1978, with producer Ronald D. Moore turning the campy family adventure into a gritty war
story that dazzled audiences with dark, sobering storylines and unpredictable twists and turns.
Caprica was entirely different: a sci-fi political thriller set decades earlier on a thriving world
where A.I. technology is in its infancy. Taking place nearly 60 years before the Earth/Cylon war
of BSG, the show explored the relationship between two rival families, the Graystones and the Adamas,
and saw the advent of the technology that would lead to the Cylon race.
"I'm Zoe. And the avatar. And the robot. Like some kind of whatchacallit three-parter."
"Trinity."
Starring Eric Stoltz and Esai Morales as family patriarchs Daniel Graystone and Joseph Adama,
respectively, the series set itself apart from BSG
with a focus on political and religious intrigue and profound personal drama.
"What would you do if you had the chance to be with your daughter again?"
Packed with social allegory, Caprica garnered rave
reviews from critics. The Guardian called the series:
"Dense and intelligent sci-fi [...] complex, bizarre and ambitious."
Despite the acclaim, Caprica lasted just a single season,
but it's remained a cult favorite ever since.
A Batman prequel arrived in 2014 in the form of Gotham, a grim,
hard-boiled crime series set in the city Batman would one day protect.
"Bruce. My name is Bruce Wayne."
In it, Bruce Wayne is a young boy, so the series focuses more on Gotham PD Lieutenant James Gordon,
played by Ben McKenzie, and his efforts to combat the city's criminal underworld.
The series opened with the killing of Gotham socialites Thomas and Martha Wayne.
As the show progressed, audiences met many of Batman's eventual rogues' gallery,
with future villains the Penguin, Catwoman, the Riddler, and the Joker making appearances,
as well as several new baddies like Jada Pinkett Smith as Fish Mooney.
"Only my friends call me Fish."
Praised for its slick production and stylish storytelling, Gotham ran for five seasons,
ending with a now-adult Bruce Wayne donning cape and cowl to become the Dark Knight.
The Big Bang Theory was a multi-camera sitcom about three geeky friends in
Pasadena who fill their days with video games, comic books, and RPGs.
"It's just some quantum mechanics with a little string theory doodling around the
edges. That part there? That's just a joke. It's a spoof of the Bourne-Oppenheimer approximation."
A smash hit for 12 astonishing seasons, Big Bang became a franchise in 2017 with the
debut of prequel series Young Sheldon, about the awkward youth of child prodigy Sheldon.
Young actor Iain Armitage plays Sheldon, whose trials and tribulations include
skipping four grades. This makes him a social misfit and yet, occasionally, a hero
"Him being so young isn't like weird?"
"I'm basically fifty."
"And we're basically 12, so it all works out."
Balancing a tough school schedule with problems at home,
he also has to deal with the frustrations of having a dimmer-witted older brother.
"Morning. I slept in the nude last night. Felt every little breeze."
A heartfelt and heartwarming family sitcom that brings a fresh angle to the character
with stories about Sheldon's social struggles, Young Sheldon was a big hit, with IndieWire
calling out its strong mix of comedy and drama and its empathetic approach to the central character.
Perry Mason began in the 1930s as a series of novels by Erle Stanley Gardner before becoming
a series of films, a radio drama, and eventually a hit TV series starring Raymond Burr that ran for
nearly 300 episodes beginning in 1957. Revived briefly in the 1970s as The New Perry Mason,
Burr returned to the role for a series of TV movies all the way through the 1990s.
"No further questions."
After a decades-long absence, the unflappable lawyer reappeared in
the 2020 prequel series Perry Mason, starring Matthew Rhys.
"You were in the war, weren't you? The way you hold your cigarette,
hiding the ember in your palm."
"I guess I'm still trying not to give them something to shoot at."
The series takes place years before Mason becomes a lawyer. In this darker drama,
Mason is a beleaguered private investigator whose business is struggling during the
Great Depression. The series' first season tells a single story across eight episodes,
as Mason investigates a grisly child murder case.
The show's strongest asset might be its phenomenal cast,
which includes Tatiana Maslany and John Lithgow, among many other standouts.
Praised for its sophisticated story, compelling mystery, evocative style, and overall panache,
Perry Mason built off decades of previous stories to provide a new spin on an old classic.
