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Shows that survived... or didn't

Started by Tony Tony Tony, December 08, 2018, 11:38:02 PM

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Tony Tony Tony

Was thinking of comedy shows that survived a major cast change, mostly enforced, and those that didn't.

Hi De Hi sprang to mind first as being still great after the departure of Simon Cadell.

Then there was the small matter of Tripper's Day which suffered the loss of Leonard Rossiter. It morphed into Slinger's Day where the Rossiter character was replaced by Bruce Forsyth. Even reading that in black and white I still can't believe it was true.

Men Behaving Badly Trading Harry Enfield for Neil  Morrisey.

Small Man Big Horse

The Office US went on for two more seasons post Steve Carell, but was of course terrible. And both Have I Got News For You and Would I Lie To You survived the departure of Angus Deayton, but in the case of the former it probably shouldn't have.

Replies From View

Both of Gary Sparrow's wives in Goodnight Sweetheart being replaced always irrationally unnerved me.  I can't regard series 1-3 as being from the same show as series 4-6, not due to any conscious decision or desire, but simply because I can't get them to fit together in my mind.

kidsick5000

Quote from: Delete Delete Delete on December 08, 2018, 11:41:03 PM
Men Behaving Badly Trading Harry Enfield for Neil  Morrisey.

And in a rare move, switching TV channel

Bennett Brauer

Reggie Perrin's son-in-law was such a marvellously peculiar supporting character. Having a different actor play him for the third series only drew attention to it being a series too far.

kidsick5000

Game On lost a key component of it's concept when it brought in Neil Stuke for Ben Chaplin.
Yet it still ran.

I think losing Andy Samberg really helped Cuckoo. Not sure how much longer his character would have been bearable for

Ballad of Ballard Berkley

M*A*S*H became quite sentimental and earnest in its later years, but for a while it was still great when Potter and B.J. replaced Henry and Trapper.

Cheers would be a pretty big one with Shelley Long leaving.

St_Eddie

Once Richard Coyle was replaced by Richard Mylan for the 4th series of Coupling, that was all she wrote.

Quote from: Delete Delete Delete on December 08, 2018, 11:41:03 PM
Men Behaving Badly Trading Harry Enfield for Neil  Morrisey.

Quote from: kidsick5000 on December 09, 2018, 12:13:21 AM
Game On lost a key component of it's concept when it brought in Neil Stuke for Ben Chaplin.
Yet it still ran.

They might have survived but in my opinion, both Men Behaving Badly and Game On were superior with Harry Enfield and Ben Chaplin, respectively.

ajsmith2

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on December 09, 2018, 12:01:07 AM
The Office US went on for two more seasons post Steve Carell, but was of course terrible. And both Have I Got News For You and Would I Lie To You survived the departure of Angus Deayton, but in the case of the former it probably shouldn't have.

I know I'm in a minority who thinks that season 8, with James Spader playing completely against Steve Carells type of boss, was excellent. One of my favourite seasons. The ensemble cast was easily strong enough to survive the loss of Carell imo. But then they made several bad bad mistakes for season 9, like trying to shoehorn Catherine Tate in as a sympathetic regular, turning Toby into a creep, and Andy back into an asshole. S9 had its moments but was a poorer show overall. But I thought S8 wasn't worse, just refreshingly different from the Carell years.

DrGreggles

Quote from: Replies From View on December 09, 2018, 12:01:39 AM
Both of Gary Sparrow's wives in Goodnight Sweetheart being replaced always irrationally unnerved me.  I can't regard series 1-3 as being from the same show as series 4-6, not due to any conscious decision or desire, but simply because I can't get them to fit together in my mind.


It was a huge problem in that originally his 40s girl was hotter than his 90s wife.
After the cast changes that was no longer the case, so it stopped being believable.

Small Man Big Horse

Quote from: ajsmith2 on December 09, 2018, 08:59:35 AM
I know I'm in a minority who thinks that season 8, with James Spader playing completely against Steve Carells type of boss, was excellent. One of my favourite seasons. The ensemble cast was easily strong enough to survive the loss of Carell imo. But then they made several bad bad mistakes for season 9, like trying to shoehorn Catherine Tate in as a sympathetic regular, turning Toby into a creep, and Andy back into an asshole. S9 had its moments but was a poorer show overall. But I thought S8 wasn't worse, just refreshingly different from the Carell years.

I partially agree as I really liked James Spader's character but felt the series as a whole took a nosedive, Jim and Pam became much more irritating and some of the other characters began annoying.

a duncandisorderly

blake's 7. who's this blake bloke, then?

neveragain

Quote from: St_Eddie on December 09, 2018, 12:47:29 AM
Once Richard Coyle was replaced by Richard Mylan for the 4th series of Coupling, that was all she wrote.

They might have survived but in my opinion, both Men Behaving Badly and Game On were superior with Harry Enfield and Ben Chaplin, respectively.

Chaplin certainly but Enfield? He was very uncomfortable in the role and had zero chemistry with Clunes. With Tony and Gary, you actually believe they're mates.

Tony Yeboah

Grandad in Only Fools. The key thing was they made Uncle Albert quite a different character, because having a like-for-like replacement would have been folly, but they could still do jokes based on the generation gap.

Andy147

Bread wasn't exactly great anyway, but when it brought in new actors to play Joey and Aveline in Series 5 the family seemed a lot less likeable and it tipped the balance (for me) from "vaguely enjoyable" to "not worth watching".

