# Shows that were changed by executives. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [March 10, 2020, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170 "2020-03-10T00:30:26Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 4:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/21 "2020-03-10T16:03:19Z")
> [@JcWoman](#): > > Here’s one that not a lot of people know of. I’m a big fan of Babylon 5, and the work of J Michael Straczynsky. I recently read his autobiography and he mentioned that the network execs, one in particular who seemed to totally have it out for him, meddled in his new show called Crusade so much that it completely ruined the show. He said that this particular exec would constantly give them worse and worse notes - things that clearly and deliberately would ruin the show or were not possible given the budget they had to work with. One example he cited was that he got a note demanding that the captain character willingly hand over his first officer to be raped. (JMS refused that, of course.) He should have complied but named the character after that asshole exec’s spouse. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/22 "2020-03-10T16:20:38Z")
> [@BwanaBob](#): > > He should have complied but named the character after that asshole exec’s spouse. Too subtle. Name the character after the executive himself: example, for executive named Samuel BadGuy, we get First Officer Samantha “Sam” BadGuy, etc. Almost all male first names can be modified appropriately, and you keep the innocent spouse out of the picture. ---
**Author:** ![Smid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/838e76/32.png) [@Smid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smid)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/23 "2020-03-10T16:21:03Z")
> [@Novelty\_Bobble](#): > > “Blackadder” was a very different beast in series 1 compared to subsequent series. A lot of that was to do with a demand from the top of the BBC that in order to get recommissioned it had to be cheaper and better. It was, and it was. The enforced changes worked in its favour I think. What a load of nonsense. The BBC was perfectly happy with the quality, the very expensive sets were unsustainable as was the outdoor scenes such as riding horses through the fields, which were, to be fair, unnecessary. The first series main writer was Rowan Aitkinson, along with Richard Curtis, and his historical parody worked well, and to some of us, is the best series of them all. The second series, where Richard Curtis took the main writer role, and Ben Elton also wrote, showed up the one trick pony of Elton’s writing, and it descended into fart jokes and cheap laughs. Because most people hadn’t seen the first series, they assumed this was the format, and rewrote history to claim they hated the first (despite the fact that they mostly hadn’t watched it). But to claim that anyone at the BBC was unhappy with the quality was nonsense. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/24 "2020-03-10T16:35:49Z")
Some CBS executive read that South Korea was the fifth-largest gold producer in the world; [this mess](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_Fred_C._Dobbs) was the result. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/25 "2020-03-10T16:37:44Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > John Bracken was voiced by Warren Stevens, but never shown in the first season of the 1969 drama Bracken’s World. But the producer deciding to add him to the cast and have him played by Leslie Nielsen? Surely you can’t be serious. Nowadays, it’s nearly impossible to see Nielsen as anything other than a comic actor. But for most of his career, he played very serious roles, and even heavies. He could be very nasty indeed when the part called for it. But I’m sure you know all this. And don’t call me Shirley! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Novelty\_Bobble](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Novelty\_Bobble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Novelty_Bobble)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/26 "2020-03-10T16:44:47Z")
> [@Smid](#): > > What a load of nonsense. The BBC was perfectly happy with the quality, the very expensive sets were unsustainable as was the outdoor scenes such as riding horses through the fields, which were, to be fair, unnecessary… That doesn’t seem to be what those involved think, nor the controller of the BBC at the time who did force the changes on them. [Watch this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi2bX2u5HpA), from 18:00 if you want to go straight to the relevant bit. Micheal Grade himself talks about it. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/27 "2020-03-10T16:47:14Z")
