Is there a TV series you wish had a prequel made about any or all of the original characters?
Mine would be Downton Abbey, specifically, Violet Crawley (Maggie Smith). In the original show, we hear about her early years but I’d like to actually see her as a younger character. Of course, does there exist a teen/20 something actress who could play the younger Violet and match Maggie Smith?
But that was the genius of the Handmaid’s Tale — you are given bits and pieces but you don’t know and in some ways, it doesn’t matter. Isn’t the implied message to be vigilant with the things most important lest you lose them?
Yes true but wouldn't it be interesting to see what could happen and the prelude of the warnings and signs, especially where US sits politically now, also it would be a movie to watch after the show finishes, a couple of years to go yet
You don’t need a prequel. We’re living it.
Just read up on current events.
Looks like there’s a whole group in the US using The Handmaid’s Tale as a guidepost.
I mean it’s happening now. I have seen more politicians actively talk about religion and applying it tothier job than ever in my life.
I would LOVE a gritty dramedy about Phoebe Bouffay living as a unhoused teen in pre-Friends NYC
With Lisa Kudrow playing the cab driving grandmother
Now I need this
It’s good right? I’ve always wanted to know what caused Phoebe and Ursula to fall out and all of Phoebe’s stories are so fekin dark. It could be amazing
That's a TV show that the 90s/ early 2000s were not ready for, but we have now grown up into a much darker time, and this would be exactly the type of show that would KILL today. Especially with studio executives' addiction to nostalgia these days
Yes to this
You would definitely need to recast to get a Lisa Kudrow look from her late teens/early twenties
.
And she needs to be good bc she’s playing Ursula too
I tell you what, it would certainly be a challenge for any actor to match the standard set by Maggie Smith.
It is hard to top Maggie Smith.
Yeah, that casting would be extremely difficult and likely fail but it’s an interesting “what if…?” hypothetical.
Maggie is such a great actress. She can imply more with one facial expression that 50 words of scripture. She had some really great lines in DA. “What’s a weekend?”
She's a fantastic actress l really enjoyed her scenes in the show
That’s why I can’t see this happening. She is so, so good. Loved her in Gosford Park, as well.
I would like to see Cora and Robert have a prequel too along with their daughters before the Titanic sinking was announced and I need a prequel to Hetty Feather because I want to see what Harriet's and Mathias's life was like in New York with Lady Asquith
Oh gosh, yes! I would love to see some kind of Downtown Abbey Prequel. I would also like to see the old 'glory days' when the dowager was younger, maybe set in the 1850s-1880s or something.
She had some adventures and some admirers. That would be fun to watch. Also to see the Charming Charlies!
I'd like a show about Robert and Bates in the Boer war.
I like to pretend that For All Mankind is a prequel to The Expanse
How great would a Firefly prequel be?
I’m embarrassed to admit that is still on my To Watch list.
Good show, highly recommended it. Last I checked it is on Hulu.
Well…good/bad news is that you could start and finish it before bed today.
Something with Mike from Breaking Bad.
Would like to see how he was as a cop.
Yes to this. My favorite character.
Call the Midwife - would like to see Sister Monica Joan’s early life
I’d definitely watch that. The current version is feeling a little stale …
MAS*H. Let’s see Henry Blake leaving home, arriving in Korea, setting up the 4077th and training Radar to be the company clerk. It’s mostly canon, actually.
Colonel Sherman Potter!
His early life would make a great prequel to Mash!
Major Burns too.
How about the never-seen Donald Penobscot?
Rarely seen he was in two episodes. Mash Olympics and Margaret's Marriage.
he was in two episodes.
Portrayed by different actors. The "real" one wasn't available, so they got Tarzan.
Buffy The Vampire Slayer had those Tales Of the Vampire Slayer novels back in the day those would have made a great prequel or spin-off series. Each one was a story about a slayer in a different time period and facing different foes in different places in the world. It would probably have to be more anthology but it would have worked. Even only as a limited series.
Mom. I would've loved to have seen what a train wreck Christy was and it would give some perspective to Violet's resentment of her. Same with Marjorie and what led her to clean up her life. And Wendy, because I want to know the story behind that intro photo wear she's being arrested at the hospital in her nurse-scrubs.
Yes!!!
Eureka. How the town came to be after the military base.
Edit and Warehouse 13.
In my head canon the Ark of the Covenant is placed in Warehouse 13 at the end of Raiders of the lost ark. I think this may be a common idea.
Yeah. I’m pretty sure that’s where they got the idea for the show from and that they were trying to allude to that from the start.
