Totally the same idea in different settings. Brilliant, curmudgeonly boss leading a time of investigators in solving a different mystery each way, involving lots of dubious science, snappy patter, and ridiculous schemes. Ducky = Wilson. The three junior agents = House’s diagnostic team. Neither lead gets along with the boss, though I don’t think Gibbs wants to sleep with the Rocky Carroll, and if he does I prefer not to know about it. The biggest difference is that NCIS rarely takes itself seriously, and, of course, the fact that Gibbs, however grumpy, is neither insane nor an asshole.
Knight Rider and the Dukes of Hazard. A couple of guys in a car that makes cool jumps, acting just sort of outside of the law, mentored by an old guy and helped by a hot girl that isn’t quite romantically involved with either of the guys. The only difference is that in Knight Rider, one of the guys is permanently built into the car.
Oh and I’ve always been fond of the Quantum Leap-style shows like The Pretender and New Edition, where the former was a genius who could assume any role (surgeon, pilot, etc.) to help people out, and the latter got tomorrow’s newspaper one day early so he could try to change the outcome of bad events.
But he did sleep (had slept?) with the previous boss (played by Lauren Holly). I’ll add Mental to this list, although they’re not even trying to make it look like it’s not House 2.0.
Royal Payne and Burn Notice - I’ve never seen either one, but the promos make them look very similar in concept – Guy gets fired, has to make a new career aided by wacky sidekicks – and style.
Cold Case/Without a Trace/Close to Home - three ensemble cop shows with a very similar feel.
A couple years prior to Cold Case, there was a Canadian TV show called Cold Squad. Identical premise. And at least two of the detectives ended up on BSG. Cold Squad ran 1998-2005, and Cold Case started in 2003.
I also found The Profiler to be near identical to another show of that same time frame, but I can’t remember what it was.
I would say that According To Jim and Everybody Loves Raymond are more similar to Still Standing (and each other) than any of them are to King Of Queens— Jims, Raymonds, and Still Standings families all revolve around children, where King Of Queens has no kids (instead of a kid K.O.Q. has the most annoying old man ever, played by Jerry Stiller)
Maybe my loathing for Stiller and the characters he plays is clouding my vision, but despite how much I would like to see him slowly beaten to death (both as a TV character and in real life) I still like King Of Queens more than the other three shows, which all have children in the cast…
Street Hawk was Airwolf on a motorcycle. There was another high tech crime fighting vehicle show in there too that I can’t think of. Not Knight Rider or Automan.
Simpsons is like Family Dad except funny.
Joan of Arcadia and Wonderfalls were similar, but different enough that Fox execs shouldn’t have flipped out over Wonderfalls like they did.
Ark II and Damnation Alley both had similar vehicles.
Tales of the Gold Monkey and Bring 'Em Back Alive both debuted after the success of Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Dinosaurs was SO much like The Simpsons that one Simpson’s episode has Homer complaining that nothing was on TV “except a bunch of dinosaurs trying to be us.”