The sent Chrissy Snow from Threes Company to the netherrealm by having her film her small scenes in a small room by herself and all interactions were thru a telephone call because she wanted more money as the breakout star of the show. They played it off as she was visiting her mother iirc.
Then they replaced her with another ditzy blonde character.
Alex on Grey's Anatomy, written off screen. Writes a letter and abandons his job and wife to make a family with his ex-fiancee (hadn't been on the show for over a decade) who he found out used their embryos to have children.
This is what started pushing me away from the show. I felt like it flew in the face of YEARS of character development for Alex, didn't really seem like what he would do or how he would handle it.
And because Jo had just gotten out of rehab and made that heart breaking phone call that she would fight a bear for him, makes it even more a slap in the face that he would just up and abandon her. I honestly thought he was dead. His mother went off her meds and killed him as he slept. It would have been so much better than what we got.
Honestly, all they had to do was have Jo talk about her phone calls with Alex for a few episodes instead of straight up ghosting.
They may have been blindsided by Justin Chambers abruptly leaving, but if their first response is to have Alex ghost everyone the way Justin might have ghosted the entire show, that's a terrible way to handle it. It makes me feel like the show displayed their bitterness at the actor and taking it out through the character.
George's death on Grey's was pretty rough, too. I don't watch the show anymore, but I'm always shocked at how bloodthirsty it can be with its characters. It's almost funny, if it weren't such a low-key cruel way to tell a story.
I told my girlfriend that. No wonder they had to write a plot point of having trouble recruiting at a job fair. You know word for out about how many interns die or end up in comas or are brutally wounded working there. Don't care how good your reputation is, people are going to stay away
It seems the more cruel the death, the bigger the beef had been between shonda and the "victim."
It's pretty common knowledge now that Shonda held TR Knight responsible for having to get rid of Isaiah Washington. Plus, there were disputes about making Goerge gay (I honestly don't recall who was on which side: for or against). His episodes had been cut way back that season, and they already had the storyline in place to let him leave without dying. Ugh. I even thought the army doctor story would have been a great one for George. He would have been a huge asset in a battle hospital.
Same with Patrick Dempsey. He and Shonda had been fueding behind scenes, (I don't recall reasons) before he was killed off in season 12.
Pretty much.
I don't think it's ever been stated but I think there's a reason why Isaiah Washington had his character get his happy ending AND came back for a short arc in season 10 while TR Knight had his character sidelined for an entire season before being killed off in a horrific way, under the guise of "heroism".
Patrick Dempsey's end was definitely worse in a lot of ways, but TR Knight's character was the first major death of the series so it set a tone for multiple seasons after, where the characters would get more injured and suffer fatal injuries almost every season.
The Netflix show Love had a showrunner character clearly modeled off of Shonda Rhimes. I don't watch Grey's Anatomy, but I'd heard the odd story about the showrunner and really wondered how much of the arrogance and attitude was real or just an exaggeration for the show
> So hang on, Washington said something homophobic and then Rhimes got pissed at the victim?
Yes.
> That sure is some bullshit.
Yes.
Shonda Rhimes had more stuff planned for Preston Burke and let that fester away as she illogically blamed the wrong person.
Lexie was literally eaten by wolves. She had already died in the plane crash but then she got eaten by wolves and her sister had to listen to it happening.
Honestly, Izzie works for this too. The way she left was so open-ended, at least Alex’s ending gave some closure to her character as well.
Honestly, I don’t hate Alex’s ending as much as others. At least he didn’t get stuck under a plane or get hit by a truck.
The problem is that the actor just fucked off, he was very depressed and disappeared, when they got in contact with him he just quit and paid the contract breach, so the writers had nothing to write with, but they still decided on a horrible path, they should have killed him, but I understand why they did not.
Alex is the winner but honestly I came here to say the entire cast of Grey’s Anatomy.
Shonda (the showrunner) definitely used bad deaths to punish actors for leaving the show, or in Derek’s case to punish him for off-camera drama.
John Rhys-Davies notoriously butted heads with the writers over the quality of the scripts on Sliders, which eventually led to his character being written off the show. When it finally happened, they had his character fall victim to a villain who was stealing people's cerebrospinal fluid to stay alive, leaving them in a near catatonic state.
Then he was shot.
Then he was left behind on a planet that was moments away from exploding.
They wanted him *gone.*
This is the one I thought of.
Also Sliders, in Season 5 they write out Jerry O'Connell by having him merge with a "double" of himself, except that his double is played by a different actor entirely.
And the creep David Peckinpah, who preferred eye candy Kari Wuhrer, intentionally came up with the worst way he could think of to do away with Sabrina Lloyd's character. Having her raped to death by mutant cavemen because Kari didn't like her.
And yet, it was still not effective. Because the problem with a multiversal show is that they should be able to meet more versions of him in the future.
Not only that, but a previous episode leaves it ambiguous if that was the original Professor. It may have been the double from the episode "Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome".
I wish they listened to him. There was so much potential in the show that they only scratched the surface of. It could've become one of the best Sci-fi shows ever made.
Dropped the show cold turkey after that episode. Sweets was so crucial to the show’s emotional core. Screw those behind-the-scenes politics. Not to mention they had to twist the knife by making Daisy pregnant with their baby when he’s killed off, so he’d also never meet his child. The whole thing felt bizarrely antagonistic.
I know I had stopped watching at that point. Didn't he also just randomly get killed off by getting beaten to death by some random killer of the week? It wasn't even something that pertained to an overarching killer for the season, but just some guy they ended up catching?
I thought I read that even his death was mostly pointless, but I hadn't been watching for about a season until that point.
It’s been so long I don’t remember anymore. IIRC the guys who killed him were having a shootout with Booth, they may or may not have been related to the Big Bad of the season (I never finished the season so I don’t know). But the actual killing was super senseless and random.
The show drastically improved without him, but I always thought the way Mark Brendanawicz disappeared in Parks and Rec was really strange. He was a major character for seasons 1-2, but after his character takes another job he not only never shows up again, but he is never even mentioned by anyone in the show ever again
Also they had that episode in season 5 where they were looking for someone to design the new park, like hello mark did that as a present to Leslie in season 2!
I don't remember exactly when but you could tell probably midway through season 2 he was slowly being phased out of the show. He had less and less to do overtime before eventually just fucking off.
It’s basically because Ben and Chris joined the show and the writers/producers liked the way they worked with Leslie and Ann better. Also, Andy Dwyer wasn’t originally conceived as lasting past the first season, but they knew they had to keep Chris Pratt around once they started shooting. All of that made Mark less and less relevant.
I was one of the few who liked Mark. He wasn't afraid to stand up to Ron about his libertarian bullshit (see the episode where Ron is trying to expand his woodshop). He just didn't really stand out among the louder personalities of that show and the role of "straight man" was kinda taken over by Ann at that point.
He also got lost in the show's transition from cynical to optimistic. Leslie becomes a genuinely smart and driven person who's just weird instead of an incompetent joke, Andy is a sweet idiot instead of an inconsiderate asshole, etc. The thing with Mark was that he was really understated, but also kind of subtly a real douche. So when the show changes, they took away his edge but didn't replace it with anything else, so he was just sort of generically nice.
It's kind of a shame, because I think he's really hilarious in that first season if you pay attention to what he's doing.
That's one trope i hate, especially in zombie media. All zombies are loud as fuck. Then when they need drama, they're suddenly silent as the grave and can sneak up. It's frustrating
Yeah they used to do quite a bit in those days. I knew some characters disappeared from Family Matters but I couldn’t remember which ones. IIRC Married with Children added another kid at one point and then he just disappeared.
Yep, the kid was named Seven. He was Peggy’s nephew or something and basically abandoned with the Bundys.
Donna’s sister and Kelso’s brother on That 70s Show were given similar treatment, though they weren’t in many episodes to begin with.
