Okay, this time I swore I checked the threads there is no thread like this. This is a thread discussing characters leaving in the worse or best ways.

BTVS: I felt a little cheated by Oz's leaving. I mean his first time leaving Sunnydalle made sense, because of his werewolf problem. But the second time he left his life and home just because his girlfriend is now a lesbian made no sense. Also Cordellia leaving, it was explained on ATS but she was never discussed in season 4-7 of BTVS; which was a little ignorant of the characters/staff.

ATS: Kate Lockley leaving, good cliffhanger but was never talked about since.

That 70's Show: Midge, good character but just ran off to California. Also Laurie, even though it is a new actress she doesn't feel right as Eric's bitchy sister. I did like Leo's leave.

When the farm-boy character disparpared around the same time as Michael J. Fox disapeared. His absence made the casting seem a little hollow, making a lot of the "b" story line rely on just the three guys who where left.

SpyMommy Irina bungee-ing backwards off of a building at the end of Alias' Season 2. TPTB should have had something better planned than the crappy IM messaging and robotron voice to replace her, seen as they at least knew that they didn't have Lena Olin in the bag for the next season. Bastards.

ETA: Oh, and let's not forget Frallison (Allison, Sark's evil gal pal who got her DNA altered to become a 'clone' of Francie). She 'died' twice, came back both times, and then 'died' again this season at the hands of Will. There has been no mention of her since. For a woman who can heal super fast (long explanation, if you don't watch the show I'm not going to explain), I just can't buy that the third time was the charm, especially given that it was only one paltry knife wound to the heart (when before, she had been shot multiple times) without some sort of closure. Sark didn't even mention anything about her death, or retrieve her body, nothing. Jeebus... I hope she comes back, though. Merrin Dungey is the awesomest, and Frall deserves some character development. Moreso than a certain other evil female character... *ahem*...

Did you notice they also got rid of the two female secretaries? No wonder the show went so downhill, because that blonde chick was not able to carry off the only woman in a man's world shtick.

Best exits?

Alex Cabot on SVU
Rachel on Cold Feet (no one saw that truck coming, did they?)

Romano's death on ER. Contrived, lazy, stupid, and unimaginative on top of being unnecessary. I also did not like Richard Bay's death on The Practice.

Samantha Malloy, the daughter on Life With Bonnie. She didn't die, she didn't go away to boarding school, she's not upstairs doing her homework or sleeping over at a friend's house. She just vanished without a trace. Last season, Bonnie Hunt and Mark Derwin had three children, a daughter and two sons. This season, they just have the two sons. Okay, for whatever reason, they wanted to get rid of the girl who played the daughter, but to pretend the character never existed is just weird.

In the first season of Family Matters, when it was still completely about the Winslow family and Urkel was just a supporting role, they had another daughter who disappeared with no explanation the next season, probably because the writers couldn't really get a handle on what kind of person she was supposed to be after figuring out the personalities of the others.

Life with Bonnie isn't the only show to completely eradicate traces of a character. West Wing did it quite a few times, most notably with Mandy. A regular character in the first season, who had strong ties to the campaign and history of the Bartlet Administration, when the second season opened, she had disappeared and when the history of the campaign was told she was never mentioned once.

Of course, the most notorious character erasure had to be on Spin City with Mike's girlfriend from the first season. They went so far as to shoot replacement B-Plots for the episodes she was in during the first season to completely eradicate her from the entire show. At least Mandy and these daughters can point to previous episodes and show they're in it.

They could do a new series with all these missing characters. Chuck, the mystery older brother from Happy Days, runs an orphanage for all the babies that "grew up" over the summer on soaps and shows like Family Ties. They can have heartwarming moments with the Brady's pets and various other missing characters can drop in as social workers, teachers, and potential adoptive families.

The one exit that still gets me every time is Anthony Edwards' last ER. It was on TNT again the other morning, and Rachel stopping for the balloon gets me every time, even though I know it's coming. I've probably seen it a dozen times by now, so you'd think I'd be over it already.

