Lately, I’ve been watching season 1 “Angel” reruns in syndication, and was surprised to see that they only have three featured cast members in the credits (Angel, Doyle, and Cordelia). Compared to Buffy, that’s positively minimalist. Thinking more about it, the other show with a small cast that immediately came to mind was “Quantum Leap”, which only has Al and Sam (plus the voice Ziggy) – for the entire series run no less.
Can anyone beat that? Has to be fictional, and I’d say the IMDB cast listings are gospel. And of course anthology shows like “Outer Limits” have no regular cast, but that’s cheating.
There have been a whole bunch of shows that only had one continuing character – private eyes, spies, cops, cowboys, wanderers, etc.
The first one that comes to mind is The Fugitive.
There were shows like Maverick. Technically, there were three brothers and a cousin, but the episodes rarely featured more than one.
Finally, let’s not forget game and variety shows (stretching the definition of “fiction”) where only the host appeared in every episode. Particularly in the early years of TV, even “the band” didn’t get credit.
Actually, “MacGuyver” also had his boss, Pete (don’t recall the last name, but he was played by Dana Elcar–IMDB lists the character as “Andy Colson” but I remember it as “Pete”) in just about every episode. Plus there were several recurring guest roles that bordered on regulars.
Didn’t the guy tracking the fugitive appear in most episodes of that show? Was he in the opening credits? That would make him a regular.
For some reason, the first one I thought of was “The Incredible Hulk”, but that had two characters, David Banner and Jack McGee (another fugitive and tracker pair).
“Quantum Leap” was definitely two characters. Gushi appeared a couple of times, though he was named in nearly every ep, and Ziggy’s voice was only heard a couple of times per season (though Al spoke to ‘her’ a lot, we couldn’t hear the replies most of the time).
How about “The Twilight Zone”? It only had its presenter on regularly, so while I guess Rod Serling (or Forest Witaker) counts as cast, he was on screen for less time than almost any regular character in history. Or “The Outer Limits”? Zero regulars (unless you count the Control Voice, but that was really just the credits announcer–If you count it, you need to count theme-song singers). But I guess those don’t count, having no series continuity.
Nuh-uh. Angelo Muscat had the recurring role of “The Butler”, the rather dwarfish man in formal attire who acted as servant to the various Number Twos, though he never had any dialogue.
Imdb.com also lists Peter Swanwick as “Controller”, though offhand I can’t recall what he did. Fenella Fielding was the “Loudspeaker Announcer”, though uncredited.
The Incredible Hulk, I should point out, had three regular actors, though only two regular characters.
The Twilight Zone only had one recurring character: Rod Serling as himself.
“The Outer Limits” had no regular cast, not even an onscreen narrator like Rod Serling. (An offscreen narrator made opening & closing comments similar to Rod, but he could hardly be called a “character”.)
Just for the sake of trivia, the “Control” voice of Outer Limits is Kevin Conway, who has not only played Ryan O’Reilly’s scumbag father on Oz, but also Kahless the Unforgettable on Star Trek: The Next Gerenation.
The 1955-1960 TV show, The Millionaire is a good candidate, having only two credited regulars: Marvin Miller as Michael Anthony, and the voice of Paul Frees as the never- seen “fabulously wealthy John Beresford Tipton.”