Script blunders!

[ZapBrannigan]

Over on The Fugitive, Richard Kimble's brother in law was played by (at least) 4 actors. Lt. Gerard's family changed each time we saw them.

That's the opposite thing: same character, different actors. On Bewitched, Darrin, Darrin's father, and Gladys Kravitz were played by two actors each.

But at the same time, Paul Lynde played a driving instructor before Uncle Arthur, and Bernard Fox played an anthropologist before Dr. Bombay.

 

[Ssosmcin]

That's the opposite thing: same character, different actors. On Bewitched, Darrin, Darrin's father, and Gladys Kravitz were played by two actors each.

But at the same time, Paul Lynde played a driving instructor before Uncle Arthur, and Bernard Fox played an anthropologist before Dr. Bombay.

Fair enough, but Gerard's wife was Anne in one episode and Marie in another. Kimble's prosecuting attorney was Lester Rand in a flashback and Mike Ballinger in a 3rd season episode. Not the same actors either, granted, but the character names changed.

Lots of little details get futzed in the rush to get episodes produced. The lead actor has more to do than remember what another actors' character was called. I don't think audiences were supposed to remember either.

 

[johnnybear]

Well with the lawyers/attorneys it could be that he had one working for him in the courtroom and the other behind the scenes working on finding the one armed man? But Gerard's wife is a little harder. Maybe her name was Anne Marie or Marie Anne and she liked to be called by both names? Which doesn't explain how different she looked in each of her episode appearances, that or Lieutenant Phil was a secret bigamist?
JB

 

[johnnybear]

Episodic TV, especially of that era, was full of guest actors coming back and playing different characters. Star Trek was a little more strict than others, but Eddie Paskey was Connors, Rand (which feels like a weird name to use hen Grace Lee is in this episode prominently) and Leslie at least. He also died in Obsession and came back later. David L Ross was Galloway/Galway and Johnson (Ross also died and came back later).

The thing was with Lt.Leslie, they had a scene where he recovered from being fed upon by the Dikironium Cloud in sick-bay. I'm not sure if it was filmed or not but considering how often we saw the character in the series it would have been ridiculous to kill him off. With Galloway it was definitely a mistake as he was incinerated by Captain Tracy in The Omega Glory! David L.Ross returned in Day of The Dove as Lt.Johnson and some irk forgot that and had him come back as Lt.Galloway instead but why didn't L.Ross speak up and avoid this annoying discrepancy?
JB

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Lots of little details get futzed in the rush to get episodes produced. The lead actor has more to do than remember what another actors' character was called. I don't think audiences were supposed to remember either.

Yeah, these things are incredibly obvious to us, because we've seen the reruns 30 times and we're awesome, but from the star's point of view back then, it was impossible to ride herd on script details. James Garner said he barely remembered making any episode of The Rockford Files. "It's a blur."

But a well-run show should have someone in charge of continuity. That's why I keep coming back to the possibility that some of these "same actor, new character name in same uniform" cases were done to avoid paying a royalty to the prior script's writer. It's about the money.

David L.Ross returned in Day of The Dove as Lt.Johnson and some irk forgot that and had him come back as Lt.Galloway instead but why didn't L.Ross speak up and avoid this annoying discrepancy?
JB

The supporting guest actors do not speak up because they want the work. "If I can only play Jones on Wagon Train, I'll miss out on three more gigs." Again it's about the money. And Walter Koenig said he knew perfectly well that Chekov was not in "Space Seed," but he was scared of having his part in Star Trek II reduced so he kept mum about it.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

And Walter Koenig said he knew perfectly well that Chekov was not in "Space Seed," but he was scared of having his part in Star Trek II reduced so he kept mum about it.

Yep. He knew that if he brought that up, it was very likely that Meyer and/or Bennett would just say, "Oh, we'll just rewrite the script so that it's Uhura or Sulu instead, then."

Whenever the reason for something seems mysterious, "Follow the Money" will lead you to the real reason more often than not.

 

[Henoch]

In-universe, clones explain everything.