An awful exit - Fox Mulder's "abduction"/"death" to explain Duchovny's absence on XF...and no, un-abducting him in the final season didn't count. By then, it wasn't the same show anymore, and his appearance in the final part of the final season seemed almost gratuitous...unforgivable, considering how important his character was to the initial success and the overall dynamic of the show. Arrrgh, I'm still pissed about it.

A sad, but very well-done exit: the death of Coach (Nicholas Colasanto) on Cheers. When the actor died, they had no choice but to acknowledge his absence, but the reactions of the characters to Coach's death seemed as real as the actors' reactions to losing one of their own. Ditto Bill McNeil's/Phil Hartman's send-off on NewsRadio.

Lame Happy Days exit: no, not Chuck (though his unexplained exit is one of the better examples of this phenomenon), I'm talking about Richie. Military service? Yeah, that works. Let's ship the main character off to Greenland (or wherever the hell he was supposedly stationed), and leave us with his lame-ass, can't-act-her-way-out-of-a-paper-bag girlfriend/wife Lori Beth. They should've taken this show out to the Cunningham's backyard and shot it to put it out of its misery rather than dish up more of the crapfest that spawned Joanie Loves Chachi.

Due South! Ray Vecchio? Calls his Very Best Friend from a squillion miles away to *not* tell him that he's going undercover and might not ever be seen again? Then the New Ray who looks nothing like the old one? Bah, I say. Bah! They could have thought of a better way for Vecchio to duck out.

An exit I found shocking was the lawyer from The Practice (I don't remember his name, but everyone hated him and then he got shot up in his car by the guy who threatened to kill him). I didn't see that one coming.

A bittersweet "exit" was when Lynn Thigpen died and Chief Mannion on The District had a hard time getting over it. It was very real, the way they dealt with it. It also eerily fit with the plot because he had just lost everything else, his job, possibly his girlfriend, then his best friend (Ella). It was piled on and he went through a very dark time. Unlike most shows where they just mention the exited character once and then leave it, he mentioned in several episodes that he missed her, he needed her, or he wondered what she would say to him at certain moments. It was like a real person who thinks about a friend long after they've gone.

Jael, that character on The Practice was Richard Bay, the one Rocketman referred to upthread. The character was an annoying little blowhard and I didn't miss him when he was gone, but that was one lame-ass exit, I'll agree.

I was only three when this happened, and I only experienced it through watching it on a website, but everyone who watched the show knew that Douglass Watson's death on Another World left the show without a unifying center, not even one that Victoria Wyndham could fill.

I know it couldn't be helped, but from what I've read and from the final years I watched, they tried to cover the hole with other characters (and the older "power couple" of Rachel and Carl) but it just wasn't the same.

How about the changing of the Becky's on Rosanne? At least they played with it a little, but still... pretty lame. Especially when they changed back. I'm willing to suspend my disbelief only just so far.

I hated that they killed The Lone Gunmen on The X-Files, very unnessasary.

And Krychek. Also completely unnecessary. But it seems like the X-Files wrote the book on lame exits. Mulder should've just disappeared-- all that alien stuff was just a little too much for me to be able to suspend my disbelief for.

Another one from the X files book of lame ass exits - Agent Pendrell. Scully tells Mulder he's dead and they never mention him again. Jerks.


Best exits - Cordelia and Doyle on "Angel". I teared up both times.

*gasp* They did? Man I'm glad I gave up on the show before I had to watch that.

The best exit on Television ever: Joyce Summers in The Body.


ETA: I almost forgot. Abby Morgan on Dawson's Creek - surprising, touching and perfect reactions from people who didn't really like her. I'm so glad that she died so soon and so gloriously (what? Falling drunk off a dock isn't glorious?) before they had a chance to ruin her character too.

I liked Mrs Peel's exit from The Avengers. Not that I wanted her to leave, but I'm so glad she didn't get killed off. You could really tell that Diana Rigg was holding back the tears in her last scene. Plus, I thought it was cute how her long lost husband looked just like Steed.