Lost - I’d love bro get some background on those characters
heh
But really I’d definitely watch Boyd Crowder and Rayland Givens dig coal
I would watch Timothy Olyphant do anything!
Really liked him in the Santa Clarita Diet. He was the opposite of Raylan in that.
I feel the same about Walton Goggins. Both of them in one show is chef's kiss
He’s so charming I would watch him do something boring like dig coal
I want to see Slippin' Jimmy.
Oh Theres already a slippin Jimmy prequel and its horrific
Great minds think alike. We're re-watching Downton currently and in a recent episode Violet quipped something about 'the 60s' meaning, of course, the 1860s. And I had the thought that I would watch that show. I think Anya-Taylor Joy could pull it off.
I'd like to see a show about how Homer Simpson met Marge in the 70s...wait, I mean the 80s...no, I mean the 90s. Oh, crap, I don't care any more!
This was shown on The Simpsons. I think they did it twice, actually. Marge had long, straight hair.
Ha, ha, yes. I wonder what her hair would look like.
Sons of Anarchy
YES! JT, Gemma, and Clay. That story needs to be told.
Mad Men- young Roger, Bert and Ida
That would be worth watching.
Early days of Criminal Minds, with a young Rossi & Gideon, setting up the BAU. Robert Dunne and Ben Savage did a great job with the characters in the flashback episode.
Mind Hunters is basically want you want.
Gilligan’s Island. Like, how did the Skipper and Gilligan get paired up originally?
Seinfeld and Costanza in high school.
Email Jerry. Please! We deserve this.
Cantstandya!!!
What's the deal with pimple cream?
Justified
Buffy the Vamipre Slayer. Giles apparently had an interesting past, most of which he kept hidden.
I wanted to see a prequel to Supernatural, but not the one that they actually ended up doing which completely rewrote established history. I would have had the prequel be about John’s life learning about the Supernatural world and hunting the Yellow Eyed Demon after Mary’s death.
I'd also love one following Bobby's life up to the boys meeting back up with him....especially with his wife
VEEP- Selina Meyer in her early days of politics…..
Id love to see Roberts Rebellion from Game of Thrones
I think GoT could do an interesting idea like how the “A Star Wars story” movies would be: do a 6 episode mini series every year that tells a story from GoT universe. Make it so it’s an anthology series and each season is just a different event. You could structure it as Samwell telling a story to his kids.
I would love to see a prequel to white collar seeing how a young Neal Caffery became a con man and all the cons he pulled.
I would love to see a prequal to warehouse 13 for some of the older agents
or a prequel series for Charlie's angels focused on Charlie specifically
I don’t want it bc Willie Garson passed away. Would be nothing without him
HBO's Rome. I wish they had a show covering the Marius and Sulla years, which took place a few decades before the events in Rome.
Oh, man, yes. I loved that show and its characters so much. Lucius and Titus as youngsters. And, Atia, that would be fun to see.
This might not be a popular opinion but I wish we could see a prequel to Better Call Saul about The Salamanca Family
Gilmore girls. Starting with Emily and Richard
Scenes with Emily and Richard’s mother would make that worth watching.
King of the Hill about Hank’s dad Cotton.
Severance
Mrs Davis (maybe)
Lost
Silo
I’d watch prequels for all of those - esp. Silo.
West wing... Set before Bartlett became potus... following the lives of who would become his staffers So CJ and LEO and Josh and Sam etc.
I was actually just thinking I would love a sequel to this show. I have it as Sam is the governor of California, running for president.
Loudermilk.
But really I'd just take season 4 to 7.
The Brady Bunch.
Greys anatomy with Ellis Grey and Richard. When they did show flashbacks it was pretty interesting. She was a top surgeon as a woman in the 70’s and he was black surgeon, and their affairs/love story. Doctors through the AIDS crisis etc.
I think I’d find that setting and those characters more interesting than the current one.
Not a prequel but I want After the Antiques Roadshow. I want a reality show that interviews all the siblings or cousins who didn’t get mom’s or grandma’s item that was just valued at $$$. “How did cousin Jane get that item. I took care of grandma and Jane visited for 2 hrs and took the only valuable item grandma had.” I bet the stories and the family drama could be entertaining.
I bet this would be very entertaining.
What a great 💡 idea
A prequel to Family Guy, but it’s all the cutaways in order.
I think a prequel to Fringe with Walter & Bell's experiments would've been interesting.
Deadwood
Monk. I want to see Monk when he was merely weird, Trudy, everyone younger. And I want it to end before she gets blown up.
Yes. Arrested Development had an episode in the last season about The Bluths when they were kids and it was good enough that I would have watched a whole spin-off show about them.
