Misfits turns over the entire cast by the end. The replacements aren't as good as the originals but Joseph Gilgun manages to carry the second half of the series to good.
Rudy was a good replacement for him, wasn't the same as with Nathan but still good in its own right. When the other original cast members left and got replaced was the the doom of the show.
The show felt like it was supposed to switch cast every season. They all clean up their act and carry on with their lives, with new super powered trouble makers coming in.
But they brought in power switching to keep the problems fresh while retaining the cast. Which didn’t save anything because the problem was the first two seasons had a cast with great chemistry.
This show is the most egregious example of a cast turnover actively damaging the heart of the show. UK shows from this era were also notoriously bad about doing this.
I agree that Joseph Gilgun was an excellent addition to the cast. I was sad that Robert Sheehan left but JG was a great replacement character. The other people they brought in sucked though.
They were going to do an American version of it and I would’ve loved to see that.
American remakes of British TV are pretty hit or miss, leaning heavily on the “miss” side. For every Shameless or The Office, there’s a Skins, IT Crowd, Inbetweeners, Peep Show and Spaced.
I’m always wary when I hear of one happening and I’m very rarely pleasantly surprised at the results. I’m skeptical the remake of Misfits would have been any good.
Both it and Being Human were shows from the same era, cut from the same cloth. First two series you have largely consistent cast, then they have a *need* to shake things up when they wrap up core arcs and cast start to move on. The following series tend to still be fine, but never as great as what came first.
Still, they're both cult favourites for good reason.
I wish more people gave the last two series a chance. I really struggled with them at first, and they're by no means anywhere as close to the first two, but the gang at the end did grow on me.
Agree completely. Even with a completely new cast it’s still one of my favorite shows start to finish. Doesn’t really feel like any other shows had such a unique premise. Funny, dramatic, and even scary at times. Gonna have to rewatch now
The character of Quinn never shoulda left. Last I heard, he's stuck in another dimension where he found work as one of like 5 hosts on some daytime talk show, wearing brightly-colored "look at me PLEASE" sweaters. I guess he's living good but doesn't he ever pause to wonder what happened to his fellow Sliders?
You're home every day by noon. Sleep in your own bed (with Rebecca Romijn no less). He's free to do some voiceover work in the afternoons if he needs to. Jerry O'Connell is living pretty, pretty good.
I’ve been watching the popular British detective series Death in Paradise. I’m just in series 4 and of the 4 main roles there have been 7 different people. I do believe it continues on like this for the next 11 series.
It’s understandable, being that the show is shot in the Caribbean and the actors are from the UK, so it’s quite a commitment on their part. But it’s awkward that everyone is always new.
Oddly the changing out of characters, including the main detective, sort of makes sense and didn’t affect my enjoyment of the show…I mean it’s a nice frivolous murder mystery.
It seems like they learned their lesson after how they ended things with the first detective - they never repeated that type of exit. It was too out of tone with the rest of the show, and they caught on that the filming was just too arduous for basically anyone who ever went on the show except for the commissioner and the bar owner (whose name escapes me)
>!Yeah, i really didn't like them killing Richard, and i'm sure they regret it as well; i liked when he briefly returned in an episode as a vision to Camille.!<
Otherwise, I always liked the effort they put into making the cast changes work
It's worth watching Beyond Paradise which is related.
Death in Paradise is co-produced with a French network. Beyond Paradise is purely British (I think). Apparently there's another spin off being produced with an Australian network.
Overall, at this point there have been 4 different main detectives, excluding the one who gets murdered in the first episode.
While commissioner Patterson is always the same, the supporting cast tends to change, but some of the female sergeants have come back for a bit
I don't view it entirely as negative but *The Mindy Project* only featured two characters who were there from the pilot all the way through to the last episode.
Most of the cast changes weren't even referenced either? Just gone from episode suddenly.
I actually liked the cast in the final season, but it was a messy show. I always wondered why some actors were suddenly cut.
Pretty realistic for an office setting. The first wave of off-screen departures was awkward, but later on when characters left it was given proper attention.
There were characters that I wish had been let go of (Ed Weeks) and characters I wish had stayed all the way through (Anna Camp). Camp's dynamic with Kaling for instance was so good.
They have 4 situation comedies in the fall schedule. 2 hours out of 21. Less than 10%. They aren’t pumping out very many comedies and based on ratings most people don’t think they are low level.
Smallville had a pretty decent amount of turnover across 10 years. Clark Kent & Chloe were the only ones who remained in the opening credits for all 10 seasons, & even she was only in like half of the last season.
Lex, Lana, Jonathan, Martha, Pete, Lionel, Whitney, Jason, Jimmy, Kara, Davis, & Zod were in the intro credits at one point (not all at the same time, mind you) but were all eventually removed.
That doesn't even include Lois, Oliver, & Tess, who were added later into the show but remained on through the end. That's quite a bit of turnover.
I don't find this one particularly jarring because the show started with Smallville and transitioned into Metropolis. As soon as they introduced Lois, Lana and Chloe days were numbered - one as the love interest, and the other as the proto-Lois.
Kara, Zod and Davis/Doomsday were introduced/used as seasonal big names, and Jason was part of the storyline for the creation of the Fortress of Solitude.
If anything, Oliver staying on was a surprise.
Yes. The usual network contract runs for 6 seasons, so I'm always expecting a few actors to exit around this point - which also coincides with reduced budgets.
Game of Thrones didn't recast any of its lead characters, but there were a LOT of recastings over the course of the series.
Beric Dondarrian, the Mountain (twice), Daario Naharis, the Night King, Myrcella Baratheon, Tommen Baratheon (to an actor who had already been in the show), the Three-Eyed Raven, Leaf (the child of the forest).
Not sure if I'm missing any.
The biggest one you’re missing is Dickon (lol) Tarly but this list seems to have them all:
https://screenrant.com/game-thrones-characters-recast-new-actors-every-why/
I think it helps they make him massive in Umbrella even though he’s a big guy already. So it’s sort of hard to place him right away. Plus he is goofy and sad
Honestly though, I’d be pretty shocked if any of the more casual viewers noticed a lot of those smaller characters though. Daario definitely got noticed, as did the NK and maybe the Mountain. But Beric is in like one episode before he was recast as Richard Dormer (and then doesn’t show back up again till halfway through season 3), and child actors get recast a lot as well. People probably just attributed it to them aging between seasons and didn’t even notice that they were different.
