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What are the worst examples of characters being poorly written out of series
- Thread starter DragonSJG
- Start date
On the TV show Mom -- Anna Faris's son, Roscoe, went to move in with his dad and stepmom. They brought him back a few times, but then...... stopped even mentioning him along the way. He just ceased to exist. Her daughter also disappears from the show, but at least the show explaind that.
What you talking about? It was all a screen for their real mission.
And I won't accept any other argument on this.
Lmao, for real though
For the whole season, you have Superboy being all "I want to be a good guy, I want to be like Superman" and when the opportunity presents itself for him to save a group of people, he's not the one that does it.
Like, they had the perfect moment for character development and they completely shit the bed
Suzanne Somers Was Fired From ‘Three’s Company’ for Asking for Equal Pay
The late actor played Chrissy Snow in her breakout role, but a dispute behind the scenes led to exile in Hollywood and later a career reinvention.
www.biography.com
I'm rewatching at the moment, Sal leaving hasn't happened yet but iirc it's pretty abrupt. Is it known why he was written out?
Donna also had a sister for one episode in the first season. She shows up at the kegger they throw at Donna's, then is never heard from again.
Though they make a joke about it in one of the outdoor credit clips a few seasons later
I haven't kept up with the more recent incarnations, but in the earlier days of Transformers sure did this a bunch. Infamously, Hasbro wanted the cartoon to ditch characters whose toys were no longer being sold so in the 80s movie a ton of characters get unceremoniously killed on and off screen. Attacks that were easily shrugged off before were suddenly fatal and it's hilarious how transparent it was in hindsight. Been watching Beast Wars for the first time with a friend of mine and we both laughed when the first episode of Season 2 offed a pair of characters in the goofiest way possible to do much of the same thing. As a CG TV show in the late 90s they couldn't afford to animate a huge cast so I can kind of understand, but it is funny when they quickly introduce new characters who have the toyline's new gimmick for that year very soon afterward.
I was kinda shocked when I later learned it was Meghan lol. Very weird indeed, I guess they just dropped her storyline as it wasn't working out. Iirc she was even onto the Fringe devision in her last scene and that they hide weird shit, then she is just gone lol.Meghan Markles character in Fringe. They introduced her as an addition to the main cast then poof she's gone after 2 episodes. I don't even think they wrote her out or anything, they just don't reference her after her last episode. It was very weird.
He literally goes back to his home planet and makes at least a couple of appearances afterwards. I would hardly call that poorly written out.
those came to mind when i watched some power rangers, if i recall right, i think the other guys were just like "hey, they got accepted into the UN peace conference, let's go tell them!" then they're silhouetted on a hill in front of the sun, so you can't tell who it is. as a kid you don't realize that the actors are literally gone at that point, lol.
Misawa from Yugioh GX. Initially he starts out as a competent friend and rival who is seen as a genius for going the galaxy brain route of having multiple decks for different situations. Then he kind of accidentally "bangs" a tiger, and no one wants to talk to him again. In season 2 it's a running joke that nobody even remembers who he is. It gets so bad that when he goes up against the brainwashing cult, even though he has a chance to end it all right then he throws the match and joins them just so that someone will acknowledge him. That lasts for a few episodes before everyone forgets him again. He then leaves off-screen to work with card game Einstein.
He returns out of nowhere in season 3 and is actually taken a little seriously due to the stakes. Then when they go dimension hopping they run into said tiger lady that started his whole mess, and he decides to stay with her instead. After showing up one more time at the end of the season he apparently chooses to stay with tiger lady in that alternate dimension forever. Aside from one brief mention of him still missing nobody cares about his ultimate fate, and he doesn't show up at all in the last season. It's so funny that it crosses the line into being good, since at least he's probably happier than everyone else.
He returns out of nowhere in season 3 and is actually taken a little seriously due to the stakes. Then when they go dimension hopping they run into said tiger lady that started his whole mess, and he decides to stay with her instead. After showing up one more time at the end of the season he apparently chooses to stay with tiger lady in that alternate dimension forever. Aside from one brief mention of him still missing nobody cares about his ultimate fate, and he doesn't show up at all in the last season. It's so funny that it crosses the line into being good, since at least he's probably happier than everyone else.
