Showrunners have no imagination. The reaction to allegations seems to be shut the show down instantly and dissociate yourself from the actor while the latter beats his breast, utters profuse apologies and disappears for ‘treatment’. Neither approach achieves anything other than costing the TV company millions and destroying the actor. Another approach might be tried.
With House of Cards for instance the TV company could issue a statement saying yes, we believe Spacey is a scumbag and we won’t be working with him again but in the present show he’s playing a scumbag and we feel that to continue the show would be both interesting and rewarding. Performances by all involved will be immeasurably enhanced as Spacey in effect acts himself and the other actors treat him with the barely-concealed contempt that Underwood himself would inspire. Of course we will write out any actors who feel that they would be damaged for life by knowingly acting with a scumbag but we feel that a little extra cash would work miracles in steeling their resolve.
I guarantee if they continued the show after such an announcement the ratings would go through the roof.
As for Louis K I’m disappointed in him. He should have had the balls to say, sure I’ve asked women if I can jerk off in front of them. Hasn’t everybody? Such a response delivered in the manner of his comic persona might not have worked but it certainly couldn’t turn out worse than his current actions and his fanbase would have eaten it up.
YYEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!! (Due to Mr. Daltrey being indisposed[sub]got old before he died[/sub], this has been performed offstage by JRDelirious with help from the post-production team)
I don’t know why nobody seems to have brought this up (except one) but replacement main focus characters on TV shows tend to be ratings poison even if the character is written off/replaced on good terms. Shows get cancelled all the time for lesser offenses so to executives it’s easier to cancel an already “tainted” property than recast and have to pivot the entire marketing campaign around acknowledging the fact that they got a new guy because the old guy was a complete monster.
The only reason why Doctor Who gets away with it is because people already buy into the conceit. Every show I can think of since the 80s only has a single ratings bomb of a season after the main character leaves.
It’s probably too late for House of Cards to get a new Frank Underwood, given that it was already slated to end. I’d still like to see them try. The two alternatives - continue without the central character (ie. Frank dies), or cancel it with no conclusion and leave the fans (what’s left of them) high and dry - seem unfair.
It would be a good test case. I may be in the minority, but I was disappointed that The Sopranos wrote out a juicy character (Livia) when Nancy Marchand died - she didn’t mean to do it!
The release of Louis CK’s movie was canceled. That means if any of the other actors, or anybody else on the project, was being paid in royalties, they will lose their paycheck for work that they already did. That doesn’t seem fair at all.
Spacey is my favorite male actor, hands down and across the board. I’m struggling with separating the man from his work.
This said: I’ve had the same thought about finishing the series with him as Underwood – as you write, Frank is an unrepentant scumbag (and murderer, to boot) and a predatory bisexual. I was also considering how many lower-paid people connected to the show might suffer from a sudden cancellation.
H of C did seem to be signalling that something was going to happen to Frank and Claire would be taking over the world (once her character broke the fourth wall as Spacey did throughout, we knew there’ll be a new sheriff in town soon).
Who mentioned ignoring them? Certainly not me in that post. Never working with them again is about as far from ignoring the accusations as you could get.