Born from the mind of Muppets creator Jim Henson, The Dark Crystal was an iconic '80s
family fantasy film full of ancient relics and mystical powers. It became an enduring
cult classic thanks to its incredible design, captivating story, and blend of light-hearted
playfulness with a foreboding sense of doom. Though there was talk of a sequel for years,
a prequel eventually materialized: The Dark Crystal: The Age of Resistance.
Released in 2019 as a Netflix original, the series was helmed by action director Louis Leterrier,
and boasted an all-star cast voicing its ensemble of puppet actors, including Mark Hamill,
Taron Egerton, Awkwafina, Jason Isaacs, and Helena Bonham Carter.
"These are the world's greatest puppeteers working with Louis Leterrier,
a brilliant director. It's a look that you've never seen before."
Set long before the events of the film,
Age of Resistance sees a group of childlike Gelflings on a journey to unite their people
to fight back against the devious and tyrannical Skeksis that rule them.
The series delivered a powerful story of friendship, loyalty,
and indomitable spirit. Gorgeously produced with sumptuous visuals and a story that expanded on
Henson's original. The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance was a magical treat that did
more than justice to a classic, making for a stellar fantasy series in its own right.
Director Peter Jackson's groundbreaking Lord of the Rings trilogy brought J.R.R.
Tolkien's fantasy world to the mainstream in the
early 2000s. Expertly realized with a lavish production budget, it quickly became iconic.
"Always remember, Frodo. The ring is trying to get back to its master. It wants to be found."
Following a trilogy of prequels adapted from The Hobbit, many wondered where the franchise would go
next, but it would be a decade before Amazon's Rings of Power prequel series landed in 2022.
Rings of Power is set in the Second Age of Middle Earth, long before the events of Lord of the
Rings, yet includes several crossover characters, notably immortal elves Elrond and Galadriel. As
new evil rises in the East, the different races — Dwarves, Elves, Hobbits, and Man — prepare to rise
up and meet it head-on. The series is a visual treat, a true spectacle that brings the cinematic
experience to the small screen. Story-wise, it expands upon themes from Jackson's trilogy.
Strong performances, an intriguing plot,
and plenty of surprises have helped it garner critical acclaim, too, with Variety calling it:
"A perfectly winning adaptation that unfolds swashbuckling adventures with
clear reverence and affection for the considerable mythos behind it."
A massive success for the streaming giant, it's anyone's guess where the series will go following
its debut season, but it's already proven itself a worthy addition to Tolkien's world.
In 2001, the comedy troupe known as "The State" produced an offbeat comedy film,
Wet Hot American Summer, that followed the antics of a group of teen counselors
at a 1980s summer camp. Members of "The State" were joined by a remarkable cast,
including young Paul Rudd, Bradley Cooper, and Amy Poehler alongside veterans David
Hyde Pierce, Molly Shannon, and Janeane Garofalo. Though it flopped in theaters,
its surreal humor and raunchy tone made it a cult classic. More than a decade later in 2015,
a prequel series arrived on Netflix, Wet Hot American Summer: First Day of Camp.
The entire cast — now 15 years older — returned, still playing teenagers in a story set several
months before the film, on the first day of camp in 1981. Even Rudd, Cooper, and Poehler,
who had since achieved megastardom, came back for the eight-episode series,
with the likes of Kristin Wiig and Jason Schwartzman joining them.
Lauded by critics for its wild, off-the-wall comedy, the show became a big hit for Netflix. In
2017, it was followed by a sequel series, Wet Hot American Summer: Ten Years Later.
Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho was a seminal 1960s thriller that
almost single handedly gave rise to the modern psychological horror genre. Psycho
centers on a young woman who winds up in a hotel run by Norman Bates,
a twisted madman whose obsession with his own mother turns him into a killer.
"Well, a boy's best friend is his mother."
A Hollywood classic and box-office smash, it was followed by a few lesser sequels and a TV movie
called Bates Motel in 1987. In 2013, when the title was repurposed for a prequel television
series starring Freddie Highmore as a young Norman, no one had particularly high hopes.
The series introduces a teenaged Norman, whose mother Norma, played by Vera Farmiga,
purchases a motel after the death of her husband. Trouble strikes when Norma is
forced to kill an attacker, leading to a series of cover-ups and conspiracies that
threaten to expose them both. Surrounded by violence, Norman's fragile mental state
deteriorates. As he slowly spirals into madness, his mother struggles to deal with his condition.
