The "backdoor pilot" is one of the more bizarre inventions of the television age. Essentially a backdoor pilot is a way of smuggling in a new spin-off show through an episode of its pre-existing parent show. Throughout the history of TV, this way of spinning off a new show has been attempted numerous times, though has very rarely been a fruitful venture.
Despite the low rate of success, networks continue to try their hand at the method, which is at its core a kind of Trojan Horse type maneuver. Without further ado, these are five backdoor pilots that actually managed to land, alongside five that completely failed.
Missed The Mark: The Farm (The Office)
Love it or loathe it, NBC's The Office was a cultural phenomenon that revitalized the network's fledgling comedic roster and managed to launch the careers of numerous members in its cast, including Rainn Wilson who played lovable moron Dwight Schrute. It makes perfect sense that when the show was in its final year, the network would want to try and continue the success by launching a backdoor pilot for a proposed series entitled The Farm, which would have been about Schrute and his oddball family. However, audiences and critics were not interested.
Stuck The Landing: Maude (All In The Family)
All in the Family is one of the all-time great sitcoms. Headed up by Archie Bunker, a racist bigot, the series was able to lampoon almost everything and everyone during its legendary run in the 1970s.
In the show's second season, the character of Edith Bunker's liberal feminist cousin Maude was introduced as a foil for Archie. The appearance was so lauded that the season two finale serves as a backdoor pilot for Maude, the show's only truly successful spin-off that gave Bea Arthur her first mainstream lead role.
Missed The Mark: Kelly's Kids (The Brady Bunch)
Though it only ran for five seasons in the early 70s, The Brady Bunch still managed to firmly ingratiate itself into the pop culture lexicon. Of course, as the show was on its way out the front door, the producers were trying to sneak in a spin-off through the backdoor. Numerous attempts to continue the show or spin-off from it were made, but the worst was certainly the episode "Kelly's Kids," about the Bradys' neighbor Ken accidentally adopting more children than he meant to. It's not aged well as a premise and the pilot itself is a bit of an embarrassment for all involved parties.
Stuck The Landing: Mork and Mindy (Happy Days)
Neither Mork and Mindy nor Happy Days are the pinnacles of television. In fact, the former is something of a joke in the canon, but it remains a successful backdoor pilot that not only launched a relatively enduring series of its own but perhaps even more importantly, introduced the world at large to the enormous comedic wunderkind that was Robin Williams.
The show's titular alien visitor was the first time Williams got to flex his chops in front of such a big audience, and he soon outgrew the show and began his own stratospheric film career. None of that would have happened without Mork, which itself only exists because of Happy Days.
Missed The Mark: Supernatural: Bloodlines (Supernatural)
Fans of the long-running cult-classic television show about two brothers hunting down various things that go bump in the night really found themselves angry and confused when a 2014 episode of the show's ninth installment was structured as a backdoor pilot for a potential new show about another individual who...hunts various things that also go bump in the night. "Bloodlines" attempted to set up a bizarre mythology about mafia families that were monsters, which would serve as a backdrop for the central revenge story. It is a terrible concept with worse execution.
Stuck The Landing: The Facts of Life (Diff'rent Strokes)
One of the longest-running sitcoms of the era, The Facts of Life centered on the mischief and mayhem that occurred at an all-girls boarding school. The show was a spin-off of another immensely popular sitcom of the day, Diff'rent Strokes, and utilized the final episode of that show's first season as a backdoor pilot for The Facts of Life.
When the eventual spin-off aired, there had been some minor updates to the premise presented in the previous series, though the core essence of the concept remains intact.
Missed The Mark: Assignment: Earth (Star Trek: The Original Series)
"Assignment: Earth" is by no means a terrible episode of the iconic sci-fi series. However, as a backdoor pilot showcasing a possible new concept for a new show, it doesn't really work at all. Originally not a Star Trek script at all, the piece was rewritten to function as both an episode of that show and as a showcase for a spin-off. Teri Garr stars in the episode, and she is fine, but her character would not have been able to provide enough fodder for a whole separate series. The episode also marks the first of several spin-off attempts in the franchise.
Stuck The Landing: NCIS (JAG)
It's hard to imagine the ratings and widely-referenced CBS procedural NCIS, which has the feel of a show that has been running since the dawn of time, started as a backdoor pilot in the CBS legal drama JAG. In JAG's eighth season, two episodes were used to introduce the world to Mark Harmon's Special Agent Gibbs and his crackerjack team of naval investigators. The episodes were successful and thus NCIS was born, a show that would go on to lead its own franchise of spin-offs.
Missed The Mark: Aquaman (Smallville)
Technically speaking, the Smallville episode "Aqua" was not originally intended as a backdoor pilot for what would become the proposed Aquaman series. However, it was used to gauge interest and present a general take on the character from those behind the successful show Smallville. Both the original Smallville episode and the fully-produced separate pilot for the Aquaman show received some enthusiasm from fans and critics, though The WB network passed on the series, effectively killing its chances. That being said, the pilot remains a fun and widely-available vision of the beloved superhero.
Stuck The Landing: The Flash (Arrow)
On the opposite side of that coin is the successful Arrow spin-off The Flash. Initially, Arrow was a bit of a risky endeavor for The CW. While it contains the network's signature blend of melodrama and supernatural-ish events, Arrow was in a league all its own for superhero shows. Eventually, the show would sire a whole television universe of shows, including The Flash, which began as a backdoor pilot on Arrow. Now in its eighth season, The Flash is one of the more successful recent backdoor pilots.