MuteBanana

Quote from: neveragain on December 09, 2018, 11:56:58 AM
Chaplin certainly but Enfield? He was very uncomfortable in the role and had zero chemistry with Clunes. With Tony and Gary, you actually believe they're mates.

Tony and Gary weren't mates. They only met because Tony came about the room for rent. I don't know if Gary and Dermot were friends before living together but I can see them being from the same school and growing up together. Gary's Dad was very old school/public school/middle class type. So I can believe in Gary and the slightly toff Dermot coming from the same place together.

Tony is just a bad influence on Gary. He's lazy and encourages the idea of shagging about. Where Gary has a stable job and a long term relationship.

All of that said I wouldn't say the show was better with Enfield. You'd be mental to think that.

Andy147

Brittas Empire went downhill when Laura (Julia St John) was replaced by Penny in series 6, although that might have been more because the original writers (Fegen and Norriss) left.

a duncandisorderly

'dallas' without barbara bel geddes was weird, but. weirder having the wrong miss ellie than any of the other weird stuff that happened, like jock vanishing or bobby dying then coming back because it was all a bad dream, a whole season....  I have the whole lot on DVD & keep meaning to rip them all for my commute, but it's overwhelming... chore... there's fourteen seasons. three hundred & fifty seven episodes. that's about three years of commute.

Brundle-Fly

Are You Being Served? lost popular long-serving characters: Mr Lucas, Mr Grainger and Young Mr Grace. They were replaced near the end of the show's tenure by: Mr Spooner, Mr Tebbs (who was replaced by Mr Goldberg) and Old Mr Grace.

It hobbled on for a couple of series but was axed in 1985 when Miss Brahms suddenly left Grace Brothers to go to work at a laundrette in London E20.

And Mr Spooner went into composing music for ZX Spectrum computer games. No, really.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-pHQICBxw5o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fNoqq9Vfc0g


neveragain

Quote from: MuteBanana on December 09, 2018, 01:31:10 PM
Tony and Gary weren't mates. They only met because Tony came about the room for rent.

Tony is just a bad influence on Gary. He's lazy and encourages the idea of shagging about. Where Gary has a stable job and a long term relationship.

All true but they quickly became mates. They enjoyed spending time with each other, getting drunk and pissing about. Something I can't imagine Gary doing with Dermot.
And yes, Gary had a stable job but a big part of the series was his inability to grow up, which Tony certainly helped.

St_Eddie

Quote from: MuteBanana on December 09, 2018, 01:31:10 PM
All of that said I wouldn't say the show was better with Enfield. You'd be mental to think that.

I'd argue against that but I can't, as I'm too busy fine tuning my tinfoil hat.

BlodwynPig

didn't know Enfield was in series 1 of MBB. I never watched the show - obnoxious characters, but I just skimmed the first episode with Enfield and would like to present this to the jury as evidence of the changing of the televisual guard. Bergerac was nearly finished, TotU dead in the water, a new televisual perspective was emerging - a self-referential,  cool-ironic, hyper-emotional and egotistical televisual period was upon us.

Lisa Jesusandmarychain

" Cuckoo " s a weird one. They keep changing the fucking principle character, don't they ? I mean, they're getting in Andie McDowell for the next 'Un, are they not.

Just fucking odd.

billyandthecloneasaurus


Brundle-Fly

Bewitched.

Dick Sergeant replaced the ailing Dick York as Darren for the final three seasons which suggests the audience didn't mind too much.

cliggg

Quote from: ajsmith2 on December 09, 2018, 08:59:35 AM
I know I'm in a minority who thinks that season 8, with James Spader playing completely against Steve Carells type of boss, was excellent. One of my favourite seasons. The ensemble cast was easily strong enough to survive the loss of Carell imo. But then they made several bad bad mistakes for season 9, like trying to shoehorn Catherine Tate in as a sympathetic regular, turning Toby into a creep, and Andy back into an asshole. S9 had its moments but was a poorer show overall. But I thought S8 wasn't worse, just refreshingly different from the Carell years.
I agree with that, Spader was brilliant and really I thought Carell could have left even earlier as I thought the show was too reliant on him.

Quote from: Small Man Big Horse on December 09, 2018, 11:49:10 AM
I partially agree as I really liked James Spader's character but felt the series as a whole took a nosedive, Jim and Pam became much more irritating and some of the other characters began annoying.
I really liked Jim, I think he was a bully from the very start.

Tony Yeboah

Last of the Summer Wine. Think Wallace was in it all the way through but the others kept changing. It didn't matter because there was no character development despite it lasting decades- each episode was a slight tweak of a simple, but effective, template.

Phil_A

Quote from: Tony Yeboah on December 10, 2018, 12:12:14 AM
Last of the Summer Wine. Think Wallace was in it all the way through but the others kept changing. It didn't matter because there was no character development despite it lasting decades- each episode was a slight tweak of a simple, but effective, template.

After Bill Owen died and Sallis became too old to do very much, it basically became a revolving door of aging light ent personalities. I remember Burt Kwouk and Russ Abbott were in there at one point.

What gets me is it was 1999 Owen passed away, and the show lasted long enough to do an episode marking ten years since his death. And it wasn't cancelled for another two years after that! Fucking hell.

I always had it in my head that I wanted to write a final episode for the show in which it's revealed Holmfirth is actually a kind of Prisoner village for retired comedy actors, and any attempt to escape is thwarted by a deadly fleet of tin baths on wheels.