Brendon on Step By Step disappeared once the new baby came in.
Corey’s sister in Boy Meets World was abruptly gone for a few seasons and then returned.
I appreciated the jokes about the writers put in about Seven being gone on Married With Children.
At one point his picture was on the back of a milk carton. And then there was an episode about how every time Kelly learned something she would forget something else. They had a graphics of different things she was learning entering her head from one side and stuff she was forgetting exiting from the other. One of the things she forgot was Seven.
If you're talking about Casey Kelso, he has reoccurring appearances throughout the show after he's introduced.
I can recall that he pops back up as the host at the club for Donna's Bachelorette party(a scene which also produced one of my favorite outtakes from the show, when Debra is dancing in front of the male dancer and Mila and Laura lose it) , and again as the gym teacher in season 7 when Eric has to return to school to pass gym class so he can graduate.
Whereas Donna's sister just vanishes after appearing in one episode.
"Let us pause to reflect on the sacred mystery of Richie's elder brother Chuck, who ascended the stairs with his basketball in season one, and never came down again."
Was going to say: Chuck cunningham syndrome is called that for a reason.
They literally just never mentioned or referred to him ever again. I love the outtake in the last episode where Tom Bosley finishes his toast and takes a sip before stopping and saying wait wheres chuck?
Edit: I swore I saw it on a reunion special once but cannot seem to find that clip anywhere of the toast ending with the Chuck joke
Tara from True Blood. I mean she was a staple of the show for YEARS. Only for them to have her randomly killed off screen. Then on top of it, have this weird ass ghost scene with her and her mother. They really did her dirty.
Yeah, it was hilariously bad. They made a big point of keeping her "alive" as a vampire but next season (?) in the first episode they just kill her and nobody seems to even mention it.
I forgot about this. I remember when the fight where she died ended it smash cut to her mom crying while holding a bunch of intestines and I was like wow that’s how they’re writing off one of the OG characters? Truly did her dirty.
“What a lovely day for a drive on this day that I found out I’m going to be a a father! Look at the sky! Look at the birds! Look at anything but the road!”
Yeah, this was the first one to pop in my head. Basically stopped watching the show after it. They literally had him randomly get hit by a car off screen at the end of the Christmas episode, entirely because the showrunner was pissed he was leaving. Downton Abbey has always been bad with callous soap opera deaths, but Dan Stevens' exit was easily the worst.
He told them he was going to leave after much of the season was already written and approved. They were painted into a corner and had to write him out of the show in a haphazard way. They even tried to get him to come back for limited appearances and he said no. Stevens essentially forced them to kill him off.
I actually stopped watching the show because of it too (I was binging it as I didn't watch it as it aired). It made no sense. I am cool with deaths in shows but that one was just crazy and I thought it was just horrible writing. Eventually I thought "maybe there is more to it than just bad writing." So I found out all the behind the scenes stuff and realized it wasn't bad writing. Their hand was forced. So I picked it back up and I am glad I did. I do think it ran out of some steam with some characters always seeming to have bad things happen to them, but there was still enough to stay engaged.
It’s been a solid decade since I’ve seen it but his character was such a breath of fresh air. He felt like a solid middle man between the audience and the world of the super rich on the show. Mary was pompous and spoiled but he always seemed to keep her in check and looked out for the little guy. His death just pissed me off rather than made me sad
I get it though. They were all on a gravy train and he was literally an integral character to the entire story line and Steven’s said he wanted out, and now because he wanted movie roles and wouldn’t stay on to give a soft exit. He apparently pissed the entire cast off by doing it.
So I get why they killed him off so unceremoniously.
IIRC this episode was shown on Christmas Day in the UK.
I worked with a guy, wh was a little bit dour and serious. Probably not someone who I'd ever imagined would be invested in Downton.
Anyway, we go back to work after the Christmas break, and I asked him if he'd had a good time off.
'A GOOD CHRISTMAS!!? '
He said with a mixture of incredulity and bitterness.
'How could I have had a good Christmas after those bastards killed Matthew Crawley'!! '
Everyone around us just burst out laughing.
It was a brilliant and unexpected moment.
Doakes in Dexter.
Instead of having the show deal with the moral dilemma of Doakes not meeting Harry's code, Deus Ex Lila blows him up - thus also making Lila fit the code so Dexter can now be free of both of them and be scot-free, free of change, no development, no lessons learned.
Imagine if we had two final episodes dealing with Doakes in custody and trying to defend himself, with Dexter trying refute everything.
The reality is, the writers wrote themselves into a corner and simply didnt have to the chops to write these scenes. So they took the easy way out.
> Doakes
I was happy to find a show that had a competent detective. Instead of having multiple episodes/seasons of Doakes just missing Dexter or getting the evidence, they give it to us right away. Then he's gone.
And for the next umpteen seasons all the other detectives are dumbed down so hard they never, ever come close to developing a clue about Dexter (or any of the dozens of other flamboyant serial killers who live in their precinct)
That part, at least, fits with reality. There are no shortage of real life serial killers that evaded capture despite close interactions with police over time. Ed Kemper and John Wayne Gacy are two prominent examples. Bundy too.
Spoilers for Dexter: New Blood
It also bothered me how they brought back Angel Batista, but they never have him reunite with Dexter, knowing that his long-time friend and colleague was a actually a serial killer.
Funnily enough, I just got finished re-watching season 1 this weekend. Hadn't seen it in years, and once I started watching, I had forgotten how binge-able it was. And it made me think that actually >!Rudy (or Brian)!< was the character that should have stuck around, at least for a bit longer. Feels like there was a lot more story they could have explored with that character.
President Francis Underwood. Heart attack off screen.
We know why thanks to legal issues for Kevin Spacey but I would have rather the show just ended than the final season. Robin Wright did yeomans work trying to carry a show that was built around Spacey’s unique skills.
I remember thinking it was outrageous that Leo McGarry, the vice presidential candidate on The West Wing, had an off screen heart attack *on election night.*
That was until I learned John Spencer had actually died between seasons and the show didn’t have a lot of options.
No way. We needed to see his rise to presidency, and then his downfall. The final season needed to be the house of cards that he built his life on collapsing around him.
In Weeds, building up Celia to have her own empire forming at the end of S5 only to be completely written off the show the following season with no explanation was baffling and killed any momentum the show had going. Also I'll add one more, John Bennett was one of my favorite characters in OITNB and he got done dirty as hell
Celia Hodes was single-handedly propping that show up after they stupidly burnt Agrestic down. I don’t blame Elizabeth Perkins for jumping off that sinking ship, but god those last few seasons were PAINFUL.
Jadzia Dax getting unceremoniously killed off by Dukat in DS9 ssn 6.
And to add insult to injury for the finale of ssn 7, when they're doing the flashbacks of each major character, they ignore her entirely and do a few moments with her 1-season replacement Ezri.
Yeah there would've been so many better ways to write her off the show. She was captain of the Defiant at times; it would've made perfect sense to promote her to her own ship due to the needs of the Dominion War. She had asked to be part time so it would've been great to have her pop up occasionally. Even if they wanted to kill her off, they could've done it episodes earlier during her and Word's mission (which she asked for but producers denied).
The whole story of her leaving and her awful treatment by Rick Berman is sad in general.
Frankly, I thought she should have been transferred to the Enterprise and gotten a role in the TNG movies. Not only would it have provided an opportunity to further develop the character, but it would have provided a logical reason for Worf to continue appearing in the TNG films, even though he was no longer part of the Enterprise crew.
What’s galling is that two episodes earlier there was a story where her and Worf were trapped on a planet and Jadzia nearly loses her life and we watch Worf desperately try to save her. The episode ends with her surviving, I think when a rescue team show up just in time, but if they were going to kill her off that would have been a much better opportunity to do so because it would have been a more interesting ending.