I’ll bet no one remembers this series, on eof the few MTM productions that didn’t do well because of network meddling: > **[Doc (1975 TV series)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doc_(1975_TV_series))** > > Doc is an American sitcom produced by MTM Enterprises which aired on CBS from August 16, 1975, to October 30, 1976. > Doc starred Barnard Hughes as Dr. Joe Bogert, an elderly, kindhearted general practitioner who divided his time between dealing with his dysfunctional patients and his even more dysfunctional family. Hughes had been seen occasionally on the CBS-TV sitcoms All in the Family as Father John Majeski and on The Bob Newhart Show as Bob's father Herb Hartley. On Doc, actress Elizabeth Wi... ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/28 "2020-03-10T16:53:37Z")
> [@Andy\_L](#): > > Too subtle. Name the character after the executive himself: example, for executive named Samuel BadGuy, we get First Officer Samantha “Sam” BadGuy, etc. Almost all male first names can be modified appropriately, and you keep the innocent spouse out of the picture. If you use the spouse’s name, then the asshole exec has to explain to him/her why they’re getting “shafted” in his show. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/29 "2020-03-10T17:01:48Z")
The _Doris Day Show_ is infamous in this category. To start with, she herself has claimed that her husband/manager signed her to do a series without her knowledge. And what a ride it was for both her and her fans. **Season I:** Doris is a widow with two young sons, who’s moved back to the farm to live with her father. **Season II:** Doris still lives on the farm, but gets a job as a secretary at a magazine. **Season III:** tired of commuting from the farm, Doris and the kids move into an apartment above an Italian restaurant, with a wacky couple as her landlords. **Season IV:** Doris is no longer a widow 😕 and no longer has children :eek:. She enjoys an active social life. She’s been promoted from secretary to writer. **Season V:** Doris becomes associate editor of the magazine (perhaps having a new boss helped.) Her new landlord is her old enemy. Although it’s the same apartment, it seems to have become decidedly more upscale. ---
**Author:** ![Borborygmi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/borborygmi/32/217_2.png) [@Borborygmi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Borborygmi)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/30 "2020-03-10T17:13:57Z")
The one that jumps to my mind first is _The Single Guy_, a '90s sitcom vehicle for Jonathan Silverman. The premise, such as it was, was that Silverman’s character was friends with two married couples and the stories were driven by the contrast between his single life and their married lives. For Season 2, one of the married couples was gone and replaced by two new single characters, and it immediately went from having a thin premise to having no premise whatsoever. It still amuses me that the executive meddling actually rendered the title of the show meaningless. ---
**Author:** ![AlTraina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/altraina/32/50_2.png) [@AlTraina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlTraina)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 5:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/31 "2020-03-10T17:51:39Z")
> [@Borborygmi](#): > > It still amuses me that the executive meddling actually rendered the title of the show meaningless. At least ABC had the foresight to rename These Friends of Mine after season 1. Since the focus was on Ellen DeGeneres, they just called it Ellen. ---
**Author:** ![Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slow_moving_vehicle/32/291_2.png) [@Slow\_Moving\_Vehicle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slow_Moving_Vehicle)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/32 "2020-03-10T18:02:37Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Nowadays, it’s nearly impossible to see Nielsen as anything other than a comic actor. But for most of his career, he played very serious roles, and even heavies. He could be very nasty indeed when the part called for it. > > But I’m sure you know all this. And don’t call me Shirley! 😃 He played a villainous husband who kills his wife and her lover in _Creepshow_. ---
**Author:** ![AlsoNamedBort](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alsonamedbort/32/3213_2.png) [@AlsoNamedBort](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlsoNamedBort)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/33 "2020-03-10T18:23:27Z")
The show _Best Week Ever_ was a weekly pop culture review show. Just a bunch of different comedians one by one talking about what happened that week. Lots of fun especially if you really weren’t interested in pop culture news. Then the execs decided to change the format so there was just one host (Paul F Tompkins) who occasionally threw to different comedians to riff. Except they didn’t bother informing the audience at all that there would be a change. Ratings plummeted and the show was cancelled 6 months later. Paul talks extensively about it on his album: [Mr. Hutchinson's Best Week Ever - YouTube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUBNaNRYHB8) ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/34 "2020-03-10T18:30:03Z")