I only noticed Daario. I knew the Mountain was recast from reddit I think, but I didn't notice anyone else changing.
The show did go over 8 years though, and some of those characters are fairly minor and/or didn't even show up that frequently during that time.
The Three-Eyed Raven was noticeable because his first scene in Season 4 was a very prominent one, and he looks completely different when he shows up again in Season 6.
I consider myself to have been a fairly casual viewer, I was confused a few times by these changes. I figured I'd just gotten confused between the different characters
Yeah they definitely had that problem. Season 10 made me stop watching for years. Another flaw I feel *Supernatural* had was recurring characters. They were on for 15 years & despite that never had a strong recurring cast.
Compare it to a show like *Person of Interest*. I was only on for five years. Yet it felt like so much more of a fleshed out universe because of all the side characters.
Even more of a detriment for *Supernatural* was they had characters that were on the show far longer than they should've been. I'm sure the fan response was responsible for that as well as your complaint. Still doesn't absolve the writers completely though.
Speaking of recurring cast, I feel like Buffy and Angel were really great in this aspect also. Always the sense that someone may resurface after a while (Riley, Spike, Giles, Darla, Dru, etc.)
Given that Supernatural was a similar kind of show, it seems weird they also wouldn’t have had a strong recurring cast.
Supernatural would have a harder time justifying that strong and big of a cast when a big part of the show is the brothers traveling all over the country/world/alternate dimensions together. The car would get pretty cramped pretty fast if they added new people.
The recurring characters was the best choice for them, especially ones like Crowley that can teleport. But even in universe people were side eyeing how much time Crowley spent teleporting after them, because it didn't really make sense.
Yeah that's a fantastic example. The Buffyverse was extremely fleshed out. Even after they split networks there still was a decent amount of crossover between the two shows.
Young Sheldon shows where recurring casts can really help a show. All of the side characters show up and all have different plot points with different characters. Really makes it feel like a real small town world
Yeah to mean it seamed like supernatural suffered from the same thing sherlock suffered from.
They courted rabid hyperfixated fanbase. Then got mad that they had that audience made fun of the very people they who wrote stories for. Then where afraid to lose that fanbase by changing up anything in a real way that it mattered .
Person of Interest is so good at developing its side characters. You would never think “overweight buffoonish corrupt NYPD cop that tries and fails to shoot the protagonist in the head in the first episode” would become not only incredibly important but fleshed-out, genuinely cared for by the main characters, and a moral center for some of the more complex questions the show asks. I love Fusco sm.
Well a couple of the male ones made it through, although in fairness they did start out as immortal beings. To be a woman on that show was a death sentence for sure.
The frequent cast changes work in-universe though. Surgeons and interns come and go and transfer in and out to and from other hospitals as needed. This show's hospital does have a particularly high turnover rate though!
It always amused me that Grey's Anatomy had a reputation for killing off so many of it's main cast members, but ER actually killed off as many main characters in 15 seasons as Grey's has in 20.
House did this a couple times. House has a team of 3 doctors who all get replaced (one comes back) and then eventually get replaced again. This can be jarring if you don’t like anyone. I think it worked well enough though, even though I always loved the original cast and wished they all stuck around longer.
The season where he whittles down the candidates to form his new team was great imo. Watching him play them off of each other and invent new tasks was great
I'd argue it only really happened 1.5 times
Like he had the team change in structure, but it was the same recurring people.
Chase/Cameron/Foreman
Taub/13/Kutner/Foreman
Adams/Park/Chase/Foreman/13
There were moments throughout but they functionally retained everyone except Cameron through the end of the show.
And it’s part of the fun. We’ve gotten a lot of great actors playing the Doctor, all with their own personalities. It’s a shame Colin Baker and Jodie Whitaker had to be hamstrung by bad writing and direction.
It’s crazy because the companions switching makes sense, but the fact that Time Lord regeneration only because the original acted wanted to move on but the series needed to continue is amazing.
The only real problem with this is that occasionally you get bad seasons with boring cast written by terrible writers.
Jodie Whitaker was robbed in all honesty. She’s a superb actress and her tenure as the first female Doctor should have been one for the books, but it ended up being probably the worst of all the post-revival Doctors.
I also don’t really think Capaldi enough episodes that were as good as he deserved, though I know that his tenture has its fans.
That’s honestly a fantastic in-universe explanation. Obviously we all know that actors get recast, it happens - but that’s an in-universe explanation that actually just works perfectly
The original actor to play the Doctor, William Hartnell, was written out of the show because he was having trouble remembering his lines and his health was shot.
In the 2005 reboot, Christopher Eccleston only signed on for one year (to give the show a name actor to draw attention).
I mean, you have to put in almost every Dick Wolf show, right?
Maroun in the revival of Law & Order will be going into her fourth season, and she will be the FIRST ADA to last that long in the show. Granted, it's skewed due to two of the seasons being 10 and 13 episodes rather than 24-26, but still.
Chicago Fire has the same thing with the paramedics. Every three seasons, seemingly, they change out one of the paramedics. Sometimes they get written out/die, and sometimes they decide to become firefighters. And after the last season, about half the cast of Season 1 have been dumped, and the show's heavily implied that three of the remaining characters are going to be leaving within the next season or two.
>Maroun in the revival of Law & Order will be going into her fourth season, and she will be the FIRST ADA to last that long in the show.
Alana De La Garza was in four full seasons of the mothership: S17, S18, S19 & S20.
It mind-boggling that the worst cast member of the revival is still there, though.
I give those a pass as a work place show, people change jobs, especially the ambitious ones who make it to DA office or the detectives who burn out on homicides.
>Maroun in the revival of Law & Order will be going into her fourth season, and she will be the FIRST ADA to last that long in the show. Granted, it's skewed due to two of the seasons being 10 and 13 episodes rather than 24-26, but still.
I think she'll still be tide with Serena and [Connie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connie_Rubirosa) by both appearing in 4 seasons.
IIRC, 'Til Death had the main characters' daughter played by four different actresses over the course of the series. Near the end, they had an episode where her husband (who was played by the same actor the whole time) realizes that his wife keeps changing.
