selenak

Soooo, any new watchers marathoning B5 are bound to come across a certain event that happens more than once, and a friend of mine just have. This has reminded me that actors for some reason becoming unavailable is of course hardly a B5 only phenomenon. And many a show I've seen deals with it in a variety of ways. Blake's 7 wrote its leading man (and one of the supporting characters) out after two seasons, though it brought him back for two more episodes. Alias responded to Lena Olin not being avalable for season 3 by giving her character a sister to cover for her temporary absence, then brought her back in seasons 4 and 5, though not to the same extent as she'd been present in s2. Farscape killed off a supporting character when the actress had too much trouble with the extensive make-up. JMS switched leads but also tried recast in one case - Na'Toth - which didn't really work out. The last example not withstanding, my own fannish instinct is to wish the show in question would go for a recast - unless the character departure was an intended part of the story, as with Ned Stark in Game of Thrones - because if Ive gotten invested in a story and its characters, I don't want said character's development suddenly cut off because the actor leaves for whichever reason. What do you think?

Poll #26784 Recast, Write Out, Replace?

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 41

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If an actress/actor becomes unavailable, the character should be....

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recast - Loss of actor should not lead to us losing the character as well!
16 (39.0%)

written out, because new actors take me out of the story and abrupt departures happen!
18 (43.9%)

replaced by a new character getting essentially their story
7 (17.1%)