List of television show casting changes

Casting changes occur on many television shows; either a character is replaced by another actor with a new character, or a new actor takes over an existing role when the original actor is dropped (sometimes in movies). Some cast changes have been significant enough to cause the show to "jump the shark" by detrimentally affecting the quality of the show.
Named forms of casting change
Some of the examples below have given rise to slang phrases, used to jokingly describe similar changes in other shows. These include:
*Chuck Cunningham Syndrome, when a without any further mention.
*Darrin Syndrome, when the actor playing a main character is replaced without comment, as with Darrin Stevens in Bewitched.
*Character Bounce, when a character leaves (or disappears) only to return later. Beverly Crusher in Star Trek: The Next Generation (who was missing in season 2) is an example.
Examples of shows which had significant casting changes
Show casting changes listed here must have a discontinuation of the same character after the actor has left. In fictional shows, the script typically allows others characters to be aware of the absence of the character—usually as a death, which has led to the phrase "killing off a character". This sometimes also occurs when a character leaves the show (and usually the city) to appear in their own spin-off.
Sitcoms
Change to main character
*227
**Jackee Harry left in the final season.
*8 Simple Rules
**John Ritter died, so his character died (off screen) as well.
*Bette
**Kevin Dunn was replaced as Roy by Robert Hays.
*Chico and the Man
**In 1977, Freddie Prinze committed suicide and was replaced by child actor Gabriel Melgar as a different character nicknamed Chico.
*Hermanos de Leche
**A Spanish 1994 sitcom starring José Coronado and Juan Echanove, who play brothers. Echanove decided to leave the series after the first season, to pursue film projects. His character, also named Juan and nicknamed "Gordi" ("Fatty"), had an accident and underwent important reconstructive surgery. During the second season, Juan was played by El Gran Wyoming (who is not similar to Echanove, though Wyoming jokingly has explained in interviews that he was selected because of his supposed resemblance to Echanove). Although Echanove was clearly overweight and Wyoming wasn't, the character kept his nickname "Gordi"
*Mystery Science Theater 3000
**Joel Hodgson was replaced by Michael J. Nelson as the host. Several other changes were made to the cast (in fact, at the end of the series, every single character had either been replaced with a new character or performed by more than one person), but this was the most noteworthy change in the series.
*Northern Exposure
**Rob Morrow's Dr. Joel Fleischmann left the series. His role as the visiting doctor in the community of Cicely, Alaska (the setting of the series) was taken over by Paul Provenza as Dr. Phillip Capra. Capra and his wife Michelle, played by Teri Polo, arguably combined to take over Fleischmann's role as the outsider and lead character... to the extent that the ensemble show had a lead character by that point.
*Saved By The Bell
**When the show (originally called Good Morning, Miss Bliss) was canceled by Disney Channel and picked up by NBC, it was retooled and renamed Saved By The Bell, resulting in the departure of every character except Zack Morris, Screech Powers, Lisa Turtle, and Mr. Belding. All of the Good Morning, Miss Bliss episodes were later repackaged as Saved By The Bell episodes in which Zack appears at the beginning, and explains to the audience that the episode "takes place back in junior high".
**Tiffani-Amber Thiessen and Elizabeth Berkley both left the show midway through the 1992-1993 season to pursue other career options after NBC doubled the order for new episodes. Berkley and Thiessen simply refused to sign the new contract for the extra episodes, but not before filming the series finale, featuring the class' graduation. To compensate for the loss of two major characters, the show introduced an altogether new character, Tori (Leanna Creel), with no mention of the whereabouts of Kelly (Thiessen) and Jessie (Berkley). The finale aired in May 1993 following the new episodes, with no mention of Tori or the extended absence of Kelly and Jessie.
**Max (Ed Alonzo), owner of local hangout The Max, stopped appearing following the show's second season without explanation.
*Spin City
**Michael J. Fox left, in part due to his battle with Parkinson's disease and Charlie Sheen joined the cast as the new deputy mayor.
*That 70's Show
**Topher Grace (Eric Forman) left and was replaced by a character played by Josh Meyers (Randy Pearson). He returned in the series finale.
*Valerie
**Valerie Harper left the show over a contract dispute after the first season. Her character, Valerie Hogan, died in a car crash. Sandy Duncan was then cast as Valerie's sister-in-law. The show was also retitled Valerie's Family, later becoming The Hogan Family.