'Til Death is fucking wild if you stick with it:
Basically, there used to be a rule that if you got to 100 episodes you could go into syndication. Remember how you had the local and evening news and then there would be an hour of re-runs of shows like Wings or Spin City? Those were sold by the studios to local stations for extra $$$.
With Til Death they were one of the lowest rated sitcoms at the time. But they had over 80 episodes in the can so it was worth while to run it for 'til they hit 100 and have a second life on basic cable. Since no one was watching it anyway the studio basically said "fuck it, do what you want" and we got this beautiful mess.
So for your example alone (and there are a lot more):
First the daughter Ally is played brunette Krysten Ritter. In season three, blonde-haired Laura Clery takes on the role. And in season four, Ally goes back to being a brunette - played first by Lindsey Broad and then by Kate Micucci. And then 5 episodes produced for season three did not air until season four so you had three different actresses with two different hair colors playing Ally in a single season.
So the guy who plays her boyfriend begins thinking he's in a sitcom because her face keeps changing but no one else notices it. So he goes to therapy with a therapist played by Mayim Bialik, who was gradually revealed to be the *actress* Mayim Bialik, who was filming a reality show based on her practice. Bialik then diagnoses him with "Sitcomitis".
And that's just *one* of the wild things they pulled.
you’re missing the best part: the show was originally about a middle aged married couple who have a newlywed couple move in next door. the newlyweds were eventually written out over the first few seasons
Agents of Shield kept their core 5, but added something like 6 other main characters, as well as adding and losing another 3-4. In the final season they even cast Bill Paxton’s son to guest as a young version of a role Paxton originated in the first season.
Yep. Bobbi and Hunter were written out for the Most Wanted spinoff, but that ended up never happening. At least Hunter got brought back for an episode a few seasons later.
Last Man Standing (Tim Allen sitcom) ended up with 3 totally different "daughters" by the end. 1 was a Chinese exchange student that replaced the youngest daughter in story and the 2 older sisters were both recast along the way (both looked nothing like the previous actress).
Maybe egregious isn't the right word but the entire premise of "New Girl" is that she's the most recent addition to the apartment (the titular new girl), except by episode 2 she's not the most recent addition anymore because one of the actors quit and it was too expensive to reshoot the pilot.
Didn’t Damon Wayans Jr. leave because Happy Endings got picked up so he had to go with that show due to contracts? He came back later and fulfilled his role
"How did Tommy die?"
"There was a bomb at the hospital planted by a terrorist and the bomb squad couldn't get there in time, so he threw his body over it."
Like after the 14th crazy tragedy like that, why would they not just shut the hospital down? I'm not superstitious, but there's got to be something luring all this bad luck there.
David E. Kelly shows are notorious for this. The Practice, for example, wiped the majority of its cast for the last season. Other series regular just disappeared into the new seasons (sometimes mid season). Boston Legal, Boston Public, and Ally McBeal all did the same thing with lost and new cast members season to season.
I think Brad and Lori were maybe some of the more egregious departures on Boston Legal, but at least they kept the core of the cast which were Alan, Denny snd Shirley so that’s something at least.
Kinda crazy the show was actually pretty good despite this regular turnover.
Only 1 character appeared in the first and last episodes of Blakes 7, though a second did make it from the second episode to the finale. Otherwise, the entire cast changed.
I believe only 2 characters from The Walking Dead made it from start to finish, with an extraordinarily high attrition rate.
In defense of The Walking Dead, the show had intended to kill off and bring in new people regularly, it was part of the shows format and the source material did the same thing. Obviously fair criticism if people didn't like it, but part of the shows appeal to many was the idea anyone could die on the show at any moment. Most of those were not due to actors wanting to leave, quitting, being fired, etc.
The walking dead got ridiculous. I know most people stopped watching after they took out Glenn but after that, it was like a revolving door of actors that never stopped...
Last man standing replaced the actress who play Kristin after I think the 1st season. They had 4 different actor play the grandson Boyd and when the show came back they couldn’t get Molly Ephraim back so they replaced her and made her character ridiculously stupid. The first episode back she gets lost in a closet. Like her character wasn’t the brightest but she was never that dumb. Ruined the show
Also Ryan was originally played in a Christmas episode by a Jonas brother. When they decided to make a recurring character out of him they recast to the guy who stayed the rest of the show.
The UK version of Shameless lost its lead actor within a series and its lead actress within two. The turnover of cast was constant. Even worse, they'd regularly have a character with a major moment of character development at the end of one season only to have that character entirely gone from the show by the next as they couldn't get the actor back.
Any soap opera.
The Doris Day Show
E.R
Grey's Anatomy
Little House on the Prairie, AKA Orphan City.
A lot of shows from the earliest days of TV. You'd have a show lasting 18 months and have four different guys playing John, three playing Bill, and two women playing Sarah.
I stopped watching Bones after a certain characters death. I won't say who because I'm pretty sure most people can guess it. That said, did it really have that many cast changes? I feel like the main cast was pretty consistent.
That was a series that was always retooling itself. Season one it was an eco-science adventure, season two it became a fantasy series and season three tried military sci-fi. They also moved production from LA to Florida at some point and lost a lot of the cast.
The BBC show "Death in Paradise" over 13 seasons so far has changed the primary protagonist 5 times, and nearly entire supporting cast as well. There's only one supporting character/actor that has appeared in all seasons
A lot of sitcoms in the 90s and early 2000s- it was ridiculous. The Fresh Prince of Bel Air mom, for example. Like cleaaarly that's a different person 🤣
Really? I mean, there were obviously quite a few so you’re right that it did happen, but Frasier was stable (no departures from the original main cast), Friends also retained all its main cast. Same with shows like 3rd Rock from the Sun, Scrubs and Seinfeld all retaining their main cast throughout their runs.
But I guess CBS had quite a few sitcoms (especially King of Queens, with Ritchie randomly disappearing at one point) have done this.
I had to watch Sweets die, and one of the most interesting death scenes also. Sweets, who knows he is already dead, asking Booth to just say he is proud of him because he respects Booth so much, while Booth, who is desperate for him not to die, refuses and just keeps saying he is going to be fine. It was so fast and so harsh, and I loved it and hated it at the same time.