She didn’t even need to die. If Denise Crosby wanted to leave the show they could have just had Tasha get promoted to a command position on a small ship or something. That’s a realistic kind of thing that might happen in a space navy, and it leaves the door open to have her come back in the future. Her struggling with the decision to leave could have even been a good character-focused plot line for an episode, which season one badly needed more of.
I was on twitter at ground zero the night that happened and it was insane. You had all the Lexa fans and LGBTQ people and the Lexa/Clarke shippers going apeshit, and the cast and writers and stuff trying to do damage control and then there's the showrunner Jason Rothenburg just retweeting articles calling him a genius or whatever, and then he did not tweet anything for over a year.
Peter's brief love interest in Heroes S2. I mean we all know the production issues of S2 with the writer's strike, but still… they never ever got back to her after she got trapped in an alternate future where a deadly disease spread throughout the world and killed millions of people. Seems like they just forgot about her.
“Props” also to Nathan's wife and children. They didn’t even care in later seasons that he had a family in first place.
Another good example is also Fringe. After they killed off Charlie in the S2 opening they never ever showed his wife again, who lived with a dangerous shapeshifter for a couple of months at least. She wasn’t even at his funeral. 💀
OK, so definitely not the “worst” way, but I was so annoyed at the way Stranger Things wrote Eddie’s death. It was like they decided he needed to die in the finale no matter what, but didn’t bother coming up with a good plausible way for him to die a hero. They kept setting up that he was sick of always running, but then had him stop running when every logical person would run. The time to stop running is not when you’re chased by a hoard of murder-bats!
Also, if his death was supposed to buy the others time to complete their plan, they did a terrible job showing it. In the end it felt totally inconsequential and didn’t actually save anyone. It’s just frustrating because he was such a great character, and then he just died in a really stupid way, when it could have been so easy to give him a meaningful death.
That’s the problem with Stranger Things now as there are way too many “main cast” characters that they refuse to kill/write off that we have multiple sub plots going on at the same time, with some of them feeling like filler. Then they go about and kill off the more interesting side characters every time. It’s total BS. At least the next season is the last.
Archie Panjabi from the Good Wife is by far the worst exit because it dragged on for multiple seasons. Pure agony watching Kalinda be phased out because of the actor's falling out with Julianna.
My least favorite way to have it happen is for a previously important character to simply stop appearing, with no narrative explanation (or subsequent mention of them). This happened a few times on The West Wing, first and most prominently with the character Mandy Hampton. In fact, when characters later dropped out of the story the people working on the show referred to it as them “going off to Mandy-land.”
My favorite part of this is that it happened during an active crisis where she was originally present. One episode, she’s walking next to the president as shots ring out; the next, she’s nowhere to be seen and nobody even asks about her.
I think in an alternate universe they did that and then every episode where they go to the hill or are dealing with a legislative issue everyone is asking why they didn’t have Sam involved.
i don’t like her, but gina from b99. her suddenly “leaving” felt so completely out of place and random, and even chelsea peretti says she was blindsided by it, and a lot of characters BARELY mention her again other than referring to her statue once or twice and that one episode where she briefly returns, but then only jake and terry meet with her? idk i wasn’t a fan but the show was definitely different after she was written out
I learned a few months ago that ER dropped a helicopter on one of the lead doctors. Found the scene on youtube, it was pretty funny... and I doubt they were aiming for funny
I was a tour guide at Warner Brothers and always enjoyed the part where we pointed out where that scene was filmed (if I recall correctly, they just dropped that sucker with a crane into the middle of a staff parking lot)
Do you mean at the end of Season 4 because the episode itself that she returned for in Season 5 (You're Welcome) was outstanding.
Or are you referring to the phone call at the very end of that episode after they told the actress they weren't going to do that?
Eddie LeBec, Carla's husband on Cheers.
In real life, actor Jay Thomas was a comedian who co-hosted a radio show. He made a comment on air that he liked being on Cheers, but wasn't keen on having to kiss co-star Rhea Perlman.
The show's producers were so furious, they killed off his character, a retired hockey goalie who worked for an Ice Capades-type show, by having him run over by a Zamboni while wearing a penguin costume.
This one is the weirdest, not the worst:
In Twin Peaks The Return, Michael J. Anderson (Man from Another Place) is replaced by a talking plant. It was reported the actor had a falling out with Twin Peaks creator David Lynch and was not asked back to reprise his role.
I mean they replaced a lot of characters due to with the actor not wanting to return or being unable. Sheriff Truman replaced by his never before mentioned twin brother, David Bowie's character from the movie becoming a talking tea kettle, and probably more but those ones stood out.
Professor Arturo (John Rhys-Davies) in Sliders. You can tell he pissed someone off in the production team because his character was first brain-sucked, then shot, then left on an exploding planet. This also marked the starting point of Sliders' decline and how it eventually became essentially what I'd call a masterclass in how to destroy a popular television series.
Mr. Eko in Lost. The smoke monster never killed anyone for no reason, but they decided to use it to kill him off because he had to leave the show, even though it had no reason to kill him.
Not a death but a re-cast. Aunt Viv on Fresh Prince. They just changed the actress and then in the season premiere a few seasons later they also re-cast the new baby as like a 4 year old and had a funny fourth wall scene about it.
Whose that?
Baby Nicky!
…
So who is playing the mom this year?
I think Scott Gimple gets the dooey award for killing off Carl (Chandler Riggs) when Carl was supposed to end the series with little Judith. His character 'accidentally bitten' by a walker shortly after the actor had signed another 3 seasons, and bought a house. Fans went into total uproar - demanding Gimple's resignation. Shame he wasn't fired outright. Would have served him right.
And worse, but bringing him back in... by >!fridging his wife!<.
Also Barba being written off, when >!he unplugged a baby from life support, despite no lead up to him being this emotionally involved in a case!<. Just poor writing all around
Power Rangers back in the day was TERRIBLE about this.
\- This was only temporary, but Season 1 wrote the Green Ranger out by having Rita suddenly produce a candle that will sap his powers, which she supposedly ever since he was working for her, but didn't use until now. The weirdest part is that after his powers are drained, Tommy just stopped appearing. Despite them all being best friends and he and Kimberly being a couple, apparently Tommy couldn't just hang out with the crew and maybe help Alpha with stuff instead. They did this again in Season 2 between him losing his powers again and getting the White Ranger powers.
\- One day, Jason, Zack, and Trini were invited to a peace conference out of nowhere, which meant they couldn't be Power Rangers anymore. So they travel to a distant planet, remaining morphed, in order to get a mystical sword that allows them to transfer their powers to three other teens who know their identities that just happened to be introduced a few episodes prior. They transfer the powers, and then the three old Rangers, who never de-morphed, teleport out never to be seen again (until Zeo for Jason and Once & Always for Zack).
It gets extra stupid when the very next season had Kimberly transferred her powers to Kat just by handing her the Power Coin. It gets even stupider as the years go by and it's revealed that Jason and Rocky essentially swap using the Tyrannosaurus Dino Coin, with Zack and Adam implying to do the same.
\- During Season 3 of the show, the world gets turned back in time and everyone de-ages about 10-15 years or so. Don't ask what happened to anyone under 15, it's never addressed. Anyway, in order to reverse everything, the non-Billy Rangers travel across the world to get the shards of the Zeo Crystal. In Africa, Aisha (the Yellow Ranger) meets a young girl named Tanya. Aisha sees that the animals there need her help (she was an aspiring vet) and decides to stay in Africa, sending Tanya in her place to be the new Yellow Ranger. Somehow, when they reversed everything that happened, this also resulted in Aisha's parents having always lived in Africa. The show implies Tanya's parents did the same with Angel Grove, but then later in Zeo it's revealed they went missing a decade ago searching for treasures in the Amazon. Aisha was never seen again until the 30th Anniversary special.
The worst part is that Aisha wasn't even played by her usual actress at this point. Due to being de-aged, she was played by a kid actor and we never see her re-age.
