Expy/Live-Action TV

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Examples of Expies in Live-Action TV include:

• Considering how much House MD was based on the Sherlock Holmes stories, clearly the expies are there. House is Sherlock obviously, the Insufferable Genius with his Deadpan Snarker side. Wilson is Watson, the Straight Man to House's Wise Guy. Stretching it a little further, Dr. Cuddy is Inspector Lestrade, who used to do House's legwork and has the same "I hate you, but you're too valuable to get rid of" tone we see in Lestrade.
  • Until he hit that. Now she's all up in his jock.
• Every character in Beverly Hills 90210 has an almost perfect parallel character in the new 90210. Kelly is now Naomi, Dylan is Liam, and so on into infinity.
• J.T. and Toby from Degrassi the Next Generation are updated versions of Arthur and Yick from Degrassi Junior High, while Sean is an updated version of the earlier show's Rick. (Both Sean and Rick are Troubled but Cute, but the similarities go further -- both live with their adult brother, both had an edgy relationship with a social-activist girl, etc.)
  • Rick, in turn, is an expy of Griff on The Kids of Degrassi Street, who lived with his adult brother after his parents died. Wheels is also a partial expy of Griff, having been orphaned as well, having a nickname based on his last name, and being played by the same actor.
  • For that matter, Emma starts out as an updated Caitlin (Emma dates Sean, Caitlin dates Rick, both are social-activist types). Ashley, however, is a bit of a subversion--while both she and Steph ran for class president and were friends with socially awkward girls, Ashley, unlike Steph, based her campaign on honesty.
    • There's also a parallel between the later show's Rick and the earlier show's Claude in regards to their interactions with Emma/Caitlin--both were rejected and ended up dying as a result (Claude by a deliberate suicide, Rick by his own gun after being calmed down from shooting up the school).
  • Now that most of the cast were put on buses or just commuting, most of the characters introduced in seasons 7 and 8 are Expies filling in the roles the cast left open. Clare has Emma's strong morals, Alli is Manny except fiestier, Holly J fills in Paige's Alpha Bitch spot (except Holly J isn't as sociable) among other examples.
  • New character Declan Coyne is pretty similar to Gossip Girl's Chuck Bass, except Declan is just michevious and not nearly as contemptible.
• Kinglsey in Fresh Meat is a very similar character to Simon from The Inbetweeners. Both were played by the same actor and Fresh Meat could even plausibly follow on chronologically from The Inbetweeners.
• The last story of the sixth season of Doctor Who featured the War Chief. He's an evil, megalomaniac Time Lord who dresses in a dark Nehru jacket, sports Facial Hair of Evil and knows the Doctor from their days on Gallifrey. He's extremely camp, has no concept of personal space and offers the Doctor a half-share in the universe. Fast forward to Season Eight, where we are introduced to |a new regular villain who's an evil, megalomaniac Time Lord, dresses in a dark Nehru jacket, wears a Beard of Evil and--oh, you get the point.
  • And in the new series, companions Amy Pond and Rory Williams share quite more than a few traits with Sally Sparrow and Larry Nightingale from "Blink", a story Steven Moffat wrote before taking over as the head writer.
    • Rory is also Mickey 2.0.
    • 3.0. Even The Sarah Jane Adventures has a Mickey-type.
    • Except neither Rory nor Clyde are actually that much like Mickey. Although I'm only assuming that you mean Clyde in the case of SJA. The only glaring similarity to Mickey being that both characters are black.
      • While not 100% matches (that's covered elsewhere) it's the same role. You have the Doctor type (Nine/Ten, Sarah Jane, Eleven), the main, female companion (Rose, Maria, Amy) and the somewhat buffoonish (not to the degree of day-one Mickey, but if anyone's gonna be the butt of a joke, or have the comedy of the moment come of their reaction to something, guess who?) male secondary one (Mickey, Clyde, Rory.) All three begin to grow out of it over time, though; Clyde in particular becomes more of a snarker.
      • Rory has most definitely begun to grow out of his expy status. After his stint as the Last Centurion he has become more forceful and powerful. People no longer think of him as just a copy of Mickey, but the 2,000 year old, Badass, sword-wielding guy who can destroy Cyberman fleets when his wife or child is in danger.
• Most of the original cast of Saved By The Bell The New Class were basically the old class with different actors. Apparently it didn't go over well, because the cast was largely overhauled early on.
