Several characters in Babylon 5.
G’Kar starts out as militaristic soldier, willing to do anything to advance his agenda, and slowly becomes a holy man.
Londo Molari is a buffoon in the beginning, then evolves to become a truly evil character, after which he repents and tries to make amends.
Vir also movies from buffoon to a leader.
I’m not sure I agree with this – I just watched all five seasons pretty much at once (over the course of a month or so), and there’s not actually that big a change. In the very first episode, we meet him fucking Brenda in a closet, and that kind of impulsive, immature behavior drove a lot of what he did throughout the entire story arc. I liked him a lot, too, despite his occasional assholish behavior – just as I liked Claire a lot, despite wanting to just smack her fairly regularly. I think the strength of that program was that all of the main characters were so intensely dislikable at times – just like real people.
I don’t know; I’ve been watching Season 1 on DVD, and from the very first episode, they’re very distinct. Sheldon is completely inept and clueless when it comes to normal social interaction; Leonard is, of course, geeky, but shows a much broader range of normal human emotions and is able to pick up on social cues.
Andy Sipowicz was mentioned – I thought his gradual change was believable because his character was both bigoted, and too intelligent not to examine his own attitudes. He went through an almost Biblical level of suffering, and it was sort of like the prejudices he grew up with became irrelevant, and started falling off like dead skin. (Billy Bob Thornton’s character in the movie Monster’s Ball goes through a similar change.)
Okay, this one is kind of childish – on the moronic show Lost in Space, Dr. Zachary Smith started out as a truly evil character; in the pilot he committed treason (against the whole human race, really) and attempted to murder the entire Robinson family (yea!). Before long, though, he’d lost any possible air of menace, and was just a comic buffoon.
But these were all arced. They weren’t really personality changes as much as they were personality developments. Now, if you want to consider some of the characters in the pilot versus they way they were in the series, I’m with you.
I’m not sure about this, so if someone could help me out, but;
Wasn’t the character Kramer a little different the first few episodes of Seinfeld? I remember Jerry saying something about him rarely leaving his apartment, he overcame that problem quickly.
Second Whedon reference.
Malcolm Reynolds in Firefly was originally meant to be a hardass. Clever, cared for his crew, but wholly pragmatic and cold otherwise. Fox execs thought the character was too cold and they asked Joss to tone him back, so he rewrote Mal to be more of a goofball.
It’s most evident in comparing the pilot Serenity with the Fox-approved ‘pilot’ The Train Job. In the pilot, the only joke Mal ever actually makes is the prank he plays on Simon. Any other humor coming from the character is just snark. In The Train Job, while he’s still cold, he also loosens up a lot more, making out-and-out jokes (“Have you got time to do my hair?”). In the movie, Joss wrote Mal as he’d originally intended the character to be, so Mal came off a lot harsher and a bit more frightening than he did in the series.
In the pilot Jerry mentions Kramer hasn’t been out of the building in ten years (he also has a dog that disappears after the pilot).
He mentions going places in the subsequent episodes, but isn’t actually seen outside the building until the 10th episode, The Apartment.
Mark Healy on Roseanne kind of did the same thing. He went from a underachiever/badass/rebel to being damn near functionally retarded.
Ralph Malph on Happy Days was originally a tough guy in the first few episodes before they established Fonzie as the tough guy and Ralph as the class clown.
I saw everything Firefly in 4 day last week… LOVED IT. His mood fluctuated exactly as you described.
I wondered about why he was rough around the edges again in the movie, now I know. Plus I figured he got tired of dragging around someone that could be dangerous.
I never understood why Book was allowed to hang around, I know he was meant to be wise and give advice. They also hinted that he had a sketchy past, but he was just another mouth to feed. I can see River and Simon. Though River was dangerous, it helped to have a doctor on board.
Paulie Walnuts started out as a stone-cold, steely-eyed, kill-you-as-soon-as-look-at-you psychopath.
By the end of The Sopranos, he was basically comic relief.
Countless actors in television evolve slowly into their role and then the writers begin adapting the script to fit the actor. Pilots and early episodes are character driven whereas in later seasons, the writers tailor the dialogue to fit the actor. Also the actors get a feel for their character as well and adapt their portrayal accordingly.
Example: Jason Alexander acknowledges that he was shamelessly channeling Woody Allen during the early years, then felt that the character is more driven by Larry David’s nuances and scriptwriters and actor subsequently pursued this route.
But I’m here to talk about Suzanne Somers’s Chrissy Snow from Three’s Company.
The first season has Chrissy as a reasonably with it young lady but quickly changed into a mega-retard, half-child / half-adult queen of all ditzy blondes since everyone on the show determined that this produced the biggest laffs. Years later, Homer Simpson evidently found his true calling as he underwent a similar (d)evolution.
Hey, it’d work for me…
I nominate Spike, going from the ruthless killer in Buffy to dark hero in Angel. Granted, a certain amount of that change was mandated by the chip in Buffy, but that wasn’t in the picture once he showed up in Angel. Dying a few times will do that kind of thing, I guess.
Likewise Cordelia, changing from the airheaded mean girl in Buffy to… whatever the hell she became in Angel.
Saving grace? Emotional core? Conscience?
Those all work, but I was referring more to her becoming some sort of avatar of the Powers that Be.
I was going to say Fonzie. I don’t remember much about his early apperances, but I do rememeber an early episode, outside of the school, I believe. Fonzie was sitting on his bike in a white cloth jacket, and was extremely subdued and understated. We all know what he turned into.
Then there’s Spock, who started out (in the original pilot, with Majel Roddenberry as #1) as an extremely hostile, unlikeable guy, until the producers found out that he was one of the most popular characters on the show, so they made him much more likeable and fluffy.
Tony Soprano’s sister also changed drastically after her first couple of appearances IIRC.
Oh, absolutely. When Nancy Marchand died and they had to divvy up the long-range plans for her between Junior and Janice*, both of their characters had to change quite a bit.
*I have no idea if this is what actually happened, but it seems that way to me.
I do remember reading this somewhere–that’s why you see her doing the annoying crap that ordinarily Livia pulled. Though it did seem consistent with her–Janice comes off as sort of earth mother-y and hippie-ish in season 2, but she’s always got that snake-like, manipulative streak running through her. Much like Livia herself.