Bates Motel is a riveting psychological thriller that ran for five seasons.
"You told her something happens to me when I black out. You said
I change. That I'm not myself. Who am I, Mother? Who am I and what do I do?"
The final season was a jaw-dropping remake of the original film. The Los
Angeles Times called the series "twisty, mood[y] [and] modern." Bates Motel is a
blueprint for how to craft a clever, fresh prequel to an iconic property.
The 1991 film Silence of the Lambs brought author Thomas
Harris' novel to the big screen with aplomb.
"Oh, Clarice, your problem is you need to get more fun out of life."
Star Anthony Hopkins gave a spine-chilling — and Oscar-winning — performance as sociopathic serial
killer Hannibal Lecter. Technically, this was Lecter's second big-screen
appearance. He originally featured in Michael Mann's 1986 flick Manhunter.
Danish actor Mads Mikkelsen took on the role for a 2013 NBC prequel series titled Hannibal,
which chronicled the years before Lecter was imprisoned for a series of cannibalistic murders.
Drawing mostly on material from Harris' novel Red Dragon, the show saw renowned psychiatrist
Lecter assisting intrepid FBI agent Will Graham, played by Hugh Dancy, as a criminal profiler.
"Not fond of eye contact, are you?"
"Eyes are distracting. See too much. Don't see enough."
Created by Bryan Fuller, the series reimagined the relationship between
the two future adversaries, as Lecter — whose murderous inclinations are explored
in secret — becomes obsessed with the young FBI agent.
"It seems you have an admirer."
"You think someone sent me in here because they admire me?"
Dark, disturbing, and bold, Hannibal pushed the
boundaries of network censorship and was rewarded with universal acclaim.
Star Trek had done prequels before, with the 2001 series Enterprise set in the early days
of Starfleet. 2017's Star Trek: Discovery also takes place in the past, just a decade before Kirk
and Spock. In that show's second season, we meet Captain Pike and the U.S.S. Enterprise. In 2022,
their story spun off into its own series: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds. Starring Anson Mount,
Ethan Peck, and Rebecca Romijn as classic characters Pike, Mr. Spock, and Number One,
it explored early missions of the Enterprise that had only previously been hinted at.
Joined by a mix of returning franchise icons like Uhura –
"Oh, can I help?"
"No."
– Nurse Chapel, and Dr. M'Benga, plus new characters La'an Noonien Singh, Ensign Ortegas,
and Andorian engineer Hemmer, the series was a retro return to sci-fi adventure. While Star Trek:
Discovery and Star Trek: Picard focused on darker, more adult-themed serialized stories,
Strange New Worlds successfully recaptured the classic Trek spirit with family-friendly
episodic stories that took the crew to new worlds each week.
With a strong cast and a big budget, the series refreshed the final frontier.
Strange New Worlds was hailed as a return to form with a stirring mix of big adventure,
thought-provoking science fiction, humor, and heart.
Creating a spin-off of an acclaimed series can be risky. No matter how good it is,
it may always live in the shadow of its parent series. Such was the predicament
when the 16-time Emmy Award-winning Breaking Bad announced that supporting star Bob Odenkirk
would lead spin-off series, Better Call Saul. The fact that it would be a prequel
and would run alongside the final seasons of Breaking Bad, made it even trickier.
"Did you just bring a bomb into a hospital?"
"What? Was I supposed to leave it on his car?"
But Odenkirk and series creator Vince Gilligan pulled off the impossible.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?"
"I need Saul. I need him right now."
The show, which debuted in 2015, explored more of unscrupulous lawyer Saul Goodman's shady past and
underhanded dealings, while appearances from Giancarlo Esposito as Gus Fring and Jonathan
Banks as Mike Ehrmantraut helped flesh out the Breaking Bad universe by enriching old
stories with new context. In time, the events of the series caught up with its predecessor,
which even allowed for the brief return of Bryan Cranston as Walter White.
With a more left-of-center vibe and a colorful cast of quirky,
eccentric characters, Better Call Saul was a series with its own identity while still
delivering gut-wrenching, nail-biting crime stories. Standing on the shoulders of a giant,
the series may have soared even higher, with The Guardian declaring it even more profound,
and outstripping Gilligan's former series in nearly every way.