• For Star Trek: Voyager the creators wanted to bring back Nicholas Locarno, a character from a Next Generation episode. However, the character had been created by the writer of that episode and not by TNG's creators or executive producers (as was the case for recurring characters such as O'Brien or Worf, which could be reused). Because of this, the creators of Voyager thought they'd have to pay royalties to the writer of that episode every time they used the character, and that led them to create a new character similar to Locarno's named Tom Paris with a similar back story and who would be played by the same actor. To cover the transparent change, the creators said that they decided Locarno was unredeemable due to his actions in the episode, but Tom Paris's actions (which were more like Wesley's in the original episode) were less culpable. Interestingly, many years later a California court ruled that producers in a similar situation didn't have to pay royalties to a writer who created a character; had the producers of Voyager chosen to take the matter to court, they might have been cleared to use the character Locarno.
  • B'Elanna was supposed to be Ro Laren. Apparently they wanted her to be on Deep Space Nine (later replaced with Kira) and then tried again with Voyager (later replaced with B'Elanna) but the actress kept saying no.
    • And Kira on Deep Space Nine was initially supposed to be played by Michelle Forbes (Ro Laren), but she declined to focus on her film career. We all know how that worked out.
  • Also, The Next Generation's Taurik becomes Voyager's Vorik, and keeps same actor. The Expanded Universe says they're twins.
  • Decker and Ilia from Star Trek: The Motion Picture were exported to Star Trek: The Next Generation and became Riker and Troi.
  • The "Assignment Earth" episode of the Original Series featured Gary Seven. Let's see... enigmatic time traveller, hot assistant chick, pen-shaped do-anything multitool, interest in keeping Earth's history on the right track... Who does that sound like?
    • Probably coincidental given that the Doctor hadn't properly developed many of those characteristics at the time that "Assignment Earth" was broadcast, and Doctor Who didn't have much of a US profile at the time anyway. There's rather more justification for the allegations you'll frequently hear from Doctor Who fans that the Borg are Cyberman Expies if not full-blown Captains Ersatz.
• Luka Kovacs of ER: For all intents and purposes, Doug Ross with a Slavic accent. (Spawning the Fan Nickname, "Dr. Rossavic")
• The character of Doyle on Angel is rather similar to Whistler, a character who appeared in the season two finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Both are demons, both help Angel out, both serve {or served, in Doyle's case) as intermediaries for The Powers That Be, both are frequently sarcastic... Word of God in fact says Whistler was originally intended as Angel's sidekick, but schedule conflicts with the actor caused them to use Doyle instead. Which creates a certain amount of overlap with Suspiciously Similar Substitute.
• Topher from Dollhouse has certain similarities to Firefly's Wash, except that Topher's Affably Evil.
  • Then again this is part of Whedon's Signature style, Xander also filled a role similar to the above two. In fact Whedon called Wash the Space Xander.
• Supernatural: The angel Balthazar is an Expy of Gabriel who was killed in season 5. Prior to season 6 the producers confirmed that he would return in one way or another, they just didn't know in what way yet. This is how.
• Chloe Sullivan on Smallville originally started as an Expy for Lois Lane (the actual Lois was introduced later). As she began to grow apart from Lois, her journalism career was downplayed and her computer skills evolved to their current levels -- making her now an expy for Oracle.
  • Tess Mercer, in her first two appearances, was referred to as both "an obscure regional VP" (unfit for her job of taking over for Lex Luthor) and a "pitbull in Prada." The first was said to her while they were up in the Arctic. The second, after she had firmly assumed control of her bald boss's former position. That's right, it's Sarah Palin. Of course, she's intended as a fusion of Mercy Graves and Miss Teschmacher (tending much more toward Mercy.)
  • Not to mention Green Arrow who shifts between more or less a version as he appears in the comics, and DC's more prominent non-powered superhero
• Captain John Hart, Captain Jack Harkness's Evil Counterpart on Torchwood is clearly an Expy of Spike from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and is even played by the same actor, James Marsters. He acts a lot like pre-Badass Decay Spike (if not even more unhinged), and Jack even acts a lot like Angel around him.
  • Russell T. Davies seems to have carried over a lot of characteristics from his own shows as well. Jack has a lot of features from Davies' version of the Doctor and Gwen's role comes close to that of his companions. But there are also a lot of heavy influences from his breakthough show, Queer as Folk: Jack shares personality, libido and magnetism with Stuart, while Ianto seems to get his somewhat romantic, cheery outlook, his snark and his devotion to Jack from Stuart's counterpart Vince.
• Babylon 5 has Marcus pointing out on-screen that how they are all similar to characters from Arthurian legend.
  • Word of God is that this was meant to foreshadow the reappearance of Anna Sheridan. It worked to some degree, as Marcus' wondering aloud at the end who was supposed to be Morgan LeFay had people on Usenet opining that Anna Sheridan wasn't really dead.