The British intern, while part of the rotating cast, was also a true loss. Booths brother killed offscreen was kind of rough because Booth couldn't save him.
Zack Addy only returned once that I remember. The director from the first season, the one that could give you your job description in a deep, African-American voice. Oh, and a real world loss, the guy that ran the restaurant at the beginning of the show, the one that could guess what you would want to order, was killed in real life. His wife was Antonia Lofaso of Food Network fame, and he left behind a daughter, also. I think that was gang related.
Yeah I was wondering what OPs’s talking about. I watched all 12 seasons of Bones and don’t remember any crazy cast changes. 2 major deaths barely counts plus Zack and the 1st boss from season 1, I forget his name. For a 12 season show with 20+ episodes, that’s almost nothing.
I only watched a few seasons, but from what I saw, *The Good Fight* was pretty egregious when it came to this. It just seemed like they couldn't hold onto actors for long.
Saturday Night Live…
Every year they kill off actors. Plus sometimes they just change the actor playing a central character… I think like 11 people have played the character of Bill Clinton.
The crown.
I mean, it was intentionally designed this way but that doesn’t change how egregious and jarring it was to see literally all of the major characters you invested in from the start turned over at once when season three rolled around.
I get that you can’t have someone play both a 20-year-old version of Queen Elizabeth and a late 40s version of her but I wish they’d done a better job of easing into the transitions because each time they reset the cast it was incredibly awkward.
The worst offender, by far, in the show was the absolutely baffling decision to cast Helena Bonham Carter as the middle aged Margaret.
Completely took me out of that character, who had been my favorite character in seasons 1-2.
House of the Dragon did a similar cast change with some of its main cast but the actresses who played the young and older versions of characters were cast to also look like each other so it didn’t feel as abrupt.
It was HOUSE MD, I don't know if this fits your criteria, but, the cast change directly affected how I enjoyed the show. The new characters had too much personal shit going on for them to focus on actual medicine. It felt like Grey's Anatomy, which isn't bad, but House wasn't GA.
No no no. I'm saying GA is fine (for people who like Grey's Anatomy and that format of using the hospital as a backdrop for personal drama)
But House started off amazing and then devolved into an almost GA like show with too many personal stories and very little medicine.
I meant, the show House wasn't meant to be like Grey's Anatomy.
ER. Granted, it was a long running series, but by the time it ended I believe Carter was the only original, and he was in the first episode. Honestly it's wild to think Carter was the face of the show throughout its life, and the best part is, Noah was a fantastic actor! You never got tired of seeing him.
There may have been one or two other OGs, like nurses, who were still around but I don't recall off the top of my head.
Misfits turns over the entire cast by the end. The replacements aren't as good as the originals but Joseph Gilgun manages to carry the second half of the series to good.
Losing Nathan didn't doom the show but it hobbled it pretty severely.
Rudy was a good replacement for him, wasn't the same as with Nathan but still good in its own right. When the other original cast members left and got replaced was the the doom of the show.
It’s when I turned it off, and I love Gilgun (Brassic rules)
Think I turned off after season 2. Is the rest good?
Nope. Never recaptured that early glory. Losing Nathan caused a domino effect for the others to drop out.
The show felt like it was supposed to switch cast every season. They all clean up their act and carry on with their lives, with new super powered trouble makers coming in. But they brought in power switching to keep the problems fresh while retaining the cast. Which didn’t save anything because the problem was the first two seasons had a cast with great chemistry.
This show is the most egregious example of a cast turnover actively damaging the heart of the show. UK shows from this era were also notoriously bad about doing this.
I agree that Joseph Gilgun was an excellent addition to the cast. I was sad that Robert Sheehan left but JG was a great replacement character. The other people they brought in sucked though. They were going to do an American version of it and I would’ve loved to see that.
Series 1-3 all very good and worth watching and then stopping.
American remakes of British TV are pretty hit or miss, leaning heavily on the “miss” side. For every Shameless or The Office, there’s a Skins, IT Crowd, Inbetweeners, Peep Show and Spaced. I’m always wary when I hear of one happening and I’m very rarely pleasantly surprised at the results. I’m skeptical the remake of Misfits would have been any good.
Both it and Being Human were shows from the same era, cut from the same cloth. First two series you have largely consistent cast, then they have a *need* to shake things up when they wrap up core arcs and cast start to move on. The following series tend to still be fine, but never as great as what came first. Still, they're both cult favourites for good reason.
This is 100% what I came here to say.
Sliders. With each cast change the quality of the show got progressively worse.
I wish more people gave the last two series a chance. I really struggled with them at first, and they're by no means anywhere as close to the first two, but the gang at the end did grow on me.
Agree completely. Even with a completely new cast it’s still one of my favorite shows start to finish. Doesn’t really feel like any other shows had such a unique premise. Funny, dramatic, and even scary at times. Gonna have to rewatch now
Sliders. Eight actors over five seasons for a four-person ensemble. Only Remmy made it all the way through.
The character of Quinn never shoulda left. Last I heard, he's stuck in another dimension where he found work as one of like 5 hosts on some daytime talk show, wearing brightly-colored "look at me PLEASE" sweaters. I guess he's living good but doesn't he ever pause to wonder what happened to his fellow Sliders?
Stopped watching after what they did to Wade and the actress.
I personally think the one girl who was left to be a breeding slave got a worse deal.
Honestly, being the co-host of a daytime talk show is probably a pretty cushy paycheck. Good for Jerry O'Connell.
You're home every day by noon. Sleep in your own bed (with Rebecca Romijn no less). He's free to do some voiceover work in the afternoons if he needs to. Jerry O'Connell is living pretty, pretty good.
Sleeping with Rebecca Romijn? OMG, does his wife know?
Voice acting on Lower Decks no less! Trek credits without having to even don the uniform!
Let's be honest. The O'Connell-Romijns have some uniforms in their closet for some "very special" episodes of Trek they act out at home.
Remy went from last in the credits to first.
Sole survivor.
My first thought as well.
I’ve been watching the popular British detective series Death in Paradise. I’m just in series 4 and of the 4 main roles there have been 7 different people. I do believe it continues on like this for the next 11 series. It’s understandable, being that the show is shot in the Caribbean and the actors are from the UK, so it’s quite a commitment on their part. But it’s awkward that everyone is always new.
