I admire Jennifer Lien for not doing the obvious and getting a boob job (even if strictly speaking her B cups didn’t exactly cause her to lose her job). V-Ger was her last acting job BTW. But Seven was a good character too.
Re: the Two Darrins, it’s Dick York, and it’s no contest. His double takes were a large part of the humor in the interaction between him and Endora, the way he would gamely struggle with whatever curse she threw his way (like the huge ears episode, or the Italian accent episode) while trying to hang on to any shred of dignity he could keep. The only thing Dick Sargeant did in similar situations was a slow burn, that was the extent of his acting range.
MASH lost some of its wackiness when the old guard left, but I prefer the new guard in every case, as said characters were more 3 dimensional than their predecessors (and remember MASH was a dramedy not a straight sitcom).
Cheers
-Diane Chambers - Rebecca devolved faster and more pathetically than Diane ever did.
-Coach - Truly original characters can never be replaced.
Bewitched
-Darren #1
-Mrs. Kravitz #1
-Aunt Clara
MAS*H
-Potter
-Winchester
Voyager
-Seven of Nine (Kes was a wooden character, played by a bad actress and given nothing interesting to do. Seven was an interesting character, capably played by Jeri Ryan, and at least briefly actually given a P.O.V. that challenged the much ballyhooed Prime Directive.)
New series:
Doctor Who (it was inevitable)
I’ll restrict it to the revived new millenium series (the classic series has wayyy too many replacements to choose from).
Christopher Ecclestone / David Tenant (My vote - Tenant)
Rose / Martha / Donna (My vote - Donna)
For Monk, I liked Sharona as a character playing against Adrian Monk, but not as a person because she was so abrasive; whereas I don’t like Traylor Howard as an actress much, but I think Natalie is very likeable. So it’s Natalie edging out for the win.
Isn’t it Jazz who notices? I remember him saying something like “Little Nicky?! Well, is the mom the same this year?”
I also agree that the original Vivian Banks was waaaay better. She was hilarious and way more fun to watch.
I was pissed about Sharona leaving at first but then I started to prefer Natalie. I haven’t seen the show in a while, but I still like Natalie better, I think.
Out of curiosity did he shave his head for the series or was it a bald wig?
I think the worst replacements are when they replace the departing character with a “new” but nearly identical character. An example is when Little House on the Prairie- replaced Nellie (the blonde ringleted spoiled brat belonging to the Olesons) with Nancy (a blonde ringleted spoiled brat adopted by the Olesons) or when the Duke Boys (blonde and dark haired tight jeaned cousins) were replaced with “the other Duke Boys” (a blonde and dark haired tight jeaned cousins).
Did Barney Miller ever actually replace Fish (Abe Vigoda) or Nick (Jack Soo)? Or did they just transition? (Which would be realistic since a lot of departments don’t replace workers during budget cuts like NYC has always had off and on.)
Here’s one more: Hill Street Blues: Sgt. Esterhaus v. Sgt Pulaski
Cheers: Rebecca over Diane, Woody (barely) over Coach.
(favorite Coach lines, from memory so they may not be exact:
Someone in bar: Let’s hang him in effigy!
Coach: Let’s hang him here in Boston!
Cliff: If a tree falls in a forest and nobody’s there, does it make a noise?
Coach: If no one’s there, how do you know it fell? Maybe some beavers set it down there.)
MASH: Trapper over BJ, Blake over Potter, Winchester over Frank.
Roseanne probably did the best job of this. In Sarah Chalke’s first episode people keep asking her what she’s done different to her hair, then the episode ends with teh family talking about Darrins on Bewitched (Becky/Chalke likes the second Darrin best). When Lecy resumed everybody who sees her in the episode either asks “Where the hell have you been?” or says something like “Seems like you’ve been gone for 2 years!”, then there was a hysterical Patty Duke Show opening as the end credits (complete with cameo by William Schallert). Later Sarah Chalke turns up as a trick-or-treater in the Halloween episode (Halloween was a major episode each year on Roseanne who has a major case of deja vu. When Chalke and Lecy switched off again there was a closing segment set many years in the future DJ (played by John Goodman) is straight jacketed due to trauma muttering “they say she’s the same she’s not they say she’s the same she’s not…”. (I think Roseanne [whatever the hell her last name is] is a psycho hosebeast of a person, but her show was great until the final season.)