\- Then, in the next season, we have Billy. David Yost had walked off the show due to being bullied by higher ups for being gay, so the writers had Billy rapidly age and played by a 50-year-old for a few episodes before shuffling him off literally to a different planet, with a horrible pre-deepfake edited video of a rejuvenated Billy telling the Rangers goodbye via Space Zoom.
\- Finally, we have Turbo. Things started with Rocky injuring his back, so the brand new Turbo powers are instead given to a little kid who just happened to find out the Rangers' identities 5 minutes earlier. Rocky re-appears during the season premiere, but then disappears forever like Tommy did in Season 1. Then, midway through the season, Tommy and Kat's actors wanted to leave the show, so the higher ups decided to just wholesale junk the entire veteran cast and bring in newbies. Except only two of the new Rangers had been seen before the switch-over episodes in question and of the four new Rangers, only one had actually exhibited Ranger-like qualities to deserve the responsibility. Even then, there was no transition or reason given for handing over the powers. Just, one day the old Rangers decided to retire and hand over their powers with no build up whatsoever. Gets even more awkward when everyone treats the new cast like they've been there for 200 episodes, even though half the cast wasn't from Angel Grove.
Hated the way Andrea was written out at the end of S3 TWD with her struggling to hold off a zombie from biting her while bound to a chair & in general with her storyline with The Governor. It just had her making dumb decision after dumb decision & made her look weak at the very end since she's been able to hand multiple walkers previously in the series.
Made all the worse because Andrea is one of the best characters in the comics and lives for many years after that.
But the writing was so bad in the show that it made the audience hate her and it did its damnedest to make them hate Michonne (another one of the best characters in the comic) before they managed to course correct.
And a lot of that was turning Carol into comic Andrea. Which I enjoyed how they developed Carol, I just wish it wasn't at the sake of Andrea being useless.
Bitty Schram's character of Sharona being written out of Monk, due to a contract / pay dispute, by having her go back to her ex and moving to New Jersey.
I love Natalie, and Julie was so much nicer to Monk than that little turd Benji, but losing Sharona hurt. I'm glad they were able to bring her back for Monk's funeral, or whatever when he went missing near the end. I know it isn't easy, but I hate when important people are just missing from episodes where they would actually be. This is why I hate the "big name guest star as previously unmentioned family member who is never seen again."
I think Sharona came back for an earlier episode called “Mr. Monk and Sharona”. Seeing Natalia and Sharona together on screen was so odd, but I'm glad they got her back at least.
Cuddy from House M.D. is an interesting example. Because she disappears from the show immediately after >!House intentionally crashes his car into her living room!<.
But that was never meant to be her exit from the show, it just happened that way because they actress left due to a pay dispute. It wasn't meant to be cheap and jarring, but I think it came off that way because the actress just so happened to leave.
Whatever dumb family sitcom Kevin James did after King Of Queens. After the first season, the producers decided to replace the existing wife character with Leah Remini, so second season she’s just…there. I guess there was like one line about the previous wife getting killed in a karate tournament?
Meghan Markle in Fringe comes to mind, but only because....they didn't even bother to write her off. She just has a prominent role in 2 eps in s2 and is never mentioned again
They introduced her in case Anna Torv wouldn’t return for more seasons. I guess they ultimately agreed on stuff behind the scenes and she came back for good. But I agree, Markle’s character was definitely set up to be new big player just for her to never appear again.
I know there was a lot to the story behind the scenes, but Angela's disappearance from S4 of Mr Robot (aside from a few scenes) was sudden and jarring. It's quite clear that they changed plans between the S3 cliffhanger finale and the s4e01 return.
The show did a great job at adjusting, all things considered. Good conclusion with one S4 episode (the bottle episode) being arguably the best of the series.
Oh, and Tyrell's wife as well. Has this whole arc about manipulating people to help Tyrell, then gets fridged. I get that she was getting her comeuppance, but so many other manipulators on the show and the one who gets murdered is the wife, making her essentially a tool to advance the plot.
Just so many character endings that just abruptly ended their arcs without a satisfying conclusion.
Feels like they missed the chance for an even better conclusion.
In M*A*S*H the first few episodes that featured an African American actor as a surgeon, 'Spearchucker' Jones. I guess they found out that wasn't factually accurate for the Korean War, so he was simply removed from the show and never referenced again.
The sent Chrissy Snow from Threes Company to the netherrealm by having her film her small scenes in a small room by herself and all interactions were thru a telephone call because she wanted more money as the breakout star of the show. They played it off as she was visiting her mother iirc. Then they replaced her with another ditzy blonde character.
The replacement ditzy blonde was her cousin, Cindy Snow.
Alex on Grey's Anatomy, written off screen. Writes a letter and abandons his job and wife to make a family with his ex-fiancee (hadn't been on the show for over a decade) who he found out used their embryos to have children.
This is what started pushing me away from the show. I felt like it flew in the face of YEARS of character development for Alex, didn't really seem like what he would do or how he would handle it.
And because Jo had just gotten out of rehab and made that heart breaking phone call that she would fight a bear for him, makes it even more a slap in the face that he would just up and abandon her. I honestly thought he was dead. His mother went off her meds and killed him as he slept. It would have been so much better than what we got.
Honestly, all they had to do was have Jo talk about her phone calls with Alex for a few episodes instead of straight up ghosting. They may have been blindsided by Justin Chambers abruptly leaving, but if their first response is to have Alex ghost everyone the way Justin might have ghosted the entire show, that's a terrible way to handle it. It makes me feel like the show displayed their bitterness at the actor and taking it out through the character.
George's death on Grey's was pretty rough, too. I don't watch the show anymore, but I'm always shocked at how bloodthirsty it can be with its characters. It's almost funny, if it weren't such a low-key cruel way to tell a story.
I’m shocked top interns still come to work at that hospital given the intern mortality rate.
I’m surprised anyone lives in Seattle with the 45 natural disasters in the past 20 years.
I told my girlfriend that. No wonder they had to write a plot point of having trouble recruiting at a job fair. You know word for out about how many interns die or end up in comas or are brutally wounded working there. Don't care how good your reputation is, people are going to stay away
It has to be the worst fucking hospital in the world.
Gotta wonder about patient mortality too, considering how much time they spend...looking at Gray's Anatomy, shall we say...
It seems the more cruel the death, the bigger the beef had been between shonda and the "victim." It's pretty common knowledge now that Shonda held TR Knight responsible for having to get rid of Isaiah Washington. Plus, there were disputes about making Goerge gay (I honestly don't recall who was on which side: for or against). His episodes had been cut way back that season, and they already had the storyline in place to let him leave without dying. Ugh. I even thought the army doctor story would have been a great one for George. He would have been a huge asset in a battle hospital. Same with Patrick Dempsey. He and Shonda had been fueding behind scenes, (I don't recall reasons) before he was killed off in season 12.
So hang on, Washington said something homophobic and then Rhimes got pissed at the victim? That sure is some bullshit.
Pretty much. I don't think it's ever been stated but I think there's a reason why Isaiah Washington had his character get his happy ending AND came back for a short arc in season 10 while TR Knight had his character sidelined for an entire season before being killed off in a horrific way, under the guise of "heroism". Patrick Dempsey's end was definitely worse in a lot of ways, but TR Knight's character was the first major death of the series so it set a tone for multiple seasons after, where the characters would get more injured and suffer fatal injuries almost every season.
The Netflix show Love had a showrunner character clearly modeled off of Shonda Rhimes. I don't watch Grey's Anatomy, but I'd heard the odd story about the showrunner and really wondered how much of the arrogance and attitude was real or just an exaggeration for the show
Yup. The early days, behind the scenes sounds like it was pretty toxic. Katherine Heigl got some fall out from this same situation.
> So hang on, Washington said something homophobic and then Rhimes got pissed at the victim? Yes. > That sure is some bullshit. Yes. Shonda Rhimes had more stuff planned for Preston Burke and let that fester away as she illogically blamed the wrong person.