I loved Riley's exit from Buffy - 'cause I couldn't stand him. I liked Angel's exit from the show at the end of Season 3 too, there was something about it being silent and him disappearing into the smoke that was really cool. And because Buffy knew he would be leaving ever since The Prom.

I didn't want either of them to go, but both Doyle and Cordelia's exits from Angel brought tears to the eyes, as has been commented upthread. Also, one of the most brilliant exits from that show was Darla's - Julie Benz was amazing in that scene, and that episode as a whole in fact.

When they ran the show dealing with Sgt. Phil Esterhaus's death on Hill Street Blues died, I cried. Michael Conrad, the actor, had really died of cancer.

As has been mentioned upthread, The West Wing can be pretty bad for letting characters disappear. Sam (Rob Lowe)'s election results have never been mentioned so we still don't know what happened to him. Mrs Landingham's death was a shock and that was an incredible episode.

I know its stlightly OT but the worst ever re-entrance of a character after they'd killed him off must go to Dallas. Bobby - Stepping out of the shower. "It was all a dream!". That's so bad its almost good. The writers must have had major tequila shots when they thought that one up.

Does anyone remember Christina Applegate's sitcom "Jessie"? In the first season, Jessie lived with her father (who owned the bar she worked at), her two brothers and her son, all of them important characters to the show... Second season arrives, and WHAM! Daddy is gone, both brothers are gone and their existence is never mentionned again! That was too lame for words. At least the kid was still around to keep the "'single mother trying to find time to get her nursing degree and get it on with her hot new neighbour" premise of the show.

Married With Children had three major characters disappear. Steve, Buck the dog, and Seven.

Steve's decision to run off to become a forest ranger was reasonably well-handled. They built it up for months beforehand. Buck...well, dogs die. Seven simply pulled a "Chuck" and disappeared. This annoyed me until I saw an interview with the writers in which they stated that they had done that intentionally to get the fans discussing the situation.

I'm not sure if that's ingenious or tawdry. Ironically, that's also the same way I feel about the show.

Has anyone mentioned Dr. Fleishman's exit from Northern Exposure? Very lame. And it ruined the show. They should have just ended it with his time in Alaska being over and his moving back to NY.

I liked Joel's exit from Northern Exposure. I just hated the fact that it wasn't the series finale as it should have been.

Joel's exit was...um...different. It gets points for that. Still, I would have liked to see him move back to New York, like Poodle Hat mentioned.

When the creators of MASH found out there weren't any black doctors in Vietnam, they got rid of the character Spearchucker Jones without any explanation. I just love that it was because of that, and not the realization that a racist nickname that's funny in a movie becomes pretty agravating week after week.

OMG, I just got that now. All these years of warching MASH, you'd think I caught on sooner. I also never knew that was why they got rid of him. I always wondered.

Correct on why, wrong on which war. M*A*S*H was about Korea, not Vietnam.

There were black military doctors in the Vietnam war.

That makes sense. Fictional characters on tv must be accurate. I'll remember that when they make Egyptians white and show anyone in space.

LA Law's Rosalind Hayes plumment down an elevator shaft freaked me out. I blame that moment for my "falling down an elevator shaft" phobia.

A "gutsy" exit was Teri Bauer's death on 24. One, because you were rooting for her to make it, two, because it finally seemed like she was OUT of danger once she landed at CTU, three, because they made a big deal out of us finding out she was pregnant (which she never had a chance to tell Jack) and finally, because I think it broke every tv rule in the book (especially since the "bad guy" was a woman who was her husband's mistress and the two had a little "bonding" scene earlier in the show when Nina was protecting her).

Nina's (her killer) exit two seasons later? Lame.

ETA - perhaps the best reason for the ending being so gutsy is that, contrary to audience expectations, Teri actually stayed dead.

big chicken, I loved watching Rosalind Shays literally get the shaft! It was the first time I can remember a character I despised actually getting the treatment I'd wished on them. Although I think I'd wanted her to get hit by a bus, I was plenty happy with the elevator solution.

