fannish5: pain or gain?

[selenak]

Five characters that replaced departing characters, and whether you considered each a gain or a loss.


Right then. I think we'll have to exclude Doctor Who for obvious reasons, such as the freakin' format of the show since decades. So, let's see:

1) Anya in Buffy The Vampire Slayer, who essentially filled the Cordelia-shaped gap from season 4 onwards after Cordy left for spin-off horizons. (Though I suppose you could say fourth season Spike also took over some of Cordelia's narrative function, and they shared the Cordy role for a while, but still, essentially Anya took over from Cordelia.) Cordelia had been my favourite character during the first three seasons of the show, after which Buffy herself became my favourite. But the double blessing of her getting a much larger role over at AtS and Anya, who had been an interesting and amusing presence in four season 3 episodes, becoming a regular on BTVS made me go along with the change. I came to love Anya, very much so. And Cordelia, had she remained in Sunnydale, would never have gotten the development she got in the first two seasons of Angel, where she was a more central and important character. So all in all, good decision. (With one caveat: Xander/Cordelia sparring had a quite different vibe from Xander's early arguments with Anya because Cordelia always gave as good as she got, and quite often was the attacker. Whereas there was a naivete about Anya that made Xander look insensitive instead of quippy.

2) Wesley in Angel the Series taking over from Doyle. As one of the few who had felt sorry for Wesley in s3 of BTVS, where he got the full ire of Buffy and Giles for the Council's actions, I was delighted to see him back. It's hard to remember, kids, given Wesley's later popularity in fandom, but back then the news that the quickly popular Doyle would be replaced by the comic relief Watcher from s3 was greeted iwth howls of fury by many. Maybe the essays written on how that Wyndham-Pryce guy could never possibly replace Doyle are still online somewhere for you to check. So take it on trust: "awww, Wesley is back" was a minority prosition. It helped that I had liked Doyle well enough but hadn't fallen in love with him like much of fandom, and really wanted Wesley to be given another chance. The rest, they say, is history. (Including the part where precisely at the point where everyone seemed to love Wesley, I fell out of love with him somewhat, but that's another story, and has nothing whatsoever to do with Doyle.)

3) Sikozu in Farscape taking over from Jool in season 4. I could never really warm up to Jool, great dance scene with Chiana not withstanding, and Sikozu immediately struck me as interesting, even before she started her flirtation with Scorpius. I still think The Peacekeeper Wars utterly screwed her over, damn it. Anyway, definitely gain for the show, yes. Season 4 was troubled (from Pod!Aeryn to lazy resolving of the John/Aeryn angst which in turn smacked of artificiality to begin with, as opposed to earlier versions of same, plus the writers until the last third of the season didn't seem to know what to do with Scorpius once they had him on board Moya), but Sikozu was made of win. And so was her actress, who played my favourite version of Stark in the bizarro 'verse.

4) Lyta Alexander taking over from Talia Winters who in turn took over from Lyta Alexander (after the pilot) in Babylon 5. (Yes, I was tempted to write about Lochley here, but I've already fangirled Lochley twice in previous memes.) Hmmmm. On the one hand, Talia's abrupt departure meant that several plot threads related to her - Kosh's recording of her mind, for example, ore the Jason Ironheart gift (which btw looks like it was given so she'd have the equivalent of Lyta's Vorlon experience in the pilot) - had to be dropped, plus frankly I liked her relationship with Ivanova better than Marcus Cole's later. On the other hand, Lyta's relationship with Kosh I is something I can't see Talia credibly having, nor the dark mirror of it, the way Kosh II treated Lyta which was a personal illustration of the ruthlessness of the Vorlons (and I think important, because planet killers make for neat special effects but don't have the same emotional slap in the face result as when you see Lyta being a classic abused spouse). Lyta's outsider position among the B5 crew was both stark and credible, whereas given Talia was well-liked and appreciated, I'd have trouble believing her getting the treatment Lyta got in s4 and 5. So all in all, both loss and gain, that switching of female telepaths.

