Best and Worst Replacement Characters
- Thread starter JirinPanthosa
- Start date
Well she's gone now so maybe you can start watching again though the reason for the actress's departure has never been given.
I agree with this. It was revealed in a new Biography of Phil Hartman that after his death the cast and crew gathered to discuss what to do. Basically someone said "Let's Not allow the Bitch to kill the show too!" Which I can kind of understand. It would of put a lot of people out of work. There was really no good choice to make. Lovitiz was only picked because he was a friend of Phil.
By the time LOTL rolled around I wasn't quite into Saturday Morning TV anymore. I recall seeing the show, but never knew who was who.
Knight Rider.....sorry, never saw it. Only know about it through pop culture osmosis.
I actually really liked Sikozu and was disappointed by her character in The Peacekeeper Wars. No Zhaan but a hell of a lot better than Jool.
I thought both were fine, though neither was really a replacement for Zhaan, at least in terms of their personality. If anyone was, it was Noranti, but even that would be a stretch. Rather, Jool felt like a replacement for seasons 1 & 2 Chiana. I guess Moya just always need a designated character who gets everyone else in trouble (and it can't be Rygel *every* week), and who everyone else barely tolerates as a presence on the ship.
My vote for best replacements:
Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett (as Crow), Kevin Murphy (as Tom Servo) and Mary Jo Pehl on MST3K.
Rob Lowe & Adam Scott on Parks and Recreation.
Nicole deBoer on Deep Space Nine.
Worst:
Whoever replaced Scully on The X-Files. Robert Patrick was a decent enough substitute for Mulder, they just didn't give him much that was interesting to do.
Kes for Seven of Nine on Voyager. If they'd knocked off Harry Kim or Chakotay instead, I wouldn't complain about it though.
Sliders never traded up, and they tried plenty of times.
I'd say the same for Annabeth Gish. The onus is on the writers in my opinion there.
Worst:
Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch.
Cousin Oliver on The Brady Bunch.
Best: Sharon Gless as Christine Cagney in "Cagney and Lacey" the 1980's female crime fighting duo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2eV8KPGEMI
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2eV8KPGEMI[/yt]
Sharon replaced Meg Foster who herself had replaced Loretta Swit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cagney_%26_Lacey
Sharon was nominated for 5 Golden Globes, winning once and was nominated for 6 Emmys and won twice for this role.
Not too shabby.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2eV8KPGEMI
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2eV8KPGEMI[/yt]
Sharon replaced Meg Foster who herself had replaced Loretta Swit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cagney_%26_Lacey
Sharon was nominated for 5 Golden Globes, winning once and was nominated for 6 Emmys and won twice for this role.
Not too shabby.
He was an added character, he didn't replace anyone.
That's a good one. It was fairly common to change actors in the transition from pilot/movie to series (Mark Hamill in Eight Is Enough, Elayne Heilveil in Family, Lorna Patterson in Love, Sidney) but I had completely forgotten about Foster in the partial season of Cagney and Lacey as a replacement series.
Simultaneously the best and worst: when Charles Bronson replaced Andy Griffith on the Andy Griffith Show.
Jimmy Smits was a great replacement on NYPD Blue. Brought a lot of heart and soul to the show. It was laughable how David Caruso thought one season of a hit show was enough to establish a film career.
Robert Patrick was a good replacement for David Duchovny when they made him the Sully role. However, that ninth season went off the rails by keeping Scully around without Mulder.
They didn't even try with Coy and Vance. They were basically clones of Bo and Luke. I wonder if making the replacements two females would've changed things up any.
Robert Patrick was a good replacement for David Duchovny when they made him the Sully role. However, that ninth season went off the rails by keeping Scully around without Mulder.
They didn't even try with Coy and Vance. They were basically clones of Bo and Luke. I wonder if making the replacements two females would've changed things up any.
Please forgive me, you are correct of course, Cousin Oliver did not in fact replace anyone on The Brady Bunch, my mistake.
There, do you feel better now?
Amen. I also thought his eventual replacements were pretty good too.
It would've been interesting to see if or how Smits would've fared as the lead in a post-Bartlett White House had the West Wing continued beyond his character's inauguration.
I would have loved a mini-series in 2010 about Santos' reelection campaign.
I didn't feel bad about it.
Ricky Schroder was good, but unfortunately he arrived at the worst time in NYPD Blue production. There was a reason Smits left in the first place. Mark-Paul Gosselaar benefited from joining when the show had corrected course.
Even though it's been more than 8 years since The West Wing ended, I wonder if there would be any interest in a limited series revival. Maybe a new election at the end of the Santos era? Ed O'Neill vs. John Goodman?
^ I didn't know that about the NYPD production.
Unfortunately, UK tv stopped airing it around the time Schroder's character died and when it did return, I missed how Grosselaar's character was introduced. He was fine in the role but he struck me as being pretty much a dark haired and less troubled version of Schroder's character, whereas Caruso, Smits and Schroder had always been fairly distinctive.
As to your second paragraph, hmm, hard to know. It's been so long now that while a new show would be in the Bartlettverse, it might be difficult to really link it to the WW given the passage of time. A miniseries or movie on Santos' re-election as Allyn suggested would have been great and an obvious sequel. John Goodman was superb in his time on the show but would people remember his character at this stage? I suppose you could have some of the previous aides and campaign staffers working in the various camps to give it continuity with the original show and maybe Bartlett and Santos campaigning for the Democrat candidate.
I'd tune in but its overall appeal might be limited to hardcore fans.
Unfortunately, UK tv stopped airing it around the time Schroder's character died and when it did return, I missed how Grosselaar's character was introduced. He was fine in the role but he struck me as being pretty much a dark haired and less troubled version of Schroder's character, whereas Caruso, Smits and Schroder had always been fairly distinctive.
As to your second paragraph, hmm, hard to know. It's been so long now that while a new show would be in the Bartlettverse, it might be difficult to really link it to the WW given the passage of time. A miniseries or movie on Santos' re-election as Allyn suggested would have been great and an obvious sequel. John Goodman was superb in his time on the show but would people remember his character at this stage? I suppose you could have some of the previous aides and campaign staffers working in the various camps to give it continuity with the original show and maybe Bartlett and Santos campaigning for the Democrat candidate.
I'd tune in but its overall appeal might be limited to hardcore fans.
^ Yeah, it would probably look a tad dated and starry-eyed in a post-House of Cards tv universe.
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