To be fair, both those shows were unusual. John Amos the father on “Good Times,” simply didn’t get along with Norman Lear. John Amos was at best a third wheel behind JJ and Florida, and possibly even behind neighbor Willona and the other kids.
Esther Rolle also had issues with Lear, she then went to Jet Magazine and expressed them publicly. Rolle basically complained about the JJ character that he was a grown man who didn’t work. She said it was irresponsible to teach black youth they can get by in life by spouting a catchphrase. (Of course that was before rap caught on :D)
As for “Grace Under Fire,” Brett Butler had enourmous mental health issues, incuding exposing herself inappropriatly to the little boy. Noticed how he was replaced with a much older boy.
I’d say those retools were somewhat necessary to make the series continue.
You will note Lear didn’t get along with Caroll O’Conner and threatened to have Archie killed off. Remember the series of episode where no one could find Archie. But CBS went to Lear and told him, in a showdown between you and O’Conner we’ll go with him. So Lear backed off and instead of killing off Archie, he was simply on a three day drunk
My favourite example of how to retool a series to ruin it was the 70s sitcom “Angie,” which was quite funny and enjoyable the first year. Many of you will remember the theme song called “Different Worlds” by Maureen McGovern. The whole POINT of that show was Brad = Rich and Angie = Poor. They marry and the hilarity is all about Brad trying to adjust to Angie’s “poorness” while Angie has to somehow try to fit into Brad’s “rich world.”
So the second seaon rolls around and they forget all about Brad’s rich side of the family, move Angie and Brad out of the family house (which is a mansion) and into a small surbuban type house.
Suddenly there is no “different worlds” Brad moved into Angie’s world and that ws that. That was also it for the comedy too, since the move effectively ended all conflict.
Change the type of show it is: There was a great humorous action comedy that used to be on. The four co-stars worked great together. It was funny and witty. Then it comes back the following season: one of the costars is gone, most of the witty banter is gone and its become just another somewhat depressing spy thriller.
Take an very entertaining comedy-mystery show, with some wry humor, an interesting detective, and some strong plotting and jettison everything it to cash in on the current spy film craze.
Doesn’t count. “Stunt-casting” is putting some “name” actor in a guest-starring role (as a character other than as themselves) just for the draw. It rarely works, and is almost always embarrassing to all concerned.
Or like NBC did with Boomtown. They took your basic cops-and-lawyers drama and added an interesting Rashomon-style presentation.
The second season, they did away with that and dumbed it down into just another cops-and-lawyers show. The second season only lasted five or six episodes.
How does 30 Rock not count? I can think of Steve Martin, Alan Alda and Carrie Fisher (and soon, Al Gore, not an actor but a celebrity) all showing up on the show (Alda in several episodes) for that purpose exactly.
You may be right. I’m relying on descriptions of the show second-hand, as I loathe Tina Fey and won’t watch it. If I have shown my ass, please forgive me, and don’t take pictures (although it would make a nice addition to your scrapbook.)
That would’ve been much more interesting then a God who sends all his time micro-managing the social lives of teenagers. I thought most of the first season was pretty decent, the missions God gave Joan actually made some sizable difference in peoples lives, which made it semi-belivable. By the second season, God’s increasingly bland and increasingly interested in Joans juvinile relationships.
They should’ve gone the other way, Joans tasks should’ve gotten harder, more important and done more to estrange her from her friends/family as the series preceded.
Not to mention that episode with OPRAH! Plus that time when Jerry Seinfeld was set to be digitally inserted throughout NBC’s lineup! And the one where they reunited the cast of Night Court for purely trivial reasons (plus Jennifer Aniston)! Or the one with all those famous singers, from Elvis Costello to Sheryl Crow, doing a telethon for a single organ donation! Not to mention the fairly-well-hyped bit with David Schwimmer as a corporate shill turned would-be superhero, and the more-well-hyped bit with Jon Hamm, and – aw, heck, I could be here for hours.
[Sarcasm]Ah, but they had a much-previewed lesbian kiss in the second season! Shows are always better with a lesbian kiss.[/Sarcasm]
Yeah, I loved that show the first season.
Nothing says “I give up” like adding a baby to the cast of characters. It supplies writers with a few new plot lines that quickly lose steam. Then they’re stuck with this kid that they don’t know what to do with, and their characters are no fun anymore now that they are supposed to look like responsible parents.
Also, Dirty Sexy Money was ruined in the second season by becoming this soap-opera- shell of itself. The series was fine the way it was. But after the change, everyone’s personality was different. They might as well have thrown linebacker-sized shoulder pads on the women and had them wrestle in a fountain. That series died a slow, agonizing death thanks to the network’s “tweaking.”
Take your classic historical mystery series and change it to the modern day. Then move it from the exotic foreign country to somewhere in California, where it’s easy to film. Then get rid of all the actors except the nominal star of the series.
That’s how ABC took the pilot film Judge Dee and the Monastery Murders, based on Robert H. von Gulik’s mystery series about a real Chinese T’ang dynasty judge and turned it into the series Chang!, set in modern-day San Francisco.They managed to strip away everything that made it at all different and interesting.