5) Dr. Billy taking over from Dr. Matt in American Gothic. Because I had to use one example where I'm all boo, hiss. Matt was interesting, a decent guy with flaws, and the stupid network insisted on him being replaced because they thought Lucas Buck needed to have a more manly heroic opponent on the side of light. Shaun Cassidy, the headwriter and creator of the show, was about as thrilled by this as JMS was by network insistence on writing a "heroic Top Gun style pilot" into Babylon 5 in season 2 (which resulted in Warren Keefer whom JMS killed off as soon as the season was over and used as little as possible). This resulted in a somewhat malicious late season storyline wherein Billy thinks he's the hero come to town showing the evil sheriff what's what and taking his hot morally ambiguous woman and then finds out he's being played as an utter tool by said woman. This is fun to watch, but I still missed Matt, especially given that American Gothic got just one single season, full stop, which I knew when I started to watch. So: definite loss. Booo! Hisss!!!!!

Comments

[shati.livejournal.com]

(With one caveat: Xander/Cordelia sparring had a quite different vibe from Xander's early arguments with Anya because Cordelia always gave as good as she got, and quite often was the attacker. Whereas there was a naivete about Anya that made Xander look insensitive instead of quippy.

I agree, and I wish it didn't work out like that. On the side of dubious pluses, it makes me feel better about the outcome of "Hell's Bells," because I mostly think Xander and Anya are in love, but not exactly good for each other.

Also, wow, I totally never thought about early Wesley's reception on AtS! In my mind he is an eternal object of fannish devotion. That's kind of hilarious.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

On the side of dubious pluses, it makes me feel better about the outcome of "Hell's Bells," because I mostly think Xander and Anya are in love, but not exactly good for each other.

Agreed. Early on when Anya says "I'm marrying my best friend!" my heart broke a little for her, because while Xander was that to her, she wasn't to him. Don't get me wrong, I think Xander loved Anya, would have died for her without hesitation, and that he left her at the end of Hell's Bells because he was afraid of hurting her (that look to his parents really worked for me) - but until s7, he wasn't her friend, and even then, he'd always be closer to Willow and Buffy. Maybe even Dawn.

Early Wesley: check it out, if you can find posts going that far back.*g* It's true, I swear. I think people started to come around ca. Five by Five (torture will do it for fangirls, it appears), but there still were holdouts until Wesley assumed leadership in s2, and the utter and complete devotion phase definitely has to be dated with Loyalty in s3.

[shati.livejournal.com]

Yep. And the flip side of that is, Anya doesn't have any good friends. I think it's partly a weird side effect of the character starting off comic relief and becoming One of the Gang -- they began with a hilariously off-putting and abrasive character who doesn't think it's wrong to kill people, but it had to turn into a serious portrait of a character who ... doesn't have any friends, and still doesn't really seem to get that it's wrong to kill people. (I do love "Selfless," but I wish there'd been any follow-up at all that wasn't focused on Xander/Anya.)

I just might! It's especially funny to me because I love early Wesley (way early -- BtVS through S1 of AtS) best.

[misachan.livejournal.com]

I admit, I never really forgave Lyta for not being Talia. I didn't like her in the pilot and was relieved when I saw she'd been replaced (which was the exact opposite of my reaction to the doctor switch; I'd really liked the Pilot doctor and it took me forever to warm up to Franklin). She had this strange, intense neediness that turned me off; I was much more interested the relationship between Kosh and Sheridan and for a while I was rolling my eyes ever time she came on screen. I did start to come around during the Kosh II arc, but then when the whole Mind War thing started I found myself wondering again what this would look like with Talia. That might be my fierce Byron hate coloring things though.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Well, I hated Byron, too, but at this point I was also relieved Ivanova had gone because I had heard that if she hadn't, she'd have been the one to hook up with him, so it wasn't a Lyta versus Talia situation in my mind. And Byron in the end did trigger the Dark Phoenix phase in Lyta, which I enjoyed watching; as I said, I can't imagine how this whole plot would have developed with Talia because Talia was much more integrated with the command crew than Lyta ever was, and the female telepath being an outsider was one of the preconditions.

"Strange, intense neediness" is a good description, though. She replaced the Corps with the Vorlons, and then when they disappointed her as well she fell for Byron; only then was that finally burned out of her, but at a price.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

What I think is weird about Lyta in the pilot is how incredibly 1980s they make her look, with that haircut and the square-shouldered jacket.