Soap operas
On daytime soap operas, cast departures and recasts are extremely frequent, and examples are far too numerous to cite individual examples here. On primetime soaps, however, cast changes are less frequent.
*Beverly Hills 90210, when Shannen Doherty, playing Brenda Walsh, was fired from the cast. Jason Priestley later departed in the series' ninth season, though he continued to executive produce. Luke Perry also notably left the series in its sixth season to try to build a film career, but he returned permanently in its ninth season. Gabrielle Carteris (Andrea Zuckerman) was another original cast member who left the show, as did James Eckhouse and Carol Potter, who played Mr. and Mrs. Walsh.
*The O.C., when Marissa Cooper (Mischa Barton) was killed in an auto accident at the end of the third season. It was alleged that Barton was fired for bad behavior though both the producers and Barton maintain her character had gone as far as she could go.
*thirtysomething, when Gary (Peter Horton) died.
Unclassified
Main character changes
*The Avengers, main character, David Keel (Ian Hendry) left at the end of season one, leaving Steed (Patrick MacNee) as the main character.
*Babylon 5 between Season 1 and 2, Commander Sinclair is replaced by Captain Sheridan, significantly changing the ending of the series. Sinclair does appear in a few later episodes.
*Blues Clues, when Donovan Patton replaced Steve Burns as Blue's owner.
*Charmed, when Shannon Doherty left due to a contract dispute. Her character, Prue, was killed off and replaced with Paige (Rose McGowan), a mysterious half-sister the other girls knew nothing of.
*Charlie's Angels, when Farrah Fawcett and Kate Jackson left.
*CHiPs, after filming the fifth season, Larry Wilcox fell out with producers, feeling that co-star Erik Estrada was getting preferential treatment over him, and left to be replaced in the final season by Tom Reilly who was in turn replaced in later episodes by Bruce Penhall (probationary officer Bruce Nelson).
*Doctor Who, in which the series' writers invented a process called "regeneration" to allow different actors to play the alien character of the Doctor.
*The Dukes of Hazzard
**When contractual and royalty disputes led to John Schneider and Tom Wopat (Bo and Luke Duke) leaving the series for the 1981-82 season. As Bo & Luke were cousins, they were replaced by Coy & Vance (Byron Cherry and Christopher Mayer), fellow (and previously unmentioned) cousins of the Duke clan, whom many viewers saw as poor clones of Bo & Luke, and ratings fell as a result. Bo & Luke were explained to be racing on the NASCAR circuit, but the dispute settled a few months later, and the pair returned at the tail-end of the season for the rest of the show's run (with Coy & Vance written out in the original duo's returning episode, never to be mentioned again).
**When Sonny Shroyer's character, Enos Strate, was given his own spin-off, Enos. Enos was replaced with deputy Cletus Hogg (Rick Hurst). After the spin-off failed, Shroyer returned to Dukes as Enos, at which point Hurst was released and Cletus disappeared.
*The Secret World of Alex Mack, when Meredith Bishop left during the final season to attend college. Her character, Annie Mack, was given the same reason for leaving. Bishop would return for the final climactic episodes, missing only nine in all.
*Sliders when Jerry O'Connell left at the end of the 4th season (who was replaced by Robert Floyd).
*Spooks in its third season when all the original main cast members besides Peter Firth were killed off, or written out in some way, and then replaced by new characters.
*The X-Files, Fox Mulder (David Duchovny) was abducted at the end of the 7th season, and is included only a few times in the 8th and 9th season. Agents John Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish) were added to the cast. Duchovny returned for the series finale.
*', in the first episode of 2nd season, Brigadier General Frank Savage (Robert Lansing) is killed in action (although Lansing is not seen on screen in that episode) and is replaced for the remainder of the series by Colonel Joe Gallagher (Paul Burke) who had been a recurring character up to that point.
Disappearing characters
Sometimes a character simply disappears and is never mentioned again. It can be a major cast change, as a major actor/actress leaves the show, and is not referred to again. Most often, it occurs when a minor character is no longer deemed necessary to the television show's plot, and the actor/actress playing the character is sacked. It is commonly referred to as "Chuck Cunningham Syndrome" or being "Brother Chucked", after Richie's older brother on Happy Days, who goes out to play basketball in an early episode and is never seen or mentioned again. The show does not address why he vanished, despite his actually being one of the more central characters.
