Over in this thread we discuss movie and TV characters played by multiple actors.
Which got me wondering, which roles (not necessarily a character with the same name) wound up continually recast – either because the character was somehow removed, or because it was a glorified extra, and they didn’t care who played the role?
Just Captain Kirk? Almost all of the romantic interests in all of the Trek series’ come to inglorious ends.
After that…pretty much any position in the Japan Self-Defence Forces. Particularly the armored forces—the one place you never want to be, in fiction, is manning a Japanese tank. You’d have better luck staying with the Polish Lancers. :eek:
It’s tough to separate job security from life expectancy. If a character appears only in one episode, it probably means that hour/half-hour will cover the last few days or so of their life.
The red shirts from TOS and yellows from TNG are a good example of this. In a similar vein, the guy working OPS or CONN on the Enterprise-D other than Data, Wesley Crusher, or Ensign Ro is either part of a really big rotation or just not up to the task of molesting that shiny black panel.
Old friends and colleauges tend to survive at a cost, though. If they’re not killed, they either go insane or fall from grace. Take O’Brien’s old captain, Maxwell from “The Wounded,” or Riker’s former captain-turned-admiral Pressman in “The Wounded.”
Star Trek is loaded with that kind of thing, but Law and Order’s another good example. There are probably dozens of episodes like this, but in one there’s a forensics expert that Van Buren had worked with closely, but turned out to be fixing evidence and sending innocent people to prison.
And let’s not forget Firefly, either. But I’ll let someone else break out with spoilers.
Heroic black guys in any action/adventure movie in which the lead is not him.
The Evil Overlord’s minion who has to give said Evil Overlord bad news. Really, if I were given that job, I’d say, “right away, sir!” head out, and make a run for it. I’d lose a cushy job, but I’d keep breathing.