[12-12-12.livejournal.com]

First of all, your mood icon is cracking me up. :D

Secondly, thanks to many of your recent posts I've been wallowing in old school Whedonverse love. Aww. Like you, I seem to have followed a trajectory somewhat different from the rest of fandom when it comes to Wesley: I fell in love with him in Season 1 of Angel, but liked him much less in season 3: primarily because he took Connor (I knew this was unfair, but fannish reactions are often irrational *g*), and also as a weird and perverse reaction to his sudden popularity in fandom. XD

I think the moment when I fell for Wesley is when he and Angel go to rescue Cordy from the demon auction. I can't remember the exact line, but it was something like, "Prey on an innocent girl, would you? I'm going to thrash you within an inch of your life. And then I'm going to take that inch!" And then he resettles his glasses on his nose. hee!

[selenak.livejournal.com]

Wesley in season 3: I experienced both ends of the scale, emotionally. At first I was all "poor Wesley!" during the three relevant episodes and subsequently; then, starting with A New World, I started to fall for Connor, and the Connor-Angel relationship did much to revive my flagging AtS love (s3 still is my least favourite of the seasons), and then came season 4, and then, after crying over Home, when I went back to rewatch some s3 episodes, I was all "Wesley, you idiot!" (Not that it's not possible to feel for Wes and Angel both in that situation, of course. But the emphasis of my sympathy had definitely shifted.)

He was hilarious in Expecting. Though the scene that most sticks to mind for me is the last, when he's so happy Angel invites him to stay and shares breakfeast with him and Cordelia. That was when I went from my sympathy for the fannish underdog (i.e. season 3 of BTVS Wesley, set up to fail) to falling in love with the character.

If you're interested, back when the dvds came out, I did a rewatch and review posts that should be archived either in my memories under "Angel" or via the tag.

P.S. Re: mood icon

[selenak.livejournal.com]

That's one of many funny and touching scenes with the Tenth Doctor and Donna, whom I just adore together.

[likeadeuce.livejournal.com]

Anya replacing Cordy really was a win-win, wasn't it? (Other than the point about the Xander relationships, as you mentioned). As somebody who started watching Buffy in the late seasons -- and really didn't see Angel until I had gone back and watched all of Buffy -- I was so attached to Anya for a long time that I didn't give Cordy a chance. But then I watched and loved her on Angel (well, seasons 1 & 2 of Angel, anyway) and I was able to appreciate her role on Buffy more, as well. Now when i rewatch the early seasons, Cordy's scenes are always among my favorites.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

It so was a win-win, yes. (And those early scenes are why in my SFU crossover the Scoobies had to be there, btw; Cordelia belonged to them as much as to Los Angeles.*g*)

[kattahj.livejournal.com]

Yes to pretty much everything you said about Anya and Wesley (have only seen up to season 3 of Farscape and the others not at all, so I can't comment on those). I loved Wesley to the end, but I remember feeling this pang of irritation when everyone started fawning: "Oh, he's good enough for you!" *grin*

And yeah, Anya/Xander was Not Good in a way Cordy/Xander, for all its hate/love, never was.

I think one reason Anya was so much readily accepted than Wesley, apart from the VERY different ways of departure for Cordy and Doyle, was that she had already started making a place for herself in the series by the time Cordy left. Wes was a previously known character, but from BtVS, not Angel. If he had been recurring in the early eps, like Kate was, I think it would have been at least slightly easier to take than "Here's your new regular, enjoy!"

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I remember feeling this pang of irritation when everyone started fawning: "Oh, he's good enough for you!" *grin*

It's irritating, isn't it? But it's there, and it happened to me a couple of times with characters. Every now and then I'm thinking of making an icon of that insect creature from the season 4 episode who goes on about Jasmine: "We loved her first." *g*

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

The only thing that makes me uncomfortable about Dr Billy in the final episodes of American Gothic is wondering whether the actor knew he was meant to be playing a twit, or whether he thought he was playing an handsome badass and had some horrible realisation afterwards.

[selenak.livejournal.com]

I suspect it was the later. After all, they had to cast on short notice, and the network probably handed out "wanted: handsome heroic leading man" ads. Now some actors

[ulkis.livejournal.com]

I remember not hating Wesley on Buffy, but I was dismayed that he was joining Angel because I was afraid the show wasn't going to be able to come up with a good original character on its own. Thankfully I was very wrong about that!

And Sikozu was one of the best things about season 4. I still can't believe she and Scorpius had so much chemistry together. Before she came the idea of Scorpius having sexual chemistry with anyone would have boggled my mind (although I guess those scenes with John in the third season finale came close . . . ). The only thing I missed about Jool was the friendship between her and Chiana, but overall I think Sikozu was the more interesting character.