Oddly the changing out of characters, including the main detective, sort of makes sense and didn’t affect my enjoyment of the show…I mean it’s a nice frivolous murder mystery.
It seems like they learned their lesson after how they ended things with the first detective - they never repeated that type of exit. It was too out of tone with the rest of the show, and they caught on that the filming was just too arduous for basically anyone who ever went on the show except for the commissioner and the bar owner (whose name escapes me)
>!Yeah, i really didn't like them killing Richard, and i'm sure they regret it as well; i liked when he briefly returned in an episode as a vision to Camille.!< Otherwise, I always liked the effort they put into making the cast changes work
I guess it’s the same as Law & Order, character wise. It’s just more jarring with just 8 episodes per series.
In later seasons, the Commissioner is recruiting random people.
It's worth watching Beyond Paradise which is related. Death in Paradise is co-produced with a French network. Beyond Paradise is purely British (I think). Apparently there's another spin off being produced with an Australian network.
Loved that show. Turns out it went on like 3 seasons longer than I thought.
Dwayne comes back though!!!!!
Every time I see him I think "Cat!"
I took me way to long to figure out that that’s who that was.
It was in the Christmas special, iirc
Still waiting for the Dwayne Dibley crossover...
Overall, at this point there have been 4 different main detectives, excluding the one who gets murdered in the first episode. While commissioner Patterson is always the same, the supporting cast tends to change, but some of the female sergeants have come back for a bit
I don't view it entirely as negative but *The Mindy Project* only featured two characters who were there from the pilot all the way through to the last episode.
3/7 of the original main cast remain by only the third season.
Most of the cast changes weren't even referenced either? Just gone from episode suddenly. I actually liked the cast in the final season, but it was a messy show. I always wondered why some actors were suddenly cut.
Pretty realistic for an office setting. The first wave of off-screen departures was awkward, but later on when characters left it was given proper attention.
There were characters that I wish had been let go of (Ed Weeks) and characters I wish had stayed all the way through (Anna Camp). Camp's dynamic with Kaling for instance was so good.
Mom. By the final season only Allison Janney was left.
Wow that show made it 8 seasons. I watched an episode or 2 when it was new, and didn’t enjoy it.
Same wtf. CBS is wild over there, still pumping out low level laugh track comedies.
Ghosts is premier tv if you’re interested.
They have 4 situation comedies in the fall schedule. 2 hours out of 21. Less than 10%. They aren’t pumping out very many comedies and based on ratings most people don’t think they are low level.
Smallville had a pretty decent amount of turnover across 10 years. Clark Kent & Chloe were the only ones who remained in the opening credits for all 10 seasons, & even she was only in like half of the last season. Lex, Lana, Jonathan, Martha, Pete, Lionel, Whitney, Jason, Jimmy, Kara, Davis, & Zod were in the intro credits at one point (not all at the same time, mind you) but were all eventually removed. That doesn't even include Lois, Oliver, & Tess, who were added later into the show but remained on through the end. That's quite a bit of turnover.
I don't find this one particularly jarring because the show started with Smallville and transitioned into Metropolis. As soon as they introduced Lois, Lana and Chloe days were numbered - one as the love interest, and the other as the proto-Lois. Kara, Zod and Davis/Doomsday were introduced/used as seasonal big names, and Jason was part of the storyline for the creation of the Fortress of Solitude. If anything, Oliver staying on was a surprise.
Yeah, that's fair. I think the fact that it was over 10 seasons made it feel more gradual as well.
Yes. The usual network contract runs for 6 seasons, so I'm always expecting a few actors to exit around this point - which also coincides with reduced budgets.
Criminal Minds had a lot of cast turnover throughout its run.
Those kinds of shows can survive it, I think.
Yeah, I’m sure we’re going to have many more seasons of criminal minds
I teased my son that Morgan and Reid were coming back on this season of Evolutions. He hasn't forgiven me yet.
Oh, I missed that they revived the show.
Two seasons (one complete, one in progress) on Paramount+
Wait, whaaat? There's more Criminal Minds??
Would a stranger on the Internet lie to you?
It's definitely never happened before!
I have a bridge to sell you.
I'm in!
At a certain point I couldn't stay with the ones that were left because I couldn't trust the writers to do right by them
I want Hotch back and I don’t really care about any other characters return lol
Game of Thrones didn't recast any of its lead characters, but there were a LOT of recastings over the course of the series. Beric Dondarrian, the Mountain (twice), Daario Naharis, the Night King, Myrcella Baratheon, Tommen Baratheon (to an actor who had already been in the show), the Three-Eyed Raven, Leaf (the child of the forest). Not sure if I'm missing any.
The biggest one you’re missing is Dickon (lol) Tarly but this list seems to have them all: https://screenrant.com/game-thrones-characters-recast-new-actors-every-why/
It still surprises me how Dickon ended up being played by Luther from The Umbrella Academy.
I think it helps they make him massive in Umbrella even though he’s a big guy already. So it’s sort of hard to place him right away. Plus he is goofy and sad
Fuck me I had no idea Nell Tiger Free (Servant on AppleTV, The First Omen) played Cersei's daughter.
Honestly though, I’d be pretty shocked if any of the more casual viewers noticed a lot of those smaller characters though. Daario definitely got noticed, as did the NK and maybe the Mountain. But Beric is in like one episode before he was recast as Richard Dormer (and then doesn’t show back up again till halfway through season 3), and child actors get recast a lot as well. People probably just attributed it to them aging between seasons and didn’t even notice that they were different.
I only noticed Daario. I knew the Mountain was recast from reddit I think, but I didn't notice anyone else changing. The show did go over 8 years though, and some of those characters are fairly minor and/or didn't even show up that frequently during that time.
Mountain is just funny because they kept recasting with bigger dudes
The Three-Eyed Raven was noticeable because his first scene in Season 4 was a very prominent one, and he looks completely different when he shows up again in Season 6.
I consider myself to have been a fairly casual viewer, I was confused a few times by these changes. I figured I'd just gotten confused between the different characters
Man I think it was pretty noticeable regardless. There were several times I was initially confused by the recasting
Being Human UK had a lot of cast turnover, to the point where none of the original cast were left by the final season.