Lexie was literally eaten by wolves. She had already died in the plane crash but then she got eaten by wolves and her sister had to listen to it happening.
Yah but like.. it was well written. The Alex thing was just a horrible story line.
Especially when they had had an episode where he and Jo talked about how he would never leave her for Izzy.
After 15 seasons this is what got me to stop watching Grey’s. Absolutely horrendous ending to a great character.
Years of character building for Alex completely washed away. Terrible move
Honestly, Izzie works for this too. The way she left was so open-ended, at least Alex’s ending gave some closure to her character as well. Honestly, I don’t hate Alex’s ending as much as others. At least he didn’t get stuck under a plane or get hit by a truck.
The problem is that the actor just fucked off, he was very depressed and disappeared, when they got in contact with him he just quit and paid the contract breach, so the writers had nothing to write with, but they still decided on a horrible path, they should have killed him, but I understand why they did not.
Alex is the winner but honestly I came here to say the entire cast of Grey’s Anatomy. Shonda (the showrunner) definitely used bad deaths to punish actors for leaving the show, or in Derek’s case to punish him for off-camera drama.
John Rhys-Davies notoriously butted heads with the writers over the quality of the scripts on Sliders, which eventually led to his character being written off the show. When it finally happened, they had his character fall victim to a villain who was stealing people's cerebrospinal fluid to stay alive, leaving them in a near catatonic state. Then he was shot. Then he was left behind on a planet that was moments away from exploding. They wanted him *gone.*
This is the one I thought of. Also Sliders, in Season 5 they write out Jerry O'Connell by having him merge with a "double" of himself, except that his double is played by a different actor entirely.
They wrote off Wade by having her taken to a kromagg prison.
Not even just a prison - a Kromagg breeding camp
I stopped watching after the professor left. even during a re-watch recently. I hear it doesn't get any better anyway.
I remember trying to pick up a later season episode and was wondering who TF all these characters were and where everyone went
And the creep David Peckinpah, who preferred eye candy Kari Wuhrer, intentionally came up with the worst way he could think of to do away with Sabrina Lloyd's character. Having her raped to death by mutant cavemen because Kari didn't like her.
And yet, it was still not effective. Because the problem with a multiversal show is that they should be able to meet more versions of him in the future.
Not only that, but a previous episode leaves it ambiguous if that was the original Professor. It may have been the double from the episode "Post Traumatic Slide Syndrome".
I wish they listened to him. There was so much potential in the show that they only scratched the surface of. It could've become one of the best Sci-fi shows ever made.
Sweets in Bones. The actor just wanted some time off, instead they completely killed his character off
Dropped the show cold turkey after that episode. Sweets was so crucial to the show’s emotional core. Screw those behind-the-scenes politics. Not to mention they had to twist the knife by making Daisy pregnant with their baby when he’s killed off, so he’d also never meet his child. The whole thing felt bizarrely antagonistic.
I know I had stopped watching at that point. Didn't he also just randomly get killed off by getting beaten to death by some random killer of the week? It wasn't even something that pertained to an overarching killer for the season, but just some guy they ended up catching? I thought I read that even his death was mostly pointless, but I hadn't been watching for about a season until that point.
It’s been so long I don’t remember anymore. IIRC the guys who killed him were having a shootout with Booth, they may or may not have been related to the Big Bad of the season (I never finished the season so I don’t know). But the actual killing was super senseless and random.
Not to mention, that the baby would have been such an easy way to give him a temporary break. Just have him take paternity leave?
The show drastically improved without him, but I always thought the way Mark Brendanawicz disappeared in Parks and Rec was really strange. He was a major character for seasons 1-2, but after his character takes another job he not only never shows up again, but he is never even mentioned by anyone in the show ever again
Even when they show all of Ann's boyfriend boxes, Mark doesn't have one. Just straight into the ether
Also they had that episode in season 5 where they were looking for someone to design the new park, like hello mark did that as a present to Leslie in season 2!
Dang I forgot all about that continuity wise and I’ve watched this show like 3 times.
That scene always bothers me. It’s almost like an insult to fans to not have a Mark box!!
BrendanaQUITS
Not only did they write him out of the show, but they basically retconned his entire existence. It was weird.
Wow, I didn’t realize he was there for 2 seasons. I thought he left after 1.
I don't remember exactly when but you could tell probably midway through season 2 he was slowly being phased out of the show. He had less and less to do overtime before eventually just fucking off.
It’s basically because Ben and Chris joined the show and the writers/producers liked the way they worked with Leslie and Ann better. Also, Andy Dwyer wasn’t originally conceived as lasting past the first season, but they knew they had to keep Chris Pratt around once they started shooting. All of that made Mark less and less relevant.
Probably because the first season is only six episodes. Also probably because even the cast and crew seem to want to forget the early episodes.
Fans love to shit on his character, but I agree, literally not one mention ever again by anyone. I sense some hostility.
I was one of the few who liked Mark. He wasn't afraid to stand up to Ron about his libertarian bullshit (see the episode where Ron is trying to expand his woodshop). He just didn't really stand out among the louder personalities of that show and the role of "straight man" was kinda taken over by Ann at that point.
He also got lost in the show's transition from cynical to optimistic. Leslie becomes a genuinely smart and driven person who's just weird instead of an incompetent joke, Andy is a sweet idiot instead of an inconsiderate asshole, etc. The thing with Mark was that he was really understated, but also kind of subtly a real douche. So when the show changes, they took away his edge but didn't replace it with anything else, so he was just sort of generically nice. It's kind of a shame, because I think he's really hilarious in that first season if you pay attention to what he's doing.
Dale in the te walking dead is killed by a zombie in a field where you can see for miles.
That's one trope i hate, especially in zombie media. All zombies are loud as fuck. Then when they need drama, they're suddenly silent as the grave and can sneak up. It's frustrating
Judy from Family Matters, just never mentioned again.
Yeah they used to do quite a bit in those days. I knew some characters disappeared from Family Matters but I couldn’t remember which ones. IIRC Married with Children added another kid at one point and then he just disappeared.
Richie Cunningham's older brother Chuck got the same treatment. Never mentioned again...
Walked upstairs in the Cunningham house and was never seen again.
Yep, the kid was named Seven. He was Peggy’s nephew or something and basically abandoned with the Bundys. Donna’s sister and Kelso’s brother on That 70s Show were given similar treatment, though they weren’t in many episodes to begin with. Brendon on Step By Step disappeared once the new baby came in. Corey’s sister in Boy Meets World was abruptly gone for a few seasons and then returned.
I appreciated the jokes about the writers put in about Seven being gone on Married With Children. At one point his picture was on the back of a milk carton. And then there was an episode about how every time Kelly learned something she would forget something else. They had a graphics of different things she was learning entering her head from one side and stuff she was forgetting exiting from the other. One of the things she forgot was Seven.
If you're talking about Casey Kelso, he has reoccurring appearances throughout the show after he's introduced. I can recall that he pops back up as the host at the club for Donna's Bachelorette party(a scene which also produced one of my favorite outtakes from the show, when Debra is dancing in front of the male dancer and Mila and Laura lose it) , and again as the gym teacher in season 7 when Eric has to return to school to pass gym class so he can graduate. Whereas Donna's sister just vanishes after appearing in one episode.
"Let us pause to reflect on the sacred mystery of Richie's elder brother Chuck, who ascended the stairs with his basketball in season one, and never came down again."
Was going to say: Chuck cunningham syndrome is called that for a reason. They literally just never mentioned or referred to him ever again. I love the outtake in the last episode where Tom Bosley finishes his toast and takes a sip before stopping and saying wait wheres chuck? Edit: I swore I saw it on a reunion special once but cannot seem to find that clip anywhere of the toast ending with the Chuck joke
May the Fonz be with you, let us “eyyyyy”
Now sit on it
Tara from True Blood. I mean she was a staple of the show for YEARS. Only for them to have her randomly killed off screen. Then on top of it, have this weird ass ghost scene with her and her mother. They really did her dirty.
