Better Pitch Spinoffs

It’s no secret that Breaking Bad stacked up awards throughout it’s five season run like Skyler once stacked Walt’s money in a self-storage unit. Not only was it a critical darling, a commercial success and a pop culture phenomenon, it left enough meat on the bone that AMC green-lit a spin-off series immediately following the finale. Better Call Saul has aired four seasons thus far, and it’s been nominated for Outstanding Drama Series four times.

Since it’s Breaking Bad Day here at Bingeable (aka Breakable), Sonny and Dalton decided to look at what other television programs warrant this Better Call Saul treatment.

Dalton’s First Pitch: “West of Westeros”

What’s west of Westeros? Nobody knows, but somebody, who was once nobody, but is now Arya Stark of Winterfell, is going to find out. The end of Game of Thrones sees Arya sailing away towards the horizon under Stark sails, ready for a new adventure. An adventure we should be a part of if you asked me. And since you’re asking me, I’ll tell you this: Arya Stark deserves her own show.

Arya has arguably the best character arc and development of the entire GoT run. Really the only other character you can argue for is Sansa. The Stark women are dope. Well, the ones who aren’t named Catelyn at least (Chalk it up to her Tully blood, just look at her sister). Arya starts the show thinking she’s destined to live a miserable life married to some man she didn’t choose, with her only real job being to pop out princes and princesses from time to time, but as she’ll quickly tell you, that’s not her. Instead she graduates from Assassin University, kills the motherfucking Night King, and saves the entire realm.

Here’s the thing, there’s no way killing the Night King will be Arya’s greatest accomplishment. I want to see what she can do with a little free will to make her own decisions. Sailing as far west as she can go is just the beginning. Give us a show worthy of one of the greatest television characters of all time. Something with a new small-scale story each week would be perfect, and would give writers the opportunity to really let Arya loose. More Faceless Men action, more brutally killing pedophiles, and please, please, an arc where she joins some type of fighting tournament. Arya Stark the Faceless, Slayer of Evil, Savior of the Realm, and Champion of Westwesteros deserves only the best.

The only hang up with this pitch is I don’t see Maisie Williams coming back to reprise her role as Arya. Game of Thrones fans were insufferable during the final season, and I wouldn’t want to sign on for a few more years of that bullshit. But maybe if she got paid 5 million an episode she’d consider it? Cut the check, HBO.

Sonny’s First Pitch: “How We Raised Your Mother”

Well Dalton, if any show over the past decade has received a reaction as negative for their final few episodes that even approaches that of Game of Thrones, it was How I Met Your Mother. Of course, because the stakes were much higher — Thrones was contending for GOAT Drama series bragging rights while HIMYM was looking to solidify itself as the poor man’s version of Friends in the 21st Century — the noise surrounding GOT’s botched final six episodes remains much louder than HIMYM’s whimper of a final season. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t right some wrongs here.

The final season of HIMYM somehow managed to move both far too slow and much too fast. Show creators Carter Bays and Craig Thomas tried (and failed) to extend a 3-day wedding weekend into a full season’s worth of episodes, and yet when it came time to let us get to know Tracy McConnell (the titular Mother, played by the adorable Cristin Milioti) they hurried through or skipped right over some of the biggest moments and most important details that we should’ve had the opportunity to see. Aside from the extremely well-received “How Your Mother Met Me” episode, every other episode of the final season didn’t feature enough of Tracy.

I want to right that wrong, and I want to do that with How We Raised Your Mother. HWRYM picks up three months after the finale of How I Met Your Mother, when the Mosby children head to their Grandparents home for a week and a half while their Father, Ted, is on his honeymoon with his new wife and true love (ugh), Robin Scherbatsky. Penny and Luke tell their grandparents about how Ted’s long-winded story of “how he met their mother” was nothing more than a pathetic attempt to covertly convince his children that he should be allowed to pursue a life with Robin. The McConnell’s, like me, would think that’s bullshit. They too would want to right that wrong.

Over these ten days, the Mosby children would be given a detailed, Tracy-centric history lesson that ranges from her birth in 1984 to her untimely death in 2024. We would learn about Tracy’s early upbringing (which would in turn give us a glimpse at the wonderful marriage of her parents). We would watch her as she fell in love with her first serious boyfriend Max, and find out exactly what sort of impact his death had on her. Every key event in Tracy’s life would be documented, including her final days, which we should’ve seen on HIMYM.

And in case you were curious, Cristin Milioti would reprise her role as Tracy, because gosh she’s adorable.

Dalton’s Second Pitch: “Wayward Sisters”

This one is kind of cheating because it’s not an original pitch by me. Wayward Sisters was a proposed spin-off to the hit CW show Supernatural, which is a show I, along with many girls ages 13–25, have loved for over 10 years. It is incredibly fun, campy, and has a huge cult following. The show takes great care to cater to its many fans, and that is why Supernatural is coming to an end this year after an unprecedented 15 seasons. The aforementioned cult following would gladly take their passion for the Winchester brothers and direct it at the Wayward Sisters.