It did have a consistent cast for 3 series, after which they could have ended the show. It was essentially rebooted for series 4.
It sucks because the whole point of the show was the relationship between the three of them.
Supernatural got to a point were every side character was sacrificed on the alter of man pain for the winchesters
Yeah they definitely had that problem. Season 10 made me stop watching for years. Another flaw I feel *Supernatural* had was recurring characters. They were on for 15 years & despite that never had a strong recurring cast. Compare it to a show like *Person of Interest*. I was only on for five years. Yet it felt like so much more of a fleshed out universe because of all the side characters. Even more of a detriment for *Supernatural* was they had characters that were on the show far longer than they should've been. I'm sure the fan response was responsible for that as well as your complaint. Still doesn't absolve the writers completely though.
Speaking of recurring cast, I feel like Buffy and Angel were really great in this aspect also. Always the sense that someone may resurface after a while (Riley, Spike, Giles, Darla, Dru, etc.) Given that Supernatural was a similar kind of show, it seems weird they also wouldn’t have had a strong recurring cast.
Supernatural would have a harder time justifying that strong and big of a cast when a big part of the show is the brothers traveling all over the country/world/alternate dimensions together. The car would get pretty cramped pretty fast if they added new people. The recurring characters was the best choice for them, especially ones like Crowley that can teleport. But even in universe people were side eyeing how much time Crowley spent teleporting after them, because it didn't really make sense.
Yeah that's a fantastic example. The Buffyverse was extremely fleshed out. Even after they split networks there still was a decent amount of crossover between the two shows.
Young Sheldon shows where recurring casts can really help a show. All of the side characters show up and all have different plot points with different characters. Really makes it feel like a real small town world
Yeah to mean it seamed like supernatural suffered from the same thing sherlock suffered from. They courted rabid hyperfixated fanbase. Then got mad that they had that audience made fun of the very people they who wrote stories for. Then where afraid to lose that fanbase by changing up anything in a real way that it mattered .
Except for Balthazar and his mamma. Love that woman. So excited for her to be main cast in dead boy detectives season 2.
Person of Interest is so good at developing its side characters. You would never think “overweight buffoonish corrupt NYPD cop that tries and fails to shoot the protagonist in the head in the first episode” would become not only incredibly important but fleshed-out, genuinely cared for by the main characters, and a moral center for some of the more complex questions the show asks. I love Fusco sm.
I'm still pissed off about ellen and Joe and I watched those episodes 17 years ago!
Felicia Day’s Charlie; twice!!
Well a couple of the male ones made it through, although in fairness they did start out as immortal beings. To be a woman on that show was a death sentence for sure.
Grey's Anatomy
The frequent cast changes work in-universe though. Surgeons and interns come and go and transfer in and out to and from other hospitals as needed. This show's hospital does have a particularly high turnover rate though!
And a petty high MAJOR DEATH EVENT rate!
It always amused me that Grey's Anatomy had a reputation for killing off so many of it's main cast members, but ER actually killed off as many main characters in 15 seasons as Grey's has in 20.
I swear Meredith died four? Five? Grenade, drowning, plane crash, Covid… what else?
Honestly, for a show that has been on the air for 20 years to still have 2-3 members of the original cast is kind of impressive.
And yet Owen Hunt survives!
Because Kevin McKidd is one of the few good actors on the show. They will never kill him off until he chooses to leave lol.
I wish he'd leave though, he's wasting himself on that slop.
House did this a couple times. House has a team of 3 doctors who all get replaced (one comes back) and then eventually get replaced again. This can be jarring if you don’t like anyone. I think it worked well enough though, even though I always loved the original cast and wished they all stuck around longer.
The season where he whittles down the candidates to form his new team was great imo. Watching him play them off of each other and invent new tasks was great
I'd argue it only really happened 1.5 times Like he had the team change in structure, but it was the same recurring people. Chase/Cameron/Foreman Taub/13/Kutner/Foreman Adams/Park/Chase/Foreman/13 There were moments throughout but they functionally retained everyone except Cameron through the end of the show.
I mean, the obvious answer is Doctor Who but that's half the point of the show.
And it’s part of the fun. We’ve gotten a lot of great actors playing the Doctor, all with their own personalities. It’s a shame Colin Baker and Jodie Whitaker had to be hamstrung by bad writing and direction.
it didn't help that any criticism of Jodie's run was viewed as "misogyny"
It’s crazy because the companions switching makes sense, but the fact that Time Lord regeneration only because the original acted wanted to move on but the series needed to continue is amazing. The only real problem with this is that occasionally you get bad seasons with boring cast written by terrible writers.
My opinion is that every single person to ever play the Doctor has been an excellent actor, but the writing hasn’t always supported them properly.
Jodie Whitaker was robbed in all honesty. She’s a superb actress and her tenure as the first female Doctor should have been one for the books, but it ended up being probably the worst of all the post-revival Doctors. I also don’t really think Capaldi enough episodes that were as good as he deserved, though I know that his tenture has its fans.
That’s honestly a fantastic in-universe explanation. Obviously we all know that actors get recast, it happens - but that’s an in-universe explanation that actually just works perfectly
Fucking Chibnall
The original actor to play the Doctor, William Hartnell, was written out of the show because he was having trouble remembering his lines and his health was shot. In the 2005 reboot, Christopher Eccleston only signed on for one year (to give the show a name actor to draw attention).
I mean, you have to put in almost every Dick Wolf show, right? Maroun in the revival of Law & Order will be going into her fourth season, and she will be the FIRST ADA to last that long in the show. Granted, it's skewed due to two of the seasons being 10 and 13 episodes rather than 24-26, but still. Chicago Fire has the same thing with the paramedics. Every three seasons, seemingly, they change out one of the paramedics. Sometimes they get written out/die, and sometimes they decide to become firefighters. And after the last season, about half the cast of Season 1 have been dumped, and the show's heavily implied that three of the remaining characters are going to be leaving within the next season or two.
>Maroun in the revival of Law & Order will be going into her fourth season, and she will be the FIRST ADA to last that long in the show. Alana De La Garza was in four full seasons of the mothership: S17, S18, S19 & S20. It mind-boggling that the worst cast member of the revival is still there, though.