Denise Crosby quit the show because she was being sexually harassed so they just wrote her off in the laziest way possible.
Not really, various rumors like him making a comment about Weiner's son playing a role or him leaking a script, but considering he was there at a lot of the later season cast parties I don't think those were true.
I think he had a shot to do a one time return but Kinsey's actor told him it wasn't worth it when he did his one-off return.
I was just coming in to post this. I was also going to mention Diana Muldaur's character on LA Law--they had her accidentally walk into an empty elevator shaft and plunge to her death.
In the UK sitcom Two Pints of Lager and a Packet of Crisps one of the main stars of the show (played by Ralf Little) left and was written out on a live show as having died in a shark jumping competition after he got eaten. I'm not sure if it counts for this thread, due to the massive wink to the audience with a literal jumping the shark moment, but it was still a stupid way for a character to be written off off-screen.
My god-like powers and mastery of the universe passively foiled by a single zombie.
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Teen Wolf had the hardest time keeping a main cast around. Characters were frequently written off by just casually mentioning they moved to another country. One character moved to London, one went to South America, another two to France (one of which was the dad to a character that was killed off), etc.
Goku and Bulma.Jimmy Steve in Shameless.
I liked that character a ton. Completely borked him 🤣 lmao
The Downton Abbey approach: Hey this actor wants to leave the show - instead of just ripping the bandaid off and recasting, let's just kill their character whether or not we have any logical way of making it fit the current narrative.
Matthew got done dirty :(
Matthew got done dirty :(
The God of Light arc from Xena was so disliked they dropped all the players involved by mid season. Eve went to China with no mention in the finale despite the finale taking place in nearby Japan and Michael was never mentioned again. And this is a show that's usually good about giving characters decent departures.
Some of the ways the love interesta from How I Met Your Mother were bad as well.
The 6th Doctor counts too. He didn't even get a final speech before his regeneration.
Some of the ways the love interesta from How I Met Your Mother were bad as well.
Leela's departure was especially bad... Big Finish trying it's best to justify it aside.
The 6th Doctor counts too. He didn't even get a final speech before his regeneration.
Been binging this show and just got through those episodes, was hoping someone mentioned it here lol
Understandably Ferrera wanted to spend more time with her family IRL, but feels like they could've just had her character and Jonah do the whole long distance thing instead of blowup their relationship they've been building since the pilot. Feels especially bad being the final season. 🤷♀️
Yeah, that's another dumb 24 one. Honestly you could go through every season of that show and I think you'd find someone that fits this thread. How about the dude from season 6 (Doyle or something??) who's introduced as like another tough, Bauer-esque CTU agent and ends up getting blinded by some sort of explosion and loses his sight, it's played off as this huge tragedy and then, guess what, we never see that dude ever again lmao
I wasn't even aware of this. Why did he wanted to leave like this?
Ok gotcha, so it was a bit of a f-u then as well. So why did she come back?
Disagree here. She was planning to leave and they wrote it the best way they could without having it be some suddenly gone thing. They also address this a bunch in the final season
Wrong. This was god damn hilarious
Lisa was weird as hell
As was Aunt Viv
that was just straight up sad. though i suppose it was true to the era, an outed gay guy being essentially vaporized from reality
Frank Underwood.
Spacey had to go, for obvious reasons, but Netflix should have either had the writers figure out how to write him out without Frank being this invisible elephant in the room in every single scene, or canceled the series entirely, instead of releasing that walking corpse of a last season.
Spacey had to go, for obvious reasons, but Netflix should have either had the writers figure out how to write him out without Frank being this invisible elephant in the room in every single scene, or canceled the series entirely, instead of releasing that walking corpse of a last season.
The show runner who was sexually harassing people was fired. It's why Dr. Crusher leaves to head up Starfleet Medical and then comes back a year later as well.
I disagree with this. This was a great way to kill them off. Very Hitchcockian.
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