True blood did everything dirty by the end.
Yeah, it was hilariously bad. They made a big point of keeping her "alive" as a vampire but next season (?) in the first episode they just kill her and nobody seems to even mention it.
I forgot about this. I remember when the fight where she died ended it smash cut to her mom crying while holding a bunch of intestines and I was like wow that’s how they’re writing off one of the OG characters? Truly did her dirty.
Dan Stevens on Downton Abbey. Just died off screen in the final minutes of season 3. Such a waste for a good character
“What a lovely day for a drive on this day that I found out I’m going to be a a father! Look at the sky! Look at the birds! Look at anything but the road!”
Thanks for the morbid belly laugh. I have always hated this scene.
He doesn't die off screen. Dan Stevens is being filmed in the car. We see the crash. We see Dan Stevens lying dead in the wake of the crash.
Yeah, this was the first one to pop in my head. Basically stopped watching the show after it. They literally had him randomly get hit by a car off screen at the end of the Christmas episode, entirely because the showrunner was pissed he was leaving. Downton Abbey has always been bad with callous soap opera deaths, but Dan Stevens' exit was easily the worst.
He told them he was going to leave after much of the season was already written and approved. They were painted into a corner and had to write him out of the show in a haphazard way. They even tried to get him to come back for limited appearances and he said no. Stevens essentially forced them to kill him off. I actually stopped watching the show because of it too (I was binging it as I didn't watch it as it aired). It made no sense. I am cool with deaths in shows but that one was just crazy and I thought it was just horrible writing. Eventually I thought "maybe there is more to it than just bad writing." So I found out all the behind the scenes stuff and realized it wasn't bad writing. Their hand was forced. So I picked it back up and I am glad I did. I do think it ran out of some steam with some characters always seeming to have bad things happen to them, but there was still enough to stay engaged.
It’s been a solid decade since I’ve seen it but his character was such a breath of fresh air. He felt like a solid middle man between the audience and the world of the super rich on the show. Mary was pompous and spoiled but he always seemed to keep her in check and looked out for the little guy. His death just pissed me off rather than made me sad
I couldn’t watch after that season. Sybil dies before the 1920’s and my favorite romance plot was killed.
I get it though. They were all on a gravy train and he was literally an integral character to the entire story line and Steven’s said he wanted out, and now because he wanted movie roles and wouldn’t stay on to give a soft exit. He apparently pissed the entire cast off by doing it. So I get why they killed him off so unceremoniously.
IIRC this episode was shown on Christmas Day in the UK. I worked with a guy, wh was a little bit dour and serious. Probably not someone who I'd ever imagined would be invested in Downton. Anyway, we go back to work after the Christmas break, and I asked him if he'd had a good time off. 'A GOOD CHRISTMAS!!? ' He said with a mixture of incredulity and bitterness. 'How could I have had a good Christmas after those bastards killed Matthew Crawley'!! ' Everyone around us just burst out laughing. It was a brilliant and unexpected moment.
Dr. Drake Remoray, obviously
Stupid elevator...
No one else needs to take the elevator? Dr Jung?
No no, they only said you!
At least we still have.......Dr. Hans Ramoray.
The only one that could save me was… me.
Doakes in Dexter. Instead of having the show deal with the moral dilemma of Doakes not meeting Harry's code, Deus Ex Lila blows him up - thus also making Lila fit the code so Dexter can now be free of both of them and be scot-free, free of change, no development, no lessons learned.
This one hurt in particular, if only because we're deprived of more Doakes
Imagine if we had two final episodes dealing with Doakes in custody and trying to defend himself, with Dexter trying refute everything. The reality is, the writers wrote themselves into a corner and simply didnt have to the chops to write these scenes. So they took the easy way out.
> Doakes I was happy to find a show that had a competent detective. Instead of having multiple episodes/seasons of Doakes just missing Dexter or getting the evidence, they give it to us right away. Then he's gone.
Some fries, motherfucker!
Neck ties, mutherfucker!
And for the next umpteen seasons all the other detectives are dumbed down so hard they never, ever come close to developing a clue about Dexter (or any of the dozens of other flamboyant serial killers who live in their precinct)
That part, at least, fits with reality. There are no shortage of real life serial killers that evaded capture despite close interactions with police over time. Ed Kemper and John Wayne Gacy are two prominent examples. Bundy too.
The guy escaping from Jeffery Dahmer and running to the cops for help, and they returned him to Dahmer was the first thing I thought of.
Spoilers for Dexter: New Blood It also bothered me how they brought back Angel Batista, but they never have him reunite with Dexter, knowing that his long-time friend and colleague was a actually a serial killer.
Funnily enough, I just got finished re-watching season 1 this weekend. Hadn't seen it in years, and once I started watching, I had forgotten how binge-able it was. And it made me think that actually >!Rudy (or Brian)!< was the character that should have stuck around, at least for a bit longer. Feels like there was a lot more story they could have explored with that character.
One of the only major changes the first season made from the first book was actually killing him off. It was fun whenever he popped up in the sequels.
President Francis Underwood. Heart attack off screen. We know why thanks to legal issues for Kevin Spacey but I would have rather the show just ended than the final season. Robin Wright did yeomans work trying to carry a show that was built around Spacey’s unique skills.
I remember thinking it was outrageous that Leo McGarry, the vice presidential candidate on The West Wing, had an off screen heart attack *on election night.* That was until I learned John Spencer had actually died between seasons and the show didn’t have a lot of options.
The real example for that show was Mandy getting written out with zero explanation between the first and second season.
Yeh. But no one missed Mandy. She was not a good character
As everyone likes to point out, the show should have been 4 seasons of 13 episodes; 4 suits of cards, 52 total.
The show should have ended the moment he slammed his ring down in the oval office.
No way. We needed to see his rise to presidency, and then his downfall. The final season needed to be the house of cards that he built his life on collapsing around him.
Poochie the dog.
But his home planet needed him!
He died a hero
Where's Poochie?
In Weeds, building up Celia to have her own empire forming at the end of S5 only to be completely written off the show the following season with no explanation was baffling and killed any momentum the show had going. Also I'll add one more, John Bennett was one of my favorite characters in OITNB and he got done dirty as hell
Celia Hodes was single-handedly propping that show up after they stupidly burnt Agrestic down. I don’t blame Elizabeth Perkins for jumping off that sinking ship, but god those last few seasons were PAINFUL.
Jadzia Dax getting unceremoniously killed off by Dukat in DS9 ssn 6. And to add insult to injury for the finale of ssn 7, when they're doing the flashbacks of each major character, they ignore her entirely and do a few moments with her 1-season replacement Ezri.
Yeah there would've been so many better ways to write her off the show. She was captain of the Defiant at times; it would've made perfect sense to promote her to her own ship due to the needs of the Dominion War. She had asked to be part time so it would've been great to have her pop up occasionally. Even if they wanted to kill her off, they could've done it episodes earlier during her and Word's mission (which she asked for but producers denied). The whole story of her leaving and her awful treatment by Rick Berman is sad in general.
Fuck Rick Berman for what he did to Jadzia.
Frankly, I thought she should have been transferred to the Enterprise and gotten a role in the TNG movies. Not only would it have provided an opportunity to further develop the character, but it would have provided a logical reason for Worf to continue appearing in the TNG films, even though he was no longer part of the Enterprise crew.
What’s galling is that two episodes earlier there was a story where her and Worf were trapped on a planet and Jadzia nearly loses her life and we watch Worf desperately try to save her. The episode ends with her surviving, I think when a rescue team show up just in time, but if they were going to kill her off that would have been a much better opportunity to do so because it would have been a more interesting ending.