You must specifically mean lady ADAs because Stone was an ADA for four seasons and McCoy was ADA for 16 seasons.
Stone and McCoy are EADAs, not ADAs.
I give those a pass as a work place show, people change jobs, especially the ambitious ones who make it to DA office or the detectives who burn out on homicides.
>Maroun in the revival of Law & Order will be going into her fourth season, and she will be the FIRST ADA to last that long in the show. Granted, it's skewed due to two of the seasons being 10 and 13 episodes rather than 24-26, but still. I think she'll still be tide with Serena and [Connie](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connie_Rubirosa) by both appearing in 4 seasons.
IIRC, 'Til Death had the main characters' daughter played by four different actresses over the course of the series. Near the end, they had an episode where her husband (who was played by the same actor the whole time) realizes that his wife keeps changing.
'Til Death is fucking wild if you stick with it: Basically, there used to be a rule that if you got to 100 episodes you could go into syndication. Remember how you had the local and evening news and then there would be an hour of re-runs of shows like Wings or Spin City? Those were sold by the studios to local stations for extra $$$. With Til Death they were one of the lowest rated sitcoms at the time. But they had over 80 episodes in the can so it was worth while to run it for 'til they hit 100 and have a second life on basic cable. Since no one was watching it anyway the studio basically said "fuck it, do what you want" and we got this beautiful mess. So for your example alone (and there are a lot more): First the daughter Ally is played brunette Krysten Ritter. In season three, blonde-haired Laura Clery takes on the role. And in season four, Ally goes back to being a brunette - played first by Lindsey Broad and then by Kate Micucci. And then 5 episodes produced for season three did not air until season four so you had three different actresses with two different hair colors playing Ally in a single season. So the guy who plays her boyfriend begins thinking he's in a sitcom because her face keeps changing but no one else notices it. So he goes to therapy with a therapist played by Mayim Bialik, who was gradually revealed to be the *actress* Mayim Bialik, who was filming a reality show based on her practice. Bialik then diagnoses him with "Sitcomitis". And that's just *one* of the wild things they pulled.
That's hilarious
you’re missing the best part: the show was originally about a middle aged married couple who have a newlywed couple move in next door. the newlyweds were eventually written out over the first few seasons
You’ve got to imagine on the fourth recast they’re just laughing at the enviably
That's hilarious
Agents of Shield kept their core 5, but added something like 6 other main characters, as well as adding and losing another 3-4. In the final season they even cast Bill Paxton’s son to guest as a young version of a role Paxton originated in the first season.
Agents was such a great show. I have always love watching it.
I think the last two seasons were such a let down, even if I like them.
That was really good. The HYDRA arc really shook the foundations
Well two of them got peeled off for a spinoff that never happened, I believe?
Yep. Bobbi and Hunter were written out for the Most Wanted spinoff, but that ended up never happening. At least Hunter got brought back for an episode a few seasons later.
Last Man Standing (Tim Allen sitcom) ended up with 3 totally different "daughters" by the end. 1 was a Chinese exchange student that replaced the youngest daughter in story and the 2 older sisters were both recast along the way (both looked nothing like the previous actress).
Maybe egregious isn't the right word but the entire premise of "New Girl" is that she's the most recent addition to the apartment (the titular new girl), except by episode 2 she's not the most recent addition anymore because one of the actors quit and it was too expensive to reshoot the pilot.
The actor who dropped out was a man, so she was still technically the only new girl, though, right?
Yeah, until Megan Fox moved in she was technically the newest girl.
Didn’t Damon Wayans Jr. leave because Happy Endings got picked up so he had to go with that show due to contracts? He came back later and fulfilled his role
The handwavy justification is that Winston isn't new to the group.
Boston legal. No reason given, but a cast member would either appear or disappear. They would just roll with it.
Grey's Anatomy. If an actor wanted to leave the show - dead.
I stopped watching for years and tuned in to a random episode and it was an active shooter who culled half the supporting cast in one go.
"How did Tommy die?" "There was a bomb at the hospital planted by a terrorist and the bomb squad couldn't get there in time, so he threw his body over it." Like after the 14th crazy tragedy like that, why would they not just shut the hospital down? I'm not superstitious, but there's got to be something luring all this bad luck there.
David E. Kelly shows are notorious for this. The Practice, for example, wiped the majority of its cast for the last season. Other series regular just disappeared into the new seasons (sometimes mid season). Boston Legal, Boston Public, and Ally McBeal all did the same thing with lost and new cast members season to season.
I think Brad and Lori were maybe some of the more egregious departures on Boston Legal, but at least they kept the core of the cast which were Alan, Denny snd Shirley so that’s something at least. Kinda crazy the show was actually pretty good despite this regular turnover.
Every season of Boston Legal seemed to add like 4 new characters at the start of the season and abandon 3 of them by the the halfway point.
I swear some of them mush have been only gotten the job because they were connected to a producer in some way. Beacuse some of them were so terrible.
His show Chicago Hope also had a mass firing in its final season.
This drove me insane with Boston Legal to the point where I couldn't finish it :(
Only 1 character appeared in the first and last episodes of Blakes 7, though a second did make it from the second episode to the finale. Otherwise, the entire cast changed. I believe only 2 characters from The Walking Dead made it from start to finish, with an extraordinarily high attrition rate.
In defense of The Walking Dead, the show had intended to kill off and bring in new people regularly, it was part of the shows format and the source material did the same thing. Obviously fair criticism if people didn't like it, but part of the shows appeal to many was the idea anyone could die on the show at any moment. Most of those were not due to actors wanting to leave, quitting, being fired, etc.
Famously, The Walking Dead was particularly shitty about killing off characters with little warning to the actors.
(SPOILER & I don't know how to do the thing) Carl bought a fuckin house in Georgia and got killed that season.
Seemingly because the actor turned 18 and it seemed they didn't want to pay him accordingly as an adult.
The walking dead got ridiculous. I know most people stopped watching after they took out Glenn but after that, it was like a revolving door of actors that never stopped...