  • One episode also features two comedians who are clear expies of Penn & Teller. Being played by Penn and Teller.
• Some of the new interns on Scrubs in season 8 seem to be Expies of the main cast.
  • Katie Collins is explicitly nicknamed "Mini Elliot" (and is even caught making out with another intern in a pink bra in one scene, similar to what often happens to Elliot, who often takes her shirt off for one reason or another and is always wearing a different coloured bra every time).
  • Derek Hill has some similarities to Turk, but turk realizes that he acts in a serious and arrogant manner.
  • Howie Geller is a mixture of JD, Doug and The Todd.
  • Dr. Sonja "Sunny" Dey is almost exactly like the short Indian girl with the squeaky voice, only taller.
• Also on Scrubs, Nurse Roberts friggin dies... and then the actress Aloma Wright comes back like five episodes later to play Nurse "Shirley". J.D. Lampshades this by calling her Lavern-again. She is never seen after this.
• Cougar Town has Ellie, an Expy of Jordan from Bill Lawrence's earlier show Scrubs. They are even played by the same actress.
• The Tonight Show:
  • Answer Man (Steve Allen) => Carnac the Magnificent (Johnny Carson) => Beyondo (Jay Leno) => In The Year 3000 (Conan O'Brien).
    • And Allen's "Answer Man" was said by some to be stolen from inspired by Ernie Kovacs' "Mr. Question Man" during the period when the two split hosting duties on the show.
  • Green Car Challenge => Star in a Reasonably Priced Car.
• The first season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer was practically a live-action Sailor Moon (years before there was an actual one). This leads to some interesting mental images: Sarah Michelle Gellar in a fuku, David Boreanaz in a tuxedo and domino mask, and Anthony Stewart Head as the voice of the talking cat.
• Cole in Charmed is clearly an expy of Angel in Buffy. Reformed demon starts a love affair with female hero, then reverts to evil. Then good again. Then semi-evil (see season 2 Angel series). Aaron Spelling obviously agrees with the saying 'good writers borrow from other writers; great writers steal from them outright'.
• The main characters in Unhappily Ever After were obvious expies of those in Married... with Children. The main difference was that UEA replaced the family dog with a puppet. Since the two shows were created by the same people, they basically sold the same idea to two different networks.
• An expy of Mac from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia appeared in two episodes of Lost as a member of the Others; he was even played by Rob McElhenney. It was pure genius. The first time he appeared as just an extra who was knocked unconscious by Kate. The next time was his slight ascension in which he displayed very Mac-like qualities, such as his manner of speech when talking about the Smoke Monster and complaining that Kate didn't remember attacking him in his first appearance. Of course this being Lost and not Philly, he didn't last long.
• Bud Spencer (real name Carlo Pedersoli) currently stars in an Italian TV series where he plays a former police commissioner with a passion for cooking, who now owns and runs a restaurant in Ischia, an island near Naples. Given that he played Neapolitan commissioner "Piedone" Rizzo in four movies during the '70s, this latest character may be Rizzo after he retired from active duty.
• Roy and Tom of The Old Guys are expies of Mark and Jeremy of Peep Show, with the same writing team.
• Irwin Allen's Land of the Giants features Alexander Fitzhugh, a Con Artist who is definitely similar to Zachary Smith, the Breakout Character from Allen's previous series Lost in Space.
• Geoff Tipps and Ollie Plimsoles from The League of Gentlemen and subsequently Mr. Jelly from Psychoville, all of which were written performed by Reece Shearsmith.
• In Stargate Atlantis, Rodney McKay is basically Gary Meyers from the original Stargate with a different profession. They even look similar.
• Richard Armitage's portrayal of Guy of Gisbourne in the BBC's Robin Hood: give him an eyepatch, and he'd be Space Commander Travis.
• In Farscape: late-period recurring villain Mele-On Grayza was a very obvious Expy for Servalan, the Big Bad of Blakes Seven.
• This is an odd one, because the original characters never actually made it to screen without substantial revisions, but reading Joss Whedon's first draft script of Alien Resurrection shows some definite parallels with the main characters of Whedon's later TV series Firefly. Both feature a crew of smuggler outlaws on a small, sturdy old ship (the Betty in Alien Resurrection, and Serenity in Firefly), and some characters are written similarly as well: Johner and Jayne are quite similar even in the final film, Elgyn is written as quite similar to Mal, Zoe seems to be a composite of the original conceptions of Hillard and Christie.
• Kamen Rider Stronger was basically Kabuto's prototype in terms of the suits.
• The cast of Glee have many similarities to the cast of Ryan Murphy's other high school drama Popular, as shown by this article ^{[dead link]}.