Fawlty Towers. I need to know how Basil and Sybil met.
The Wire
I wish I had years of the The Bunk policing Baltimore. Ironically you could argue The Wire has a two prequal series Homicide and The Corner.
The Expanse A series about the belt and Ashford and Drummer being pirates.
Malcolm in the middle, when Hal and Lois were in high school. Too late now, but they already had the perfect actress for Lois in the episode where Reese read her diary.
Downton sorta does have a prequel called Gilded Age. Not 100%, because it's set in America, but same verse and I think your girl makes at least a cameo.
Firefly. While I of course want six plus more seasons of the show itself, I'm also deeply curious of the lore that led to the setup of the show, and would love something focusing on how all of that came to be.
Slow Horses, would love to see younger versions of Jonathan Pryce and Gary Oldman’s characters in Berlin/Moscow during the Cold War.
Keeping Up Appearances. I know they had the Young Hyacinth special, but I wish it had a whole series.
The Ozarks Julia needs a prequel also I would love to see a prequel married with children als football 🏈 glory days and meeting Peggy
The Sopranos!
They could do one about Sam Malone's baseball career. Before Cheers.
Not to be silly cause House of the dragon is already a GOT prequel, but a closer prequel (ie Robert’s Rebellion) or a more distant one (ie vyleria/doom or even the children of the Forrest/first men whatever) all has so much meat on the bones that I’d love to see Planetos fleshed out more
Arrested Development
Fringe.
Either a more X-Files like show with more traditional FBI investigation, but no real super scientists to actually figure out what is going on. So basically what Broyles was leading before the series.
OR
Much earlier with Walter Bishop and William Bell getting up to mischief at MIT.
House...going around the world learning things.
Honestly, I’ve always wanted a prequel to Cowboy Bebop, the anime, not the Netflix version, because I want to see the rise of Spike within the Syndicate that he and Vicious were a part of.
Honestly, Gilligan's Island
Do you want to see the three-hour tour? Or would the series just follow the lives of the castaways before the trip?
I would have loved a prequel of Squid Game instead of a second season of the main show. I read somewhere that a spin-off was green lit so hopefully it is a prequel that delves more into the origins of the games.
Gabriel Macht said it would be interesting to see Harvey’s life before Mike in Suits, and I agree. I’d love a prequel of Suits, but only if it was about Harvey.
For Bridgerton fans, after the success of the "sibling books"; Julia Quinn wrote the Rokesby series. It features Edmund's (Violet's deceased husband's) family.
Each book is about the Edmund's sisters (and the Rokesby neighbors) finding their soulmates. Quinn matures as a writer and the female characters are much stronger. Billie Bridgerton is the woman, everyone wants Eloise to be.
Guiligan's Island
This one has surprising support on this thread. A modern take on this 60s classic.
Agents of SHIELD
Set in the mid to late 1990s featuring Phil Coulson, Melinda May and Nick Fury. Maybe add Fury’s boss, Keller and Skrull Talos. We would get to see Coulson and Fury two working together, and see SHIELD at its best during that time period.
We would see SHIELD at its best during the 90s, solving cases featuring Marvel’s less-known supervillains, super soldiers, time travelers, and battling threats to National security. The series will feature top songs & artists from the decade!
The series will offer lot of foreshadowing of the fate of our characters, and the obstacles they will eventually face years later.
Show inspired by: Agents of SHIELD, Men In Black, Speed (1994), MacGyver, Miami Vice, Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
Main Cast of characters:
Phil Coulson Nick Fury Melinda May John Garrett Director Keller Talos
Special guests:
Maria Rambeau Nathaniel Richards (variant) Big Wheel Rocket Racer Madame Hydra Xu Wenwu (Ten Rings) Peggy Carter
Succession!
Atlanta
Burn Notice
There was talk of Julian Fellows doing a prequel of Downton that focused on Cora and Robert but I guess it never happened.
I think Vanessa Kirby would make a fantastic young Violet!
Miami Vice. Tubbs and his brother in New York. Crockett, happily married. Young kid. Vice unit being formed. Getting the Daytona. Young(er) Elvis (the alligator).
Forgotten all about this show. I could see this.
Anthology series featuring the back stories of all the WKRP in Cincinnati characters. Each story would end on the day that character arrived at WKRP.
This reminds me I’ve got to rewatch that show.
Hogan's Heroes
M *A *S *H
There was talk about doing a prequel to Downton Abbey set in the 1880s and centered around a young Robert and Cora and I was really hoping it would happen but it was not to be. The series The Gilded Age is something of a prequel, being set in the time period but it's a different cast and story and is pretty boring.