At first ABC did not want Fonzi on Happy Days to wear his leather jacket unless he was near his motorcycle. Otherwise he wore no jacket or a cloth jacket. So the writers kept having scenes with him on or near his bike. ABC figured that loophole out and they said he could wear the jacket in all scenes. You can tell early episodes if he is not wearing the leather jacket. ---
**Author:** ![AlTraina](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/altraina/32/50_2.png) [@AlTraina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AlTraina)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/35 "2020-03-10T18:33:45Z")
In a similar vein ABC News President Roone Arledge fired the hosts of 20/20 after the very first episode because the reviews were so bad. He installed old pro Hugh Downs who held down the chair for 21 years, and added Barbara Walters the next year who lasted 25. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/36 "2020-03-10T19:15:51Z")
> [@AlTraina](#): > > Saturday Night Live fired Norm Macdonald in order to placate NBC executive Don Ohlmeyer. Mainly because Norm kept bashing OJ about the murder during weekend update and OJ was a good friend of Ohlmeyer. ---
**Author:** ![Ashtura](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ashtura/32/2963_2.png) [@Ashtura](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ashtura)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 7:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/37 "2020-03-10T19:25:12Z")
> [@CastletonSnob](#): > > Sometimes, a show can be changed by demands from the executives running the network the show airs on, usually in an attempt to make the show more appealing to audiences. TV Tropes calls this, “Executive Meddling”. > > When has this happened in a show you liked? The original Wonder Woman show changed location from Washington DC to Los Angeles, and from WWII, to the present, to save costs of course. Then made her boss Steve Trevor, Steve Trevor Jr, both played by Lyle Waggoner. It also took a decidedly more Sci-fi bent to capitalize off Star Wars. IMO the show did not benefit from these changes. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/38 "2020-03-10T20:09:02Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I agree about _Dollhouse_, but did the network mess with the content of _Firefly_, or just with its airings? Whedon’s original version had a much darker, more cynical and more morally gray Mal than what ended up in the series, until execs pushed him to lighten the character and make him more quippy, like a Buffy character. ---
**Author:** ![Uncle\_Jocko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/uncle_jocko/32/2932_2.png) [@Uncle\_Jocko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Uncle_Jocko)\ **Post date:** [March 10, 2020, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/39 "2020-03-10T23:56:00Z")
> [@AlTraina](#): > > In a similar vein ABC News President Roone Arledge fired the hosts of 20/20 after the very first episode because the reviews were so bad. He installed old pro Hugh Downs who held down the chair for 21 years, and added Barbara Walters the next year who lasted 25. I watched that first airing. It ended with a bizarre claymation-style bit with Jimmy Carter singing “Georgia.” There was a lot more wrong with it than the hosts. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [March 11, 2020, 1:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170/40 "2020-03-11T01:29:13Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > _Bob_. It was a very funny show with Bob Newhart, an artist who quits his job at a greeting card company to go back to drawing a comic book character he created and which is being revived and Dark Knighted. They got the workplace right, and his battles with Harlan Stone, the writer, were very funny. It later evolved to show the very funny life of the characters outside of work. It got decent ratings. Despite the fact that CBS moved its time slot all over the place. > > For the second season, CBS executives decided to drop the entire workplace staff, added Betty White and Jere Burns, and send Bob back to the greeting card company. It was awful, and was cancelled after 5 episodes. The reboot made the show worse, no doubt, but the original show was not that great. Cynthia Stevenson was by far the best thing about it. The workplace characters never caught fire for me. The actress who played Bob’s wife, Carlene Watkins, was 23 years younger than Bob and only 10 years older than Cynthia Stevenson. Maybe they adopted. Time slot did not help. CBS tried to counter ABC’s TGIF lineup with comedies, and they were all cancelled save for Bob, which limped to a second year. Included in those cancellations were Major Dad and Designing Women. Let’s not forget that Newhart dumped two of its 5 original characters. Don’t know whose idea that was, but the replacements were a considerable improvement. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/shows-that-were-changed-by-executives/849170.md?page=3)