* On Jesse, Jesse's father and two brothers disappeared from the show in the second season without explanation. In a second-season episode involving a flashback, they are said to be on a "fishing trip," but otherwise there is never further mention of them.
* Several workers at Dunder Mifflin Paper are seen in the first season of the american version of "The Office" but are later never seen again. Many gatherings later of "everyone in the office" have only established characters, none of these extras.
* On Sabrina, the Teenage Witch, Sabrina's best friend, Jenny Kelley, (Michelle Beaudoin) appeared in season one only and then disappeared without explanation. Also, Sabrina's biology teacher, Mr. Pool (Paul Feig) disappeared after season two.
* Henry on Grounded for Life
* On Star Trek: TNG, Dr. Katherine Pulaski, Dr. Beverly Crusher's second season replacement on Star Trek: TNG, was herself replaced without explanation by Crusher at the beginning of season three.
In-show references to actor changes
*Bette
**When Kevin Dunn was replaced by Robert Hays as Roy, at the beginning of the episode, Bette and Oscar are discussing the replacement of an actor in a soap that they are watching. When Bette asks Roy his opinion, Roy is fully seen and revealed to have had an actor change.
*Blake's 7
**When Brian Croucher replaced Stephen Grief as Space Commander Travis, Travis in his first episode played by Croucher, makes an offhand comment concerning his confusion following his recent rehabilitation. However, the change in appearance is never actually referenced but often assumed by viewers to be part of the "rehabilitation".
*Doctor Who
**It is well known that when The Doctor is near death he can regenerate into a new form to save his life (see The Tenth Planet & The Power of the Daleks for the first instance), but that he is only able to do this twelve time before he dies (revealed in The Deadly Assassin), but a more contraversial change was the portrayal of Romana. Throughout the 16th Season of Doctor Who, Mary Tamm played the role of The Doctor's fellow Gallifreyan Romana, but after being impressed with Lalla Ward's performance of Princess Astra in Season 16's final story, she was asked to come back to play the role of Romana in Season 17. A scene was then written-in to the beginning of Season 17's opening story, Destiny of the Daleks, showing Romana "trying on" new bodies before settling on the likeness of Princess Astra. In effect, she regenerated multiple times on a whim because she couldn't decide which body she wanted, thereby reducing her life expectancy by 1/13th for each change.
*Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
**In the first episode of the fourth season (, when Daphne Maxwell Reid replaced Janet Hubert-Whitten as Vivian, Jazz remarks that since having Nicky, there is something different about her.
*Home and Away
**In an early 2003 episode, Alf Stewart says to Flynn Saunders, "Your Face looks different, Mate" after he returns from holiday.
*My Wife and Kids
**In the second season opener, Michael Kyle mentions that his eldest daughter Claire looks like a totally new person.
*Mystery Science Theater 3000
**A running gag throughout Bill Corbett's first episode as the voice of Crow was Mike repeatedly musing that Crow seemed different somehow. In a later episode, Werewolf, after Mike turns into a "were-Crow", Crow informs him that one part of being a were-Crow is that "your voice will change inexplicably every 500 years or so".
*Reba
**Early in the final season, Van walks into the kitchen to see Kira (the actress had been off of the show for the entire previous year due to a medical issue), and asked where she had been for so long.
*Roseanne
**When Lecy Goranson (the original Becky) returned to the show, Darlene remarks, "Where the hell have you been?" in reference to the casting change. Becky responds with "Why does everyone keep asking me that?"
**Also, on the show's opening credits during its final season, still photos of each character in past seasons are shown transitioning into current photographs. One of the photos used for Goranson is actually Sarah Chalke (the replacement Becky), an intended joke the producers made blatantly obvious.
**Both Goranson and Chalke participated in a spoof of the opening for the Patty Duke Show, which refered to both of them as Becky.
*Boy Meets World
**In the 3rd Season, Lindsay Ridgeway replaced Lily Nicksay as Morgan Matthews. The Morgan character had been absent for most of season 3, so when the new Morgan enters the kitchen and is asked, "Where have you been?" she says, "I've been in my room for a long time." Also, Topanga and Shawn both have sisters in Season 1, but they are never seen or mentioned again.
Parodies
* When Nick at Nite was promoting The Brady Bunch being added to the timeslot in the late 90's, commercials claimed that there was a lost Brady named Phoebe and was edited out of the show due to bad behavior.

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