I wonder if there’s anybody who prefers Drew Carey to Bob Barker (or to Clive Owen for that matter). Clean House
Allen Lee Haff v. Trish (the yard sale diva)
(I can’t remember who was before Matt Iseman [who I know is a MD in real life but he seems dummer than hair tonic].)
I can’t remember who was in the pilot of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy as the Culture guy other than “gay black guy who I believe was a singer or actor”, but he was only in one episode, yet he was WORLDS better than Jai. Instead of saying “make eye contact” he took stock of the person’s interest and then purchased CDs, DVDs, books, and magazine subscriptions based on them- that actually worked a lot better and really was ‘culture’.
Babylon 5:
Sheridan did grow on me, but I really liked Sinclair better. Well, the first-season Sinclair, not so much the I’m-all-mysterious-an’-shit Sinclair of later episodes.
Ivanova, no contest. Best dialogue on the show.
DS9:
Ezri. Had a total crush on her. Part of that may be that the show picked up near the end, IMO.
**
MST3K:**
Mike, no contest. Joel was interesting, but not really a good screen presence.
My additions: The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes:
David Burke or Edward Hardwicke? I rather prefer Burke’s somewhat more dapper Watson, myself.
Cadfael:
Abbot Radolphus or Abbot Herribert? Both are cool, but I prefer old men to vulcans.
A threefer: Sean Pertwee, Eoin McCarthy, or Anthony Green (in order of appearance). Pertwee’s my favorite by far, mostly for his excellent righteous indignation (oh, that wacky Jehan). I prefer Green to McCarthy, he just seemed more sure of himself.
I gotta say I’m surprised by the practically unanimous support for Major Winchester over one of the classic TV characters of all time. Larry Linville as Frank Burns was brilliant!
They both have their good points, but Mike’s more my speed, too. I also prefer Dr. Forrester and TV’s Frank as the Mads over the teams that came later. For the life of me I can’t tell the difference between Forrester and Bill Corbett as Crow, though.
One of the things – just one, mind you – that tips the scales to York over Sargent was that around that time the writing got so stale and they WROTE Darrin differently. He became a stock character rather than a real one. I’ve actually watched some Bewitched in the last couple of years for the first time in a couple of decades, and it’s hard to watch the later episodes because they are so formula as to almost be self-parody.
Monk: Natalie - hands down. Sharona was way too whiney, even when she wasn’t trying to whine.
MAS*H: Potter was a more grounded character than Blake. I could never believe Blake as a CO. Frank was definitely more annoying than Winchester. Both served their roles on the show.
Star Trek TNG: Crusher, though Polaski wasn’t bad
Star Trek DS9: Jadzia, though Ezri wasn’t bad Babylon 5: I liked Sinclair. Too bad the actor left. Sheridan was a great replacement, no complaints either way.
Ivonova with no competition.
Doctor Who:
Christopher Ecclestone / David Tenant - both are great.
Rose / Martha / Donna - Martha. She’s bright, intelligent, funny, capable, and beautiful. Donna has her good moments, but is just too annoying most of the time. Rose was interesting, but I still like Martha.
NYPD Blue:
Andy Sipowicz’s various partners: John Kelly (David Caruso) / Bobby Simone (Jimmy Smits) / Danny Sorenson (Rick Schroder) / John Clark Jr. (Mark-Paul Gosselaar)
My pref - John Kelly was the lead character when David Caruso could act. By the time Rick Schroder was brought on, they had shifted the lead role to Sipowicz. I give the edge to kelly over Simone, though I liked Simone, and Sorenson over Clark.
Don’t know where to begin on all the female detectives.
They got so lazy they actually re-filmed a couple of episodes just changing things like character names. One involved Dick Sargent’s Darrin being split into two people- one all business and one all play and attentive to Samantha when she was pregnant with Adam- by Endora (which had been done previously with Dick York when Samantha was pregnant with Tabitha), and another involved a babysitting gig that goes bad for Esmerelda and ends up before a judge (who says “I’d like to ask the defendant one question… are you free to babysit my grandchildren this weekend?”) that had previously been done almost word for word with Aunt Clara.
Another vote for the First Becky. Her replacement seemed to have wandered in from Malibu Beach-she never fit in with the other characters visually, at all.