From Prime Video Detective Show to Spinoff Success

For seven years on Prime Video, Bosch ruled the police-procedural genre as TV’s most watched detective thriller. This adaptation of Michael Connelly’s novel series about homicide investigator Hieronymous “Harry” Bosch is gritty and suspenseful, yet packs as much action as any cop show on television. What’s more, its sustained success has spawned a small-screen crime franchise of unprecedented scope.

The best episodes of Bosch intertwine the maverick professional approach of the show’s titular protagonist with his personal struggles, painting the character of a singularly brilliant detective whose talents have been shaped by the trauma and strife he’s gone through. At the same time, most plot arcs in the series are supported by secondary storylines involving Harry Bosch’s colleagues.

Although Titus Welliver’s central antihero is among the best TV detectives of all time, the show’s skillful approach to developing its supporting characters has allowed it to branch out with franchise spinoffs in which Welliver plays less of a role. Given the rate at which Connelly has continued to produce Bosch-related novels, the franchise still has mileage for further expansion.

Viewers certainly won’t be complaining if Prime Video keeps building on this seminal police-procedural, as its spinoffs Bosch: Legacy and Ballard have picked up right where the original show left off. As long as Michael Connelly carries on writing compelling detective characters and the shows are still delivering, there’s no end in sight for the Bosch franchise any time soon.

How Bosch Went From A Detective Show To A Franchise

Across its seven seasons, Bosch effectively adapted 14 of Connelly’s novels, by integrating story arcs and subplots in a non-linear manner. This approach to its source material made the transition to a sequel spinoff virtually seamless.

Bosch: Legacy features many of the same characters as the original series, including Titus Welliver’s Harry Bosch. It propels Harry’s daughter Maddie to the forefront of its story, as she attempts to follow in her father’s footsteps by going into police work.

This spinoff rarely hits the heights of Bosch at its very best, but is incredibly straightforward for fans of its parent show to get into. Likewise, Bosch: Legacy’s own sequel series, Ballard, is one step further removed from Harry Bosch’s career with the LAPD, but feels like a logical next step for the franchise.

The introduction of Renée Ballard as a homicide detective who couldn’t be more different from Bosch in many ways is worked into Legacy season 3 without the slightest sense that it’s a gratuitous plug for another show. The incremental expansion of the Bosch franchise to this point has been executed so well that it all seems perfectly natural.

Bosch: Legacy debuted on Prime Video the year after Bosch ended, and Ballard arrived just months after Legacy’s series finale. The three shows are unquestionably part of the same whole. It’s not just that they share characters and settings. They’re tonally and stylistically cohesive, too.

The superb start to Maggie Q’s run at the front of the franchise means that Ballard currently has a better critical reception than Bosch itself. Of course, it helps that Titus Welliver shows up once in a while to remind us whose universe Renée Ballard is inhabiting.

Author Michael Connelly also has to take a lot of credit for the seamless transition between streaming series in the Bosch franchise on Prime Video. Connelly’s naturalistic depiction of Harry Bosch effectively passing the torch first onto his daughter, and then onto Renée Ballard, provides the TV shows with the perfect blueprint to follow.

Bosch’s Source Materials Gives The Franchise Many Opportunities

Clint Eastwood as Terry McCaleb holding a shotgun in Blood Work.

What’s really exciting for Bosch fans is that Connelly isn’t done yet, either. In 2025, he introduced a new detective character into his literary universe, Detective Sergeant Stilwell. There’s plenty of potential for adding another spinoff focused on Stilwell to the TV franchise, especially as Renée Ballard features in his second novel as one of Connelly’s main characters.

This novel, entitled Ironwood, will be published in 2026, before the 26th book to center on Harry Bosch comes out later in the year, too. In addition, we shouldn’t rule out further spinoffs involving other Michael Connelly characters who exist on the page alongside Bosch but haven’t yet appeared in a TV series.

FBI profiler Terry McCaleb, for example, would make a great lead character onscreen, as Clint Eastwood’s movie Blood Work has already demonstrated. Because Warner Bros. own the media rights to McCaleb, it would be a little complicated for Amazon to get the permission they need to incorporate him into their TV franchise on Prime Video.

Nevertheless, this possibility is an avenue the streaming giant could explore at some stage. In the meantime, Amazon has other fresh irons in the fire when it comes to the Bosch franchise. They’ve already cast Cameron Monaghan as a young Harry Bosch in an upcoming spinoff called Bosch: Start of Watch, with Michael Connelly’s involvement behind the scenes.

This show will serve as a prequel to the original series, and signals a definitive end to Titus Welliver’s 11-year run at the head of the franchise’s cast. It’s now up to Monaghan and Maggie Q to take the reins of Bosch.

Will Bosch Be As Successful Without Titus Welliver?

Cameron Monaghan as Ian looking serious in Shameless

Bosch: Start of Watch poses a whole new challenge for Michael Connelly, the franchise’s lead developer Eric Overmyer, and the production team they work with. For the first time since Bosch debuted on Prime Video in 2014, it’ll be without its main star Titus Welliver. Harry Bosch will be there, but he won’t be played by Welliver.

The difficulty with this scenario is twofold. Firstly, Bosch will sorely miss the actor whose inimitable charisma made the franchise such a success to begin with. Secondly, when viewers see Cameron Monaghan playing Harry Bosch, they’ll constantly be comparing him to Welliver.

Prime Video has prepared well for this eventuality, by easing Welliver out of the franchise via his minimal contribution to Ballard season 1. That spinoff did just fine without much of his input, suggesting that continued success for the franchise is very achievable, with or without its original lead performer.

However, a Bosch prequel is a different matter entirely. It remains to be seen whether Overmeyer and Connelly can pull off this daring project without blighting one of modern television’s most impressive fictional universes.