Traylor Howard, now of Monk, was the Girl of the title, not Suzanne Cryer.
You are absolutely insane. She’s overly precious, her storylines are annoying, and worst of all she’s excruciatingly boring! I miss the cop from the first seasons. Hell, I very much miss the Cordelia of the first few seasons. What they did with her character makes my teeth hurt.
Fred was a waste. Illyria, OTOH, was an intriguing character that was brought on too late. Amy Acker could have done wonderful things with her, but we never got to see them.
oops! Thanks for the correction.
“Walker, Texas Ranger” went from a pretty typical cop show centered on a part-Cherokee martial artist and his partner to a kid-friendly show with a message. I had stopped watching around the end of the third season but did see one episode from season six and one from season five. I can imagine someone not familiar with the show pick it up at the start of the fifth season and wonder exactly what the hell’s going on. Particularly when a plot involving a Josef Mengele type in a nursing home is followed three episodes later with an orphaned boy whose only friend is a talking supercomputer that belongs in a late-60s live-action Disney movie.
And they went from the Cunningham’s having three children to two and all their memories of their eldest son erased. :eek:
The X-Files changed so much. It was a creepy sci fi show whose two leads had epic chemistry as FBI agents investigating the paranormal from opposing view points. There was a mythology that was fascinating, mysterious, and engaging. By the end, the two amazing leads were replaced by dime store Indians, the myth arc was ludicrous and nonsensical, and the show was unwatchable. The show went from one of the best on TV ever to a pile of utter crap. It was very sad.
Only if we pretend that Season 7 never happened…
That’s what happens when you rape Mork from Ork. 
Yup.
As I always say, it’s a story of “woooo, there are things in the shadows. But WAIT ! There are things behind the things in the shadows. Here they are. But HOLD ON ! Because there are things behind the things behind the things in the shadows ! And what’s more, there are th… oh, fuck it.”
I guess this one was supposed to change, but: what about SMALLVILLE?
In the first episode, and well past the first season, he’s a farmboy in the middle of Kansas who’ll someday grow up to be Superman: he lacks many of his signature powers, agonizes over whether to join the high-school football team, stammers around Lana Lang, argues with Ma and Pa Kent, chats freely with his pal Pete Ross, and otherwise hangs out in Smallville without really knowing what the deal is with those weird meteor rocks.
By the eighth season, that’s long since played out: he’s a reporter for the Daily Planet in Metropolis, working alongside new characters Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen when he’s not teaming up with Green Arrow to battle the Toyman or busily rescuing Aquaman with an assist from the Martian Manhunter – for all practical intents and purposes, Clark is Superman: he’ll talk about how Pa Kent died a long time ago when chatting with Zatanna, sure as he talks about how he’s dealt with Brainiac before or talks about putting this or that Kryptonian in the Phantom Zone, it’s all been done, he’s there now.
Ma Kent is out of the picture. Lana Lang is out of the picture. Pete Ross is out of the picture. Even Lex Luthor is out of the picture; they’ve had a ton of clashes, all now in the past tense. Clark Kent? He’s got the x-ray vision. He’s got the super-hearing. He’s learned how to kill you by looking at you or breathing on you. He rushes around saving people in a red-and-blue blur of superspeed now known all over Metropolis.
It’s not just that most of the original cast has left. It’s why they’ve left.
Everybody knows that. I think it’s in the FAQ.
Our mileage obviously varies. I always liked Fred. Partly for the reasons the characters gave in the episode in which her parents; her craziness was, oddly, soothing. And partly because I rather liked that she never completely recovered from Pylea. It made her interesting.
Only a worshipper of Dionysus would say such a thing.
I’ve always been amused by the “let’s keep the name and the star and change the entire premise of the show” approaches.
Take The Doris Day Show
Season I – The widowed Doris and her kids move back to the farm and live with Grandpa Buck.
Season II – Doris, the kids and Buck are still on the farm, which is now magically close enough to San Francisco that Doris can commute to her Ugly Betty-style job as an assistant at a fashion magazine.
Season III – Doris and the kids have left the farm and moved permanently to a modest apartment in San Francisco. Doris is no longer a grunt.
Season IV – Suddenly the kids have disappeared, never to be mentioned again. Doris is a glamorous full-time staff writer, and has always been a glamorous full-time staff writer (and we were always at war with Eastasia!) By the way, she also has a different boss and co-workers and a new apartment.
Season V – Doris accepts an offer from a rival magazine, then changes her mind, moonlights as a talk-radio host, does a stint as press secretary for a congressional candidate, edits the magazine for an issue or two, goes undercover for an investigative piece or two, dates a Soviet general on the verge of defecting and discovers her uncle is an art forger.
I’m guessing in the case of the “The Doris Day Show”, the constant retooling of the show’s premise had to do with ratings and the network’s stubborn refusal to admit defeat and give up on a program with a then high-profile star like Day. If the show had starred anybody else, it would’ve been gone after the first season.
Long ago (the Eighties), a TV series was spun off the original War of the Worlds movie (1953). The premise was that the original invasion was real, back in the 50’s, but quickly covered up and forgotten as time went on - one of those, “too bizarre to believe” sort of incidents. Now, more than 30 years later, the Martians are trying again when a bunch of Martian corpses wake up after some radioactive waste kills of the bacteria which brought them down to begin with.
The first season featured a team of scientists, with an Army Colonel, in a well-funded research center that would venture out each week investigating weird goings on. It was a slowly escalating guerrilla battle between the aliens in hiding, and our heroes.
The second, and last, season, we lose all but two of the scientists, and replace the Colonel with a mercenary. The world goes from normal 1980’s, to post apocalyptic nightmare with no explanation! It was a very bizarre change, and the show just seemed to die after that.
I hated the entire series- beginning, middle and end- but “Melrose Place” changed from an overly earnest ensemble series about idealistic twenty-somethings and turned into an over-the-top nighttime soap dominated by Heather Locklear.
I’d have to go with The Real World. It really was an interesting show about different kinds of people “forced to live together”. Yes, some of the participants eventually paired up and even married, but not much of this made it on the show.
Now it’s just a show about people hooking up.
And Roseanne changed a lot too.
Did All in the Family change it’s name when it became The Good 'Ol Archie show?
I lestened to complaints but never watched the last one.
Shows that got better:
Happy Days started as The Opie Cunningham show, but the show improved tremendously when they started to center around the Fonz.
Any TV show where Heather Locklear was drafted as a mercenary to increase ratings.
Any TV show where they got rid of David Spade, including the Showbiz Show with David Spade.
When South Park stopped centering around Kenny, Eric and Stan and instead focused on Cartman.
When the Simpsons realized the star was Homer, not Bart.
The Daily Show after Craig Kilborn with Jon Stewart.
SNL: continuing cycle of crap/good/great/crap/etc.
Shows that got worse:
I dream of Jeannie after the Marriage of Death.
News Radio after the Marriage of Death 2 (Phil Hartmann)