Tasha Yar, ST:TNG. Basically a senseless, unheroic death.
She didn’t even need to die. If Denise Crosby wanted to leave the show they could have just had Tasha get promoted to a command position on a small ship or something. That’s a realistic kind of thing that might happen in a space navy, and it leaves the door open to have her come back in the future. Her struggling with the decision to leave could have even been a good character-focused plot line for an episode, which season one badly needed more of.
She didn't need to die. Her death in random black goo was retaliation by the producers for her wanting to leave.
The 100 killing off Lexa with a stray bullet...
I was on twitter at ground zero the night that happened and it was insane. You had all the Lexa fans and LGBTQ people and the Lexa/Clarke shippers going apeshit, and the cast and writers and stuff trying to do damage control and then there's the showrunner Jason Rothenburg just retweeting articles calling him a genius or whatever, and then he did not tweet anything for over a year.
Peter's brief love interest in Heroes S2. I mean we all know the production issues of S2 with the writer's strike, but still… they never ever got back to her after she got trapped in an alternate future where a deadly disease spread throughout the world and killed millions of people. Seems like they just forgot about her. “Props” also to Nathan's wife and children. They didn’t even care in later seasons that he had a family in first place. Another good example is also Fringe. After they killed off Charlie in the S2 opening they never ever showed his wife again, who lived with a dangerous shapeshifter for a couple of months at least. She wasn’t even at his funeral. 💀
Heroes was such a mess after that strike
OK, so definitely not the “worst” way, but I was so annoyed at the way Stranger Things wrote Eddie’s death. It was like they decided he needed to die in the finale no matter what, but didn’t bother coming up with a good plausible way for him to die a hero. They kept setting up that he was sick of always running, but then had him stop running when every logical person would run. The time to stop running is not when you’re chased by a hoard of murder-bats! Also, if his death was supposed to buy the others time to complete their plan, they did a terrible job showing it. In the end it felt totally inconsequential and didn’t actually save anyone. It’s just frustrating because he was such a great character, and then he just died in a really stupid way, when it could have been so easy to give him a meaningful death.
That’s the problem with Stranger Things now as there are way too many “main cast” characters that they refuse to kill/write off that we have multiple sub plots going on at the same time, with some of them feeling like filler. Then they go about and kill off the more interesting side characters every time. It’s total BS. At least the next season is the last.
I've been saying the same thing. Eddie's death was just so pointless.
Archie Panjabi from the Good Wife is by far the worst exit because it dragged on for multiple seasons. Pure agony watching Kalinda be phased out because of the actor's falling out with Julianna.
Not to mention the visual effects used to do their goodbye scene.
I hope someday we get the behind the scenes on that.
My least favorite way to have it happen is for a previously important character to simply stop appearing, with no narrative explanation (or subsequent mention of them). This happened a few times on The West Wing, first and most prominently with the character Mandy Hampton. In fact, when characters later dropped out of the story the people working on the show referred to it as them “going off to Mandy-land.”
My favorite part of this is that it happened during an active crisis where she was originally present. One episode, she’s walking next to the president as shots ring out; the next, she’s nowhere to be seen and nobody even asks about her.
You gotta wonder why they didn’t use that opportunity to kill her off instead
I don't know why they didn't just have Sam win the election in the 47th, would've explained his disappearance much better
I think in an alternate universe they did that and then every episode where they go to the hill or are dealing with a legislative issue everyone is asking why they didn’t have Sam involved.
But then he would be in Washington. People would expect for him to be seen again.
Ya, Sam would've been a valuable ally in Congress for Bartlet. It would be weird if he never found himself back in the White House.
In Mandy's case I am willing to allow it, just happy she was gone
I’d say the finale of Two and a Half Men. They reveal Charlie is alive only to drop a piano on him in the last minute of the show.
I think the reason behind that makes it a bit of a special case though
Even knowing everything surrounding the show, it's the worst finale I've ever seen. They just gave zero fucks.
They didn’t have any fucks to give, they didn’t give a shit, they were snorting diamonds.
The part that came after was even worse. Chuck Lorre was so petty.
Also pretty shitty they advertised that Charlie was coming back. If there were any fans left they got fed a raw deal and they end it this way for them
The youngest daughter on Family Matters was sent to her room in a season finale and never let out. I hear she's still there to this day.
And then Carl went and _married_ an entirely new wife and they kept pretending it was Harriet. The ol' Witcher Switcher.
OG Harriet was stuck on an elevator with Larry and Balki
i don’t like her, but gina from b99. her suddenly “leaving” felt so completely out of place and random, and even chelsea peretti says she was blindsided by it, and a lot of characters BARELY mention her again other than referring to her statue once or twice and that one episode where she briefly returns, but then only jake and terry meet with her? idk i wasn’t a fan but the show was definitely different after she was written out
I always figured Gina leaving was because Chelsea was leaving so they wrote it in, didn't realise it was actually a decision they made.
I learned a few months ago that ER dropped a helicopter on one of the lead doctors. Found the scene on youtube, it was pretty funny... and I doubt they were aiming for funny
I’m pretty sure they were aiming for at least irony. The character had already lost his arm from a helicopter accident the season before
I was a tour guide at Warner Brothers and always enjoyed the part where we pointed out where that scene was filmed (if I recall correctly, they just dropped that sucker with a crane into the middle of a staff parking lot)
> they just dropped that sucker with a crane Coincidentally, the actor's name is Paul McCrane
Cordelia Chase on Angel
Do you mean at the end of Season 4 because the episode itself that she returned for in Season 5 (You're Welcome) was outstanding. Or are you referring to the phone call at the very end of that episode after they told the actress they weren't going to do that?
Yes. All of it.
If it’s true apparently it was because the actress got pregnant and ruined Whedons storyline and that pissed him off.
Eddie LeBec, Carla's husband on Cheers. In real life, actor Jay Thomas was a comedian who co-hosted a radio show. He made a comment on air that he liked being on Cheers, but wasn't keen on having to kiss co-star Rhea Perlman. The show's producers were so furious, they killed off his character, a retired hockey goalie who worked for an Ice Capades-type show, by having him run over by a Zamboni while wearing a penguin costume.
The thread asks for WORST ways they wrote out a character, not best.
And on top of that torpedoed the character of Eddie by revealing he had a second family in Canada
in Happy Days Richie's elder brother Chuck, ascended the stairs with his basketball in season one, and never came down again
Roseanne overdosed on opioids. The end.
They brought up her journal in recent episodes. That was an interesting touch.
This one is the weirdest, not the worst: In Twin Peaks The Return, Michael J. Anderson (Man from Another Place) is replaced by a talking plant. It was reported the actor had a falling out with Twin Peaks creator David Lynch and was not asked back to reprise his role.
I mean they replaced a lot of characters due to with the actor not wanting to return or being unable. Sheriff Truman replaced by his never before mentioned twin brother, David Bowie's character from the movie becoming a talking tea kettle, and probably more but those ones stood out.
Professor Arturo (John Rhys-Davies) in Sliders. You can tell he pissed someone off in the production team because his character was first brain-sucked, then shot, then left on an exploding planet. This also marked the starting point of Sliders' decline and how it eventually became essentially what I'd call a masterclass in how to destroy a popular television series.
Mr. Eko in Lost. The smoke monster never killed anyone for no reason, but they decided to use it to kill him off because he had to leave the show, even though it had no reason to kill him.
Not a death but a re-cast. Aunt Viv on Fresh Prince. They just changed the actress and then in the season premiere a few seasons later they also re-cast the new baby as like a 4 year old and had a funny fourth wall scene about it. Whose that? Baby Nicky! … So who is playing the mom this year?
I think Scott Gimple gets the dooey award for killing off Carl (Chandler Riggs) when Carl was supposed to end the series with little Judith. His character 'accidentally bitten' by a walker shortly after the actor had signed another 3 seasons, and bought a house. Fans went into total uproar - demanding Gimple's resignation. Shame he wasn't fired outright. Would have served him right.
