TV Character Replacements

When you lose a leading actor on a popular television show that has been running for some years, there are different ways of moving forward. Let’s go back some decades to compare and contrast – I’m thinking of the comedy-homemaker series ‘Bewitched’ from the 1960s, the comedy-war series M.A.S.H. also from the 60s, and the somewhat existential comedy-nature-romance series ‘Northern Exposure’ of the 1990s.

In Bewitched, the story revolves around Samantha and Darrin, a young married couple. It was a popular show, and viewers got to know the characters well. After a few years, however, the actor who played Darrin was no longer available. The response of the producers was to not change anything at all, but just find another actor of similar appearance – like you might do in theater productions on Broadway – to replace the former actor in the role. So Samantha still had a husband, same name and similar looks, but it was not the same person. Life - or the show - went on.

In M.A.S.H., an actor who played Trapper John, Dr. Hawkeye Pierce’s best buddy, left the show. Instead of keeping the character Trapper John using a different actor, the producers adjusted the plot. The Trapper John character gets discharged, gets to leave the war and return home to the states. A new character - Doctor BJ Honeycutt - shows up to work alongside Hawkeye – somewhat similar in appearance and behavior to the former friend, but with his own name and separate history. When Col. Henry Blake gets discharged on the show (because the actor is moving on), Col. Sherman Potter, a very different kind of crusty, kind-hearted commander, fills in the gap. As a viewer, I found this more easy to adjust to than the ‘Bewitched’ decision. The entry of a new character was more honest – natural and believable – than pretending the original character was still the same human being when he was not. In Bewitched, the new actor in the husband role was more serious, less flexible, and understandably seemed to have no vestige of a real relationship with his ‘wife’ Samantha, unlike the first actor whose rapport with the lead actress was strong.

Northern Exposure’s lead actor, who played Dr. Joel Fleischman, decided to depart from the show. A new character was introduced, but with him came a different plot line that shifted the program considerably. He was a doctor so afraid of germs that he lived in a bubble he constructed for himself, wearing gloves and surgical masks for everyday tasks. As a viewer, I was a little jarred. The change was up-front – this was no attempt to copy Dr. Fleischman - the new plot was very interesting, but the world that Northern Exposure had created around Joel crumbled somewhat. The new fellow soon found his niche, and the storyline and the other characters were still great, but truthfully, it was a new and unfamiliar world.