There was a wonderful and, more importantly, popular backdoor pilot in season 14 of Supernatural that showed us a glimpse of what Wayward Sisters could be. Jodi Mills, a dope recurring character on Supernatural, becomes a surrogate mother of sorts to young women who’ve had their lives upended by monsters or other forms of the supernatural (heh). Jodi takes them in and teaches them to be hunters so they can defend themselves as well as save others. A bunch of badass women killing monsters, demons, and ghosts? In an already established, incredibly popular fictional world? This should have been a no brainer for the CW.

Unfortunately they decided to move forward with a different show called Legions, which happens to be the second spin-off of Vampire Diaries. This is silly because Vampire Diaries only lasted 8 seasons, and its first spin-off The Originals only lasted 5. I’ll reiterate that Supernatural is going into its 15th season, is the longest running genre show in television history, and deserves 27 spin-offs if fucking Vampire Diaries has two.

Sonny’s Second Pitch: “Cook County General”

Well if fifteen seasons is the mark that needs to be reached in order to deserve a spin-off series, then lucky me, I get to pitch an ER spinoff, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it!

“I can’t think of a show that deserves a reboot less than ER. ‘ANOTHER show about overdramatic doctors?! Count me in!’ Just kidding, count me all the way out.”

That factually incorrect and downright foolish statement is one that you made about two years ago, and even though it deeply hurt my feelings and has made me rethink whether I should’ve gone into this Bingeable partnership with you multiple times, I’ll do my best to put it behind me because you didn’t actually watch ER. And because you didn’t watch ER, you wouldn’t know that every medical drama that has been televised since 1994 has been trying (and failing) to capture what ER captured 25 years ago. It’s easily one of the most important TV shows of the last quarter-century.

To celebrate it’s 25-year anniversary, we ought to green-light my prequel pitch ASAP so it can premiere before the year is over. My idea would take us back six years before the beginning of ER, and we would once again follow Mark Greene, Doug Ross, Peter Benton, Carol Hathaway, and Susan Lewis — all five who would be reasonably new to Emergency medicine — through the halls of Cook County General Hospital.

What did Doug and Carol’s relationship look like before his infidelity got in the way? How would Mark handle life as a new father while he adjusted to residency in the Emergency Department? Was Benton always a hard-ass, or did life at County General harden him? Plus, we’d occasionally check in on John Carter working toward his Bachelor’s degree.

Thank goodness we’re in a hospital and there are so many trained medical professionals around, because Cook County General would be like a shot of nostalgia in the arm of ER fans.

Sonny’s Third Pitch: “Found”

Dalton, I know you didn’t watch Lost, but I want to address one of my only gripes with the arc of one of my favorite television shows, and I’ll do so with a pitch for a spin-off series that can rectify that problem. For four seasons, Lost was pitching a nearly perfect game — I know that a baseball analogy isn’t exactly on-brand for me, just roll with it — but when Season 5 began things went off the rails so badly that a pretty good finale is now considered an unmitigated disaster. The final two seasons were convoluted and they lacked the It Factor that made the first four so great.

As I watched those final two seasons, I found myself hoping that eventually we’d get a series of episodes where we learned A) How the world reacted to the disappearance of Oceanic Flight 815, B) How the world reacted when the “Oceanic Six” showed up alive and well 114 days after the plane’s disappearance, and C) How the world reacted when five of those six individuals disappeared again two years later on Ajira Flight 316.

Much like Lost, Found would be a drama that featured a large ensemble cast and utilized various flashback and flashforward sequences throughout to tell its story. The characters would range from loved ones of the passengers of Oceanic Flight 815 coping with loss, media members struggling with how to cover this ever-evolving story, politicians and law enforcement agencies contemplating how to handle these investigations, and various individuals who were scheduled to be on either Oceanic Flight 815 or Ajira Flight 316. Regardless of how closely they were directly connected to the disappearances of these two flights, all characters would be impacted more strongly than they ever expected.

Dalton’s Third Pitch: “Harrison”

That is a horrendous name for a show, and I’m quite sure no one would be scrolling through Netflix and stop on Harrison. So when my Dexter sequel series gets picked up, I’ll be sure to change it to something better. For now though? It’s Harrison.

Dexter came to an end and many people were not very happen with how it all played out. I don’t have too many qualms with it, but I can understand why some people had their issues. So, as an ending it was pretty middle of the road, but if it was all done to set up a sequel series featuring Harrison? That would make it all worth it.

Harrison, much like his father, was born in blood. At the end of one of the single most shocking episodes of television ever filmed, we get a shot of Harrison sitting on the bathroom floor in a pool of his mother’s own blood as she lays dead in the bathtub. What we know for sure is this is fuck you up, therapy can’t help you, time to start murdering people type shit. On top of that, he gets abandoned by his father who inexplicably becomes a lumberjack, and is subsequently raised by his Dad’s serial killer girlfriend Hannah McKay.

All of that is a dynamite set up for a television show. Hannah takes Harrison to South America, so let’s set it there. Get the Dexter brand away from Miami. Did Hannah realize at a young age that Harrison is a psychopath? Did she train him Harry-style? Maybe she did, and we get a teenage Harrison/Hannah McKay serial killer dream team. Or, if that doesn’t fly with the Netflix execs, how about an adult Harrison on the search for his father? A trek across the globe on the hunt for Dexter, while also running away from his own dark passenger.

Ok this started as a joke but actually now I really need this show to happen. Somebody call me!