• In Kyoryu Sentai Zyuranger/Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Daizyuzin/Dino Megazord was based on GoLion/Voltron (mecha designer admitted his inspiration), while Dragon Caesar/Dragonzord was based on the King of Monsters himself, Godzilla.
• Some people claim that the characters in The Middle are like the characters of Malcolm in the Middle. Axl (awkward teenager who's not that smart) would be Reese, Brick (little kid who is a little bit too smart) would be Dewey, and so forth. Even the setting is similar (somewhere in the middle of suburbia).
• The 1980-81 cast of Saturday Night Live was intentionally comprised of actors meant to be reminiscent of the original Seventies cast. (Unfortunately, this gimmick ended up having a negative effect, particularly after the first sketch of the season was centered around it. The actors failed to live up to the comparisons in many ways.)
  • • Denny Dillon = Gilda Radner - The 'cute' one.
    • Gilbert Gottfried = John Belushi and Harry Shearer - Although, Jean Doumanian wouldn't actually allow Gilbert to use his manic personality that would've fit the Belushi comparison, and the Shearer comparison is a complete fluke.
    • Gail Matthius = Laraine Newman - Most obvious in the first episode, where Gail appears as both the Update correspondent and a valley girl.
    • Eddie Murphy = Garrett Morris - A comparison Eddie resented bitterly.
    • Joe Piscopo = Dan Aykroyd - Even adopting Aykroyd's Tom Snyder impression and motormouthed pitchman character.
    • Ann Risley = Jane Curtin - Bizarrely, Ann is stated in the opening sketch to be similar to Gilda... which is completely wrong.
    • Charles Rocket = Chevy Chase and Bill Murray - Close enough to the latter, in fact, that Bill mentioned it in the episode he hosted that season.
  • The next cast (hired to replace most of the above) seemed to move away from the 'Seventies counterparts' idea, thankfully. For example, none of the original cast are particularly similar to either Robin Duke or Tim Kazurinsky.
  • Much of the current cast are expies:
    • Vanessa Bayer = Maya Rudolph
    • Nassim Pedrad = Amy Poehler
    • Andy Samberg = Adam Sandler (right down to near-identical names)
    • The show's purported star, Kirsten Wiig, is an expy of Carol Burnett, whose own sketch-comedy show paved the way for SNL.
• The Hour's Hector Madden is basically the 50s British Don Draper.
• Patrick McGoohan's character of John Drake on the two versions of Danger Man (the second is also known as Secret Agent) has the same name on both shows but a different backstory, suggesting that the second version is an expy of the former. Then McGoohan went on to play the unnamed Number Six on The Prisoner, who is clearly an Expy of Drake.
• Merlin to the first series of Smallville: the superpowered teenager who can't reveal his secret (Merlin and Clark); his father figure who knows his secret (Gaius and Jonathan); his male best friend who will one day learn his secret (Pete and Arthur), his female best friend with UST (Gwen and Chloe); his future enemy pre-Face Heel Turn (Morgana and Lex); said enemy's antagonistic father (Uther and Lionel). And later, his ally who knows his secret (Lancelot and Oliver) with a team of warriors (Knights of Camelot and the Justice League).
  • Writer Julian Jones has admitted that their version of Tristan and Isolde is based on Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
• More than a few viewers have noticed the resemblance between Glenn of The Walking Dead and Short Round of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. Both Glenn and Short Round are young Asian male Guile Heroes who wear baseball caps. They're also the sidekicks to older white Badasses who love their distinctive hats.
• Hot in Cleveland, in both cast and premise (Four single, sexually active women, one of whom is played by Betty White, sharing a house), of The Golden Girls. To wit:
  • Melanie = Rose, the naive, ditzy one.
  • Joy = Dorothy, the bitter one.
  • Victoria = Blanche, the diva.
  • Elka = Sophia, the sardonic, immigrant mother figure.
• Saga Norén in The Bridge is so remarkably similar to Kathleen Mallory from Carol O'Connell's prose detective novels that it's hard to imagine there wasn't an influence. About the only difference between them is that Kathy is apparently asexual while Saga picks up random guys in bars for sex. (And then freaks them out by starting her laptop up and looking at autopsy photos as soon as they've finished.)
• Abby in The L.A. Complex was originally planned to be Manny Santos. When they made the choice not to make a Spin-Off, she gained a new name but kept the same actress and the same background down to hometown and her boyfriend back home's of job.
• Judith from Two and A Half Men is a clear Expy of Lillith from Frasier. She's a vindictive ex-wife, is quite neurotic, and speaks in a very similar manner.

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