Sorry about your phobia thing, though.

I freaked out my cat when that happened. Though I loved the scene with Toby and Sam in the bar, when I looked down at the clock and realized that was all we were gonna get ( knowing that it was RL's last episode), I literally started cursing out the TV and hitting the sofa pillows. I don't care so much about Mandy, but Sam and the fans deserved more than that. He was a beloved character,part of the Original Fab Four. We deserved to be able to, I dunno, imagine him off in California somewhere, working at what he loved. Hell, I actually wished they would have killed him off like Mrs. Landingham. At least she got a decent exit episode; at least the characters mourned her, and acknowledged her absence.

Grrrrrrr. Bad memories.

Most explosive exit? Joel's Hamdinger escape pod rocketing him off the Satellite of Love.

Well, I could rant about Sam's exit on tww, and send curses down on Sorkin's head, but GoldfishGirl said it all for me. Except the curses, so I'll dump a few down.

Another exit I didn't like was Dave Malucci's on ER. First, because they totally stopped using EP way before. I wasn't even a fan of the character until I noticed that they were showing him less and less. And, then, because they completely destroyed the sweet connection he had with Kerry to do it. And, of course, the actor had to exit another show, Joan of Arcadia. But, I think that was never intended to be a long stay, and they didn't destroy his character in that show.

I agree Romano's exit was horrible, too. Especially since they made sure to turn him into a one dimensional angry buffoon, so no one would mourn him. Except Elizabeth, a little.

Good exits? Definitely Newsradio. Both for Catherine and Bill. I loved that they had special opening credits for Catherine, and they showed that they cared about her, while still keeping it funny. And, even though the reason for Bill's exit was sad and horrible, that was such a great tribute. This had less to do with the characters, and more with the actors, but the fact that you could tell they were holding back real tears made it even more moving.

Dani- Hey, long time no see. ;) You're very welcome to rant some more about Sam; you were always much more eloquent than I.( I hope that he'll come back and sweep Donna off her feet in the series. However, even if he came back now, I doubt even that would get me to watch the show again.)

Best ER exit? Kellie Martin's. If ya gotta go out, why not with a bang, and in one of the best episodes of the series? Even if you didn't like Lucy, you remember her exit; and you'd have to be stone-hearted not to be touched by that final scene with her and Elizabeth.

Yeah, but given what Sorkin did to get rid of Former Veep John Hoynes on TWW - resigning because of stupid, OOC affair - then having John Wells bring the character back and have him sexually harrass CJ.... uh, no thanks. I think Sam's better off in Mandyville.

And the less said about the hatchet job John Wells did on Romano on ER, the better.


I think Star Trek: TNG's Tasha Yar deserves a special award in this category. She got a lame ass exit in the episode "Skin of Evil", then got to come back in the episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" to get a better one. However, TPTB had to ruin it by bringing the actress back as another character that was just lame... oh well.

Oh, yes, Lucy's exit was possibly the best episode ER ever had.

Yes! Absolutely, sugarfreekelli - my dog could have thought of a better way. The thing is, his actual exit scene is one of my all-time favourites - it's the unbelievably lame-ass explanation for it that makes me roll my eyes.

I thought it was cute. It seemed like the writers, who never had a firm grip on reality in the first place, just decided to head into the deep end of the Dadaism pool for a while.

Wait. Are we talking about the episode Flashback or about the actual circumstances under which Vecchio was (Practically) Never Seen Again? Because I reeeeeeally liked Flashback. I thought it was pretty hilarious, even though Fraser was totally out of character, which was the point, I guess. As for how they brought Stanley on the show... Lame, at first, but brilliant later. Call me crazy, but I loved the way that Riviera kept getting blown up, set on fire, etc!