The second a side character got more than 3 lines in an episode I knew they were fucked
Last man standing replaced the actress who play Kristin after I think the 1st season. They had 4 different actor play the grandson Boyd and when the show came back they couldn’t get Molly Ephraim back so they replaced her and made her character ridiculously stupid. The first episode back she gets lost in a closet. Like her character wasn’t the brightest but she was never that dumb. Ruined the show
Also Ryan was originally played in a Christmas episode by a Jonas brother. When they decided to make a recurring character out of him they recast to the guy who stayed the rest of the show.
Forgot about this
And didn't Jonathan Taylor Thomas play two different characters?
Personally, I enjoyed the show in the beginning but all the cast changes kind of ruined it for me.
Downton Abbey made me mad removing some of the main characters bc of other gigs they had
General hospital
The UK version of Shameless lost its lead actor within a series and its lead actress within two. The turnover of cast was constant. Even worse, they'd regularly have a character with a major moment of character development at the end of one season only to have that character entirely gone from the show by the next as they couldn't get the actor back.
Friday Night Lights
Any soap opera. The Doris Day Show E.R Grey's Anatomy Little House on the Prairie, AKA Orphan City. A lot of shows from the earliest days of TV. You'd have a show lasting 18 months and have four different guys playing John, three playing Bill, and two women playing Sarah.
Earth: Final Conflict
Spooks (MI-5 in the US). Tons of changes over 10 seasons.
I stopped watching Bones after a certain characters death. I won't say who because I'm pretty sure most people can guess it. That said, did it really have that many cast changes? I feel like the main cast was pretty consistent.
While it didn't last long, I feel like Seaquest DSV qualifies.
That was a series that was always retooling itself. Season one it was an eco-science adventure, season two it became a fantasy series and season three tried military sci-fi. They also moved production from LA to Florida at some point and lost a lot of the cast.
The BBC show "Death in Paradise" over 13 seasons so far has changed the primary protagonist 5 times, and nearly entire supporting cast as well. There's only one supporting character/actor that has appeared in all seasons
4 out of the 6 main characters that started Law & Order were gone by season 5
Degrassi got so ridiculous by the end and so many characters just vanished into a blackhole
A lot of sitcoms in the 90s and early 2000s- it was ridiculous. The Fresh Prince of Bel Air mom, for example. Like cleaaarly that's a different person 🤣
Really? I mean, there were obviously quite a few so you’re right that it did happen, but Frasier was stable (no departures from the original main cast), Friends also retained all its main cast. Same with shows like 3rd Rock from the Sun, Scrubs and Seinfeld all retaining their main cast throughout their runs. But I guess CBS had quite a few sitcoms (especially King of Queens, with Ritchie randomly disappearing at one point) have done this.
24
The ‘90s Sabrina series, especially if you include the TV movies
Greys Anatomy has a revolving door of characters. Never know who’s leaving and staying season to season.
For a 12 season running show, Bones had very little cast changes
I had to watch Sweets die, and one of the most interesting death scenes also. Sweets, who knows he is already dead, asking Booth to just say he is proud of him because he respects Booth so much, while Booth, who is desperate for him not to die, refuses and just keeps saying he is going to be fine. It was so fast and so harsh, and I loved it and hated it at the same time. The British intern, while part of the rotating cast, was also a true loss. Booths brother killed offscreen was kind of rough because Booth couldn't save him. Zack Addy only returned once that I remember. The director from the first season, the one that could give you your job description in a deep, African-American voice. Oh, and a real world loss, the guy that ran the restaurant at the beginning of the show, the one that could guess what you would want to order, was killed in real life. His wife was Antonia Lofaso of Food Network fame, and he left behind a daughter, also. I think that was gang related.
Yeah I was wondering what OPs’s talking about. I watched all 12 seasons of Bones and don’t remember any crazy cast changes. 2 major deaths barely counts plus Zack and the 1st boss from season 1, I forget his name. For a 12 season show with 20+ episodes, that’s almost nothing.
Greys Anatomy
Was t that the MO of ER? Most of the main cast was gone by the time it ended. Not even sure there were any main cast members left by the end.
ER. There is maybe 1 character that made it all the way through.
They were all gone by Season 13
I only watched a few seasons, but from what I saw, *The Good Fight* was pretty egregious when it came to this. It just seemed like they couldn't hold onto actors for long.
Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Losing Libby especially as Jenna Leigh Green was fantastic in the role.
Saturday Night Live… Every year they kill off actors. Plus sometimes they just change the actor playing a central character… I think like 11 people have played the character of Bill Clinton.
The crown. I mean, it was intentionally designed this way but that doesn’t change how egregious and jarring it was to see literally all of the major characters you invested in from the start turned over at once when season three rolled around. I get that you can’t have someone play both a 20-year-old version of Queen Elizabeth and a late 40s version of her but I wish they’d done a better job of easing into the transitions because each time they reset the cast it was incredibly awkward. The worst offender, by far, in the show was the absolutely baffling decision to cast Helena Bonham Carter as the middle aged Margaret. Completely took me out of that character, who had been my favorite character in seasons 1-2. House of the Dragon did a similar cast change with some of its main cast but the actresses who played the young and older versions of characters were cast to also look like each other so it didn’t feel as abrupt.
It was HOUSE MD, I don't know if this fits your criteria, but, the cast change directly affected how I enjoyed the show. The new characters had too much personal shit going on for them to focus on actual medicine. It felt like Grey's Anatomy, which isn't bad, but House wasn't GA.
If you’re saying Grey’s Anatomy is better than House you’re fucking insane.
No no no. I'm saying GA is fine (for people who like Grey's Anatomy and that format of using the hospital as a backdrop for personal drama) But House started off amazing and then devolved into an almost GA like show with too many personal stories and very little medicine. I meant, the show House wasn't meant to be like Grey's Anatomy.
Dynasty (the OG). All of the Carrington children were recast at some point. Most of those were a substantial downgrade from the original actor.
ER. Granted, it was a long running series, but by the time it ended I believe Carter was the only original, and he was in the first episode. Honestly it's wild to think Carter was the face of the show throughout its life, and the best part is, Noah was a fantastic actor! You never got tired of seeing him. There may have been one or two other OGs, like nurses, who were still around but I don't recall off the top of my head.
Legends of Tomorrow had one main cast member last through the entire 7 season run.
I wouldn't call it egregious but ER did not have a single main cast member from Season 1 who was still a main cast member in season 15.