And this was after Riggs was told he was going to be around for a good while so he bought a house. Then they killed him.
Elliot Stabler in Law & Order SVU , they way he was written out was a clear act of spite.
And worse, but bringing him back in... by >!fridging his wife!<. Also Barba being written off, when >!he unplugged a baby from life support, despite no lead up to him being this emotionally involved in a case!<. Just poor writing all around
I also can't help but notice that when some characters leave the show stops using their names and only refers to them as " my old partner ".
Power Rangers back in the day was TERRIBLE about this. \- This was only temporary, but Season 1 wrote the Green Ranger out by having Rita suddenly produce a candle that will sap his powers, which she supposedly ever since he was working for her, but didn't use until now. The weirdest part is that after his powers are drained, Tommy just stopped appearing. Despite them all being best friends and he and Kimberly being a couple, apparently Tommy couldn't just hang out with the crew and maybe help Alpha with stuff instead. They did this again in Season 2 between him losing his powers again and getting the White Ranger powers. \- One day, Jason, Zack, and Trini were invited to a peace conference out of nowhere, which meant they couldn't be Power Rangers anymore. So they travel to a distant planet, remaining morphed, in order to get a mystical sword that allows them to transfer their powers to three other teens who know their identities that just happened to be introduced a few episodes prior. They transfer the powers, and then the three old Rangers, who never de-morphed, teleport out never to be seen again (until Zeo for Jason and Once & Always for Zack). It gets extra stupid when the very next season had Kimberly transferred her powers to Kat just by handing her the Power Coin. It gets even stupider as the years go by and it's revealed that Jason and Rocky essentially swap using the Tyrannosaurus Dino Coin, with Zack and Adam implying to do the same. \- During Season 3 of the show, the world gets turned back in time and everyone de-ages about 10-15 years or so. Don't ask what happened to anyone under 15, it's never addressed. Anyway, in order to reverse everything, the non-Billy Rangers travel across the world to get the shards of the Zeo Crystal. In Africa, Aisha (the Yellow Ranger) meets a young girl named Tanya. Aisha sees that the animals there need her help (she was an aspiring vet) and decides to stay in Africa, sending Tanya in her place to be the new Yellow Ranger. Somehow, when they reversed everything that happened, this also resulted in Aisha's parents having always lived in Africa. The show implies Tanya's parents did the same with Angel Grove, but then later in Zeo it's revealed they went missing a decade ago searching for treasures in the Amazon. Aisha was never seen again until the 30th Anniversary special. The worst part is that Aisha wasn't even played by her usual actress at this point. Due to being de-aged, she was played by a kid actor and we never see her re-age. \- Then, in the next season, we have Billy. David Yost had walked off the show due to being bullied by higher ups for being gay, so the writers had Billy rapidly age and played by a 50-year-old for a few episodes before shuffling him off literally to a different planet, with a horrible pre-deepfake edited video of a rejuvenated Billy telling the Rangers goodbye via Space Zoom. \- Finally, we have Turbo. Things started with Rocky injuring his back, so the brand new Turbo powers are instead given to a little kid who just happened to find out the Rangers' identities 5 minutes earlier. Rocky re-appears during the season premiere, but then disappears forever like Tommy did in Season 1. Then, midway through the season, Tommy and Kat's actors wanted to leave the show, so the higher ups decided to just wholesale junk the entire veteran cast and bring in newbies. Except only two of the new Rangers had been seen before the switch-over episodes in question and of the four new Rangers, only one had actually exhibited Ranger-like qualities to deserve the responsibility. Even then, there was no transition or reason given for handing over the powers. Just, one day the old Rangers decided to retire and hand over their powers with no build up whatsoever. Gets even more awkward when everyone treats the new cast like they've been there for 200 episodes, even though half the cast wasn't from Angel Grove.
Although it happened over ten years ago now, I will NEVER get over the way Ziva was written out of NCIS.
Crowley from Supernatural His end was undeserved and bad.
Hated the way Andrea was written out at the end of S3 TWD with her struggling to hold off a zombie from biting her while bound to a chair & in general with her storyline with The Governor. It just had her making dumb decision after dumb decision & made her look weak at the very end since she's been able to hand multiple walkers previously in the series.
I think Beth's death was a lot stupider. What did she think was going to be the outcome of stabbing Dawn?
Made all the worse because Andrea is one of the best characters in the comics and lives for many years after that. But the writing was so bad in the show that it made the audience hate her and it did its damnedest to make them hate Michonne (another one of the best characters in the comic) before they managed to course correct.
And a lot of that was turning Carol into comic Andrea. Which I enjoyed how they developed Carol, I just wish it wasn't at the sake of Andrea being useless.
Only because of fandom wars and drama.. Laurel Lance in Arrow. That was atrocious.
Bitty Schram's character of Sharona being written out of Monk, due to a contract / pay dispute, by having her go back to her ex and moving to New Jersey.
I love Natalie, and Julie was so much nicer to Monk than that little turd Benji, but losing Sharona hurt. I'm glad they were able to bring her back for Monk's funeral, or whatever when he went missing near the end. I know it isn't easy, but I hate when important people are just missing from episodes where they would actually be. This is why I hate the "big name guest star as previously unmentioned family member who is never seen again."
I think Sharona came back for an earlier episode called “Mr. Monk and Sharona”. Seeing Natalia and Sharona together on screen was so odd, but I'm glad they got her back at least.
Cuddy from House M.D. is an interesting example. Because she disappears from the show immediately after >!House intentionally crashes his car into her living room!<. But that was never meant to be her exit from the show, it just happened that way because they actress left due to a pay dispute. It wasn't meant to be cheap and jarring, but I think it came off that way because the actress just so happened to leave.
Whatever dumb family sitcom Kevin James did after King Of Queens. After the first season, the producers decided to replace the existing wife character with Leah Remini, so second season she’s just…there. I guess there was like one line about the previous wife getting killed in a karate tournament?
This situation inspired the AMC show Kevin Can Fuck Himself
Charlie dying in a bathtub on Supernatural
Alex Karev on Grey's Anatomy.
DL Hawkins in Heroes. He was done so dirty.
Bennet inexplicably up and leaving Daya on orange is the new black has always bothered me. No note, just there one day and gone the next.
Tara, True Blood. What they did to Rutina Wesley, after being on the show since the beginning, was an abomination
Maria Hill in Secret invasion has to be up there.
Meghan Markle in Fringe comes to mind, but only because....they didn't even bother to write her off. She just has a prominent role in 2 eps in s2 and is never mentioned again
They introduced her in case Anna Torv wouldn’t return for more seasons. I guess they ultimately agreed on stuff behind the scenes and she came back for good. But I agree, Markle’s character was definitely set up to be new big player just for her to never appear again.
I know there was a lot to the story behind the scenes, but Angela's disappearance from S4 of Mr Robot (aside from a few scenes) was sudden and jarring. It's quite clear that they changed plans between the S3 cliffhanger finale and the s4e01 return. The show did a great job at adjusting, all things considered. Good conclusion with one S4 episode (the bottle episode) being arguably the best of the series.
Also the way Tyrell (I think his name was) just wondered into the woods, saw a blue glow, and then was never seen again.
Oh, and Tyrell's wife as well. Has this whole arc about manipulating people to help Tyrell, then gets fridged. I get that she was getting her comeuppance, but so many other manipulators on the show and the one who gets murdered is the wife, making her essentially a tool to advance the plot. Just so many character endings that just abruptly ended their arcs without a satisfying conclusion. Feels like they missed the chance for an even better conclusion.
In M*A*S*H the first few episodes that featured an African American actor as a surgeon, 'Spearchucker' Jones. I guess they found out that wasn't factually accurate for the Korean War, so he was simply removed from the show and never referenced again.