The British cop show Prime Suspect did get a prequel series with Prime Suspect 1973 and it was pretty good, though it only lasted for one season, as the original author got into an argument with the network and that was the end of the show.
For an excellent prequel series that _did_ happen, I highly recommend the Brit detective show Endeavour, a prequel to the Inspector Morse series.
The creator of Downton Abbey made a show called The Gilded Age, that's set in 1880s America. While it's not as good as DA, I think it would scratch the itch of a lot of people on this post
The Walking Dead. Not Fear the Walking Dead, but a prequel with Rick and Shane as a cop buddy duo in Georgia busting up some meth trailers and cracking skulls.
The Wire: focusing on the early years of Omar.
Scrubs: Turk and JD years in college.
Yes and yes.
Full House…would like to see what Pam was like, and Jesse in his rebellious years
My name is earl
McMillan & Wife
I always thought a 24 prequel with the early days of Jack Bauer and CTU.
The Sopranos
A Charmed prequel focusing on Grams in her younger years would be fun
I know that StarGate SG-1 kind of got a prequel, but I think a proper prequel (for it) would have been interesting.
Sons of Anarchy and The Sopranos.
Although I feel I'd probably be disappointed by both if the ever happened.
Madmen… would love the Sterling arc
I wish Game of Thrones did a prequel on Roberts Rebellion instead of on the Targaryens
The prequel you mention to DA and a prequel to The Crown set in the era of Edward VII, detailing his coming to throne after a playboy reputation ans morphing into and effectively king; the troubled coming of age of his eldest son Albert Victor Duke of Clarence, his engagement to Princess May of Teck; Albert Victor’s death of typhoid before his marriage; the subsequent betrothal of May to Prince George, who later becomes Prince of Wales and still later King George V (and she the redoubtable Queen Mary).
Cop Rock.
Babylon 5 would have an interesting prequel if they had chosen to make it.
Maybe Al Bundy the High School Years
A prequel to Mr Robot could be quite interesting
I effin loved that show
DBZ needs a SIDEQUEL.. or whatever.. becasue Vegeta did waaaay too much work across the galaxy under frieza to not have some epics stories to tell. He grew up a prince... subjugated by a tyrant... and made his name as the dragon of that guy's army. That's a show.
Bluey
ALF. I’d love to see what life was alike on planet Melmak before Gordon Shumway crashed on earth
MacGuiver!
The A-team
The L Word could be fun
Firefly
Glen delivering pizzas before the walking dead.
Cop Rock
I wish the Walking Dead would do one Season on how the virus started and how it spread everywhere.
The 100
The Last Kingdom
Vikings
Foundation
The A-Team
Justified.
LOST. Maybe a whole series about the DHARMA Initiative. Even pre island DHARMA. About the DeGroots and Hanso.
The 100! It had a back door pilot for the prequel but it never got picked up
House
Call it, House: med school
A Downton Abbey prequel would be amazing! Imagine a young Carson too?
The patient
Curb Your Enthusiasm with comedian/actor Joe List as young Larry
King of the Hill.
There's a reboot on the horizon, but it will take place after the original show.
I want a show about Hank, Dale, Bill, and Boomhauer during their high school years. We get glimpses of it throughout KOTH, but there's so much to explore there.
Longmire
Rick and Morty without Morty.
Sopranos
Omg a downton abbey prequel would be amazing 🥹
Raiders of the Lost Ark
Early Columbo
I know fans always say that no one except Peter Falk could ever be Columbo, but I really would love to see him as a young detective and watch him as a young policeman/police lieutenant.
Lost
Vera - Brit detective show but want to see her early years
The Office, I would love to see a younger Michael from salesman to manager lol
Would be cool to see all what all the MASH characters were doing when they got drafted. Their reactions in the immediate weeks/months until they arrived at the 4077.
I’d love to see how Kramer got to be Kramer
Well they did one for Sheldon.....now let's do one for Howard and his mother.
Kurt Sutter wanted to do a prequel series to Sons of Anarchy about "the first nine". I would have loved to see that.
Better Call Saul 🤓
Prequel to the Golden girls.
I’m really surprised that there hasn’t been a Golden Girls prequel by now with them in their younger years.
It’s not needed probably, but seems like someone would mine that nostalgia for more.
That would be seriously cool.
The A Team
When I read the post question abefore I read your answer. My first thought was downton abbey. I would like to see young Robert and cora negotiate their marriage arrangement, then fall in love despite it being a business move.
The Road.
The Handmaid's Tale of how the US turned into Gillead, all that happened and how people believed the lies it was terrorists that bomb the government buildings, the signs were there but the people were fooled untill too late