Word to all on Lucy's exit from ER. You can't not cry at that. Even my bitter, cold, little heart melts each and every time. Same goes for Bobby's death on Third Watch. 'Only Time' was a great song for that ending.

And speaking of great songs w/ exits (& I'm shocked no one's mentioned this yet): 'Taking You Home' during Carol's final scenes on ER when she goes to Seattle to see....... GEORGE!!!!! Sorry, off topic.......

Oh man, Tasha Yar's exit was the worst in TV history for me. It turned me off the series completely. Killed by an stupid purple blob. Yikes.

ER has a mixed track record on exits. Good ones include: Lucy (classic), Carol, Doug, Benton, and Susan (the first time)

Bad ones include: Dave, Mark (the actual moment of death was good, but because the zillion episodes leading up to it sucked)

Best Exit:

Word, Pooki, word especially on Darla's exit. She had a wonderful arc that ended in the best possible way. I don't think I have ever been quite so shocked by something that actually made sense and you're right, Julie Benz was amazing.
But for sentimental reasons, I'll have to vote for Oz on BtVS, uh the first time, definitely. It was moving, well-written(amazing for a Noxon episode), well-acted (Seth Green and Aly Hannigan just rocked it), and it totally fit with his character and their situation. I bawled like baby the first time I saw it and I bawl like a slightly older baby (maybe a toddler) when I see it even now.


Worst Exit:
I agree with Rocketman about ER and Romano. It was an stupid and cartoonish and an insult to the character and to Paul McCrane who was able to make us love the jackass.

Some shows do well when a star leaves, some don't do well.
Happy Days could not really survive without Richie. The last 4 years were not as good.
Andy Griffith had good shows after Barney, but it wasn't as great.
Cheers surived the loss of Coach and Diane thanks to Woody and Rebecca.
Mash could pick up slack with good actors. BJ worked with Hawkeye just as good as Trapper. Henry Blake was missed, but Potter was fabulous too. Charles W filled in great for Frank Burns.
Judy Winslow actually disapeared after 4 seasons on Family Matters.
Little House could not survive last season without the Ingalls.

Remember the second season of Mork and Mindy? Despite the huge success of the first season, it was re-tooled for the second season for various reasons (the network wanted a younger cast, and Robin Williams was already bored and wanted to shake things up), and that meant the entire supporting cast was dumped. So Mindy's father and grandmother just vanished -- I think Mindy said her dad had gone off to become a symphonic conductor and her grandmother went with him (yeah, like he'd take his wisecracking mother-in-law along). Not that those characters were that great to begin with, but that was a shoddy way to write them off. Plus, the new characters were so bad that the father and grandmother were written back in a year later.

Speaking of Garry Marshall shows, the gold standard for mysterious character disappearances is still Richie Cunningham's older brother Chuck, who was gone after the first few episodes and had basically ceased to exist by the second season. In the finale, Howard says that "we were blessed with two children," meaning Chuck's existence had been entirely erased -- probably by those same monks who added "Dawn" to the Buffyverse.

Absolute worst: Graham Jarvis on Seventh Heaven. After he died in real life, the show pretended he was alive for nine months, with Annie paying frequent visits to her "ill" father. Then they finally let him die off screen, had most of the characters find out off screen, and had the funeral off screen. The only semi-non-reprehensible thing they did was a photo montage of him at the end, though it clearly included real life siblings that did not exist in the show, and had a photo of an off screen wedding of fictional characters shoe-horned in. Ick.

Conversely, I thought Judging Amy did a decent job dealing with the death of Richard Crenna (Jared Duff). They not only memorialized him (in a timely manner) within the episode, they let his character's death have repercussions beyond that single episode.

Fictional death I hated: Bobby Simone on NYPD Blue. Not just because it took for-fucking-ever, but because of that horrendous subplot where another cop's widow was coerced into donating her dead husband's heart to Bobby which prolonged Bobby's death for about 3 minutes. What the hell was the point of that? Don't donate organs, the poor sap is going to die anyway? Yeah, great.