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.
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.
Some CBS executive read that South Korea was the fifth-largest gold producer in the world; this mess was the result.
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! 
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, from 18:00 if you want to go straight to the relevant bit. Micheal Grade himself talks about it.
I’ll bet no one remembers this series, on eof the few MTM productions that didn’t do well because of network meddling:
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.
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.
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.
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.
He played a villainous husband who kills his wife and her lover in Creepshow.
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
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.
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.
Mainly because Norm kept bashing OJ about the murder during weekend update and OJ was a good friend of Ohlmeyer.
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.
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.
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.
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.