I Can't Believe You Like That Replacement Character Better

The MASH divide depends on whether one liked sour MASH or syrupy MASH. Or, if you prefer, comedy MASH vs. drama MASH. They’re essentially two different shows.

I preferred Rebecca over Diane, and I like Natalie better than Sharona.

I liked Diana Muldaur as the ship’s doctor on ST:TNG much better than Gates McFadden.

I prefer Richard Belzer and Ice-T on L&O:SVU over the original sidekick detectives. On L&O:CI, I am ambivalent about old vs. new captain, but I miss the old ADA (Carver).

Robert Patrick was OK on the X-Files, but the show was creatively dead by the time he arrived.

I agree. I really disliked both Crushers and Troi. They ruined the show for me.

While I agree it was hard, I also think it was necessary in order to resolve the series. Jeff just wasn’t going to work out in the end the same was Oliver did (a fact that had already been established before he left).

Besides, he did return in the final season, didn’t he? :wink:

I do think that Peter Graves was a pretty poor replacement for Stephen Hill in Mission Impossible. Hill’s Dan Briggs was a mastermind; Grave’s Jim Phelps was a generic action hero. (And adding Leonard Nimoy to the mix a few years later didn’t help,either).

Effectively, yes. They overlapped, so it wasn’t like “Here’s Det. Dietrich to replace Chano.” But Sierra left after the second season, after which Dietrich became a featured character.

I swear I thought you said “perv” button. I thought IMDb added some new feature.

I still get tickled at all the Terminator 2 references they worked into the show when he got there, though.

A different site I visit actually does have that button. It’s for browsing through user profile photos: next and perv. No joke.

Actually when Chano left he wasn’t replaced but Ron Glass as Harris got a more regular role. Dietrich was effectively Fish’s replacement but again they overlapped for a period. Barney Miller was good at phasing characters in and out of the show and having good recurring characters. I liked Dietrich quite a bit but he wasn’t really a replacement character and he surely wasn’t Chano’s. That would be like saying Reverend Jim replaced that boring first season character on Taxi, John Burns or that Simka replaced Bobby Wheeler.

Shemp was the funniest of all the Stooges !!

That is just pure blasphemy. You’ve just been banned from the internet.

To clarify, I only meant to agree with the original comment by way of saying “kind of, but not really.” Dietrich was not an original cast member (Landesberg did appear once in a pre-Dietrich episode as a different character). Sierra left soon after Dietrich joined the precinct. In that very vague sense, one could get the impression that Dietrich replaced Chano.

I don’t disagree with your assertion at all that Sierra’s leaving the show gave Glass a bigger role to play: he suddenly became the precinct’s only (70s-era) “hot button” ethnic character. I don’t see how anyone could get the impression that Dietrich replaced Fish, seeing has how Vigoda didn’t leave the show until 1981. :slight_smile:

Staff Report: Is Popeye’s nemesis named Bluto or Brutus?

Oh, wise guy, eh?

No, it really isn’t blasphemy. Shemp Howard was a talented character actor in several non-Stooges comedies. He had a great sense of timing, and was probably the most naturally funny of the Howard brothers.

I was going to clarify the Bluto/Brutus confusion, but I see Thudlow beat me to it.

As for Klinger, yes he replaced Radar as Col. Potter’s clerk, but he wasn’t really a replacement character, such as Charles, B. J., and Potter were. He had been in the show since episode 4 in season 1 and appeared as a prominent member of the cast all along. So I’d argue he doesn’t fit the exact definition of a replacement character.

Actually Abe Vigoda left in 1977 to his spin-off “Fish”. The 1981 appearance was a guest appearance long after he left.

Dietrich was a minor character in 1976 and got more time during 1977 as he was groomed to replace Fish. He was partnered to Fish for training and I think the only character on the show to appear on “Fish” after the first episode. Dietrich even visited Fish’s apartment in one episode of Barney Miller as Fish was ready to retire early. I recall the daughter in that episode was different from the one in the series “Fish”.

Sorry to go into such details, but “Barney Miller” is one of my all time favorite shows and I recently watched the first 81 episodes on Tubetime on ‘On Demand’.

We need more specific smileys, obviously.

I always liked Christopher Ecclestone better than David Tenant.

In fact, this Matt Stone kid looks so much more interesting than Tenant.

[runs away from torch-bearing mob lynch mob.]

More Star Trek/TNG:

Worf effectively replaced Tasha Yar. Maybe they would have fleshed out Yar’s character, too, but as things turned out, Worf wasn’t “worse”.

(7 o’ 9/Kess/Deanna Troi, I’d let anyone of those purr in my ear. I’m a simple man, easy to please.)

I never really got how Tara King was supposed to be an acceptable substitute for Mrs. Peel.

So that’s is what that whistling noise past my ears was. :smack:

Well at least the question is thoroughly answered now for others.

Oh, I’ve forgotten this. Tell me more.