Today, I want to know who was the best TV character you surprisingly didn’t miss after they left a TV series.
Pop Culture Theme Time is a feature where I put a question to you to see what you think about a particular theme. I might later revisit the theme for a future Drawing Crazy Patterns or Top Five.
Obviously, TV series are rife with examples of characters who become breakout characters, and the actor then wants to do other, bigger things, and they leave the series, and the show never quite recovers from their absence. Minor characters leave all the time, of course, but when it’s a really good character, their absence really has a major impact.
However, some shows are good enough that they can weather the storm well, and you surprisingly find yourself not even really missing the departed actor. NYPD Blue, I think, weathered David Caruso leaving well enough, but it never quite got over losing Jimmy Smits. So Caruso is a good choice, as John Kelly was a great character. The West Wing handled the loss of Rob Lowe well, but I don’t know that Sam Seaborn was THAT great of a character. Cheers is definitely up there. Diane Chambers was a great character, and the show did well without her. I, though, am going to go with Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the loss of Angel. Angel was clearly a character so great that it seemed obvious that he was big enough to sustain his own series, Angel, but at the same time, as good as David Boreanaz was as Angel, the show replaced him pretty darn well with James Marsters as Spike, so I don’t really find myself watching Seasons 4-6 thinking, “Oh man, this would be so much better with Angel on it.”
Okay, so that’s MY pick! What’s yours?
And feel free to suggest future Pop Culture Theme Time topics to me at brian@poprefs.com!
One example which fits for me, but remains controversial for fans was the loss of Steve Rhodes, played by David Garrison, who left “MARRIED…WITH CHILDREN” in the middle of the 4th season (which aired in 1990). The fact that this remains controversial for fans indicates how important the character was to the show and/or how much fans liked him. And while Steve didn’t completely leave (he guest stars in three episodes over the following 7 seasons), the fact that the show essentially replaced him with Ted McGinley’s Jefferson D’Arcy and lasted longer without Garrison than with him indicated that the show managed the loss well and enough viewers weren’t turned off to tank the ratings sooner. Fox’s ratings were lower than other networks in general, but the point stands.
Another, perhaps less controversial example is the loss of Leon Carp, played by Martin Mull, who vanished from “ROSEANNE” once it relaunched with a 10th season in 2018. He was a reoccurring character as of seasons 3-4, and only appeared once in season 5, but from seasons 6-9 Leon arguably becomes one of the main cast, even if that wasn’t reflected in the credits. The 10th season of “ROSEANNE” was kind of like CRISIS ON INFINITE EARTHS since the producers used the bizarre finale of the (terrible) 9th season in 1997 (which stated that the entire show was Roseanne Conner’s deliberately fictionalized account of her own family life which got stranger and more surreal as she jumped the shark) to pick and choose what to leave in and what to reject. Carp was gone entirely and not even when the show relauched as “THE CONNERS” was he even really mentioned or seen again. Various characters came and went over the seasons (including, of course, George Clooney as Booker), but Leon hung in there the longest yet was dumped almost without a mention. “THE CONNERS” ran 7 seasons without him, though, and I never heard any scuttlebutt about missing Mull. Most of what I heard about “THE CONNERS” is “how is this **** on so long?” kind of like “BIG BANG” and “THE GOLDBERGS” at the time.
M*A*S*H* seemed to begin with the character ‘Trapper’ John being a co-lead. After he is written out in season 4 the show doesn’t miss a beat. I was surprised how this was typical in M*A*S*H*. The head officer Henry Blake was replaced without missing the character. Perhaps the best was M*A*S*H* character Frank Burns left and the ridiculous antagonist character was replaced with a far better character.
Despite all the successful removal of M*A*S*H* characters. My vote would be for a different show.
I’d vote that Cheers relied heavily on the character Coach Ernie Pantusso for laugh out loud moments in the first 3 seasons. The character’s positivity and jokes seemed to carry what would otherwise have been a generic romantic comedy. (Of course I was young, and Coach’s joke landed with me, while odd romantic tension seemed like a boring side item.) Oddly when the actor passed away, and the show lost its most comedic character, the show actually seemed to get stronger. (Decades later I still can’t help but sing the Albania song whenever I hear that country mentioned.) So Coach on Cheers would be my vote for character I didn’t miss, and I had expected the show to collapse without the character who was the heart and biggest laughs of a show I was enjoying.