As producers of The Office told anyone who would listen at the NBC TCA party in Pasadena on Thursday night, Steve Carell is leaving the hit series before the season even ends. (Which is earlier than we had even expected.) Faced with the loss of its lead character after seven seasons, the future of The Office may be in doubt. Or, maybe not. Let's take a look at the brief history of when a male or female lead left a popular television show, and the impact their departure had on future seasons.
Shelley Long on Cheers
For five seasons, the on-again, off-again romance between Sam Malone (Ted Danson) and Diane Chambers (Shelley Long) drove most of the narrative flow on Cheers. Shelley Long -- who had some initial success in feature film -- opted not to return for a sixth season, a decision that would drastically change the overall tone of the show for the rest of its run. In this case, however, that was a good thing. Cheers started focusing more on its characters -- Frasier, for one, became less of an arrogant know-it-all and more of a flawed human that the audience actually started to like. Long was replaced not with another love interest (though, the idea was toyed with in a few episodes), but with a cold, calculating executive -- at least, as we soon find out, only on the surface -- Rebecca Howe (Kirstie Alley), who is put in charge of the bar after Sam sold it off. Cheers would last for six more seasons after Long's departure and only shut its doors for good after Ted Danson decided he didn't want to do a twelfth season. Even Cheers wasn't going to try and replace a lead twice. Below is a clip from the first post-Diane Chambers episode of Cheers.
John Schneider and Tom Wopat on The Dukes of Hazzard
As you'll remember, but it's worth noting again: Schneider and Wopat played Bo and Luke Duke, who smuggled moonshine in an orange car with the Confederate flag painted on the top of it. This was, at one point, one of the most popular shows in the world. Schneider and Wopat, knowing this, tried to renegotiate their contracts before the fifth season. Instead of renegotiating, though, the producers told them to take a hike and brought in two actors (Byron Cherry and Christopher Mayer) to play Bo and Luke's even more conniving cousins, Coy and Vance. In their first episode, while Bo and Luke were off as NASCAR drivers (NASCAR often recruits drivers based on their efficiency in smuggling moonshine), Boss Hogg drove this point home to viewers by declaring that, "Bo and Luke were angles compared to Coy and Vance." Viewers (including a very confused young me) were not impressed with Coy and Vance. No matter how many times we were subjected to watching these two chop wood with their shirts off, they never caught on with audiences and were replaced with Schneider and Wopat before the season ended. The Dukes of Hazzard never quite recovered from this season and only lasted two more before ending. Below are the opening credits featuring Coy and Vance.
coy and vance dukes of hazzard intro
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David Caruso on NYPD Blue
People forget, but David Caruso wasn't always a punch line. I firmly believe that if Caruso would have stayed on NYPD Blue, it would be ranked as one of the top-ten television shows of all-time. Not to say that NYPD Blue didn't have a good run without him, but this show was on an entirely different level when Det. John Kelly was the focal point. Unfortunately for everyone, Caruso vastly overvalued his worth to the producers and left the show early in the second season to make movies. He did, they sucked, and his career floundered until CSI: Miami came along. This was the second major character defection (Sherry Stringfield left immediately after the first season to take a role on something called ER) that led to what amounted to a revolving door policy of characters over the course of 12 seasons. The story of the show quickly changed to a now-sober Andy Sipowicz -- who, being the main character, had to quickly curb a lot of his vices such as booze and hookers. After Caruso, the show found some stability with Jimmy Smits as Sipowicz's partner, but he lacked the raw rage and charisma that Caruso used to make NYPD Blue seem like a show with limitless possibilities. Smits would later leave the show and be replaced by Rich Schroder and Mark-Paul Gosselaar.
George Clooney on ER
It's strange now to think of ER as this cohesive machine with a stable cast considering that by the time the show ended, every single member of the original cast was long gone. Regardless, Clooney was the second major cast member to leave the show (after, once again, Sherry Stringfield, who seems to make a habit out of leaving early). Heeding the warnings that were laid out in front of him by the departure of Caruso from NYPD Blue, Clooney fulfilled his contact on ER, staying into the show's fifth season, despite some big screen success. Without Clooney, ER would continue for ten more seasons. As for Clooney -- whatever happened to that dude?
Dick York on Bewitched
This is still, to this day, one of the oddest casting situations to ever happen on a network television show. The Emmy-nominated York played the bungling Darrin Stephens for five seasons on Bewitched, but left the show to recover after experiencing a debilitating back injury. In the show's sixth season, Dick York was replaced by Dick Sargent in the lead roles with no explanation to the audience whatsoever. This was a show that focused on witchcraft and the supernatural, would it have been that hard to come up with a plot device that changed Darrin's appearance? Bewitched, with Sargent as the male lead, would continue on with some very confused viewers for three seasons. Below is a clip of Sargent's first appearance on Bewitched -- again, no explanation.
Patrick Duffy on Dallas
Today, when people think of Dallas, Larry Hagman's J.R. Ewing is the first character that comes to mind. But his brother, Bobby Ewing, was the heart and soul of the show. Duffy, who played Bobby Ewing, left Dallas after the seventh season. Pretty permanently, actually, with the character being killed off by being run over by a car. The next season, confronted with a fairly nefarious character now being the main lead, the show's ratings plummeted. So, yeah, they had to bring back a dead character. Duffy came back in the last episode of the eighth season with the now infamous "the entire eighth season was a dream and I'm safe and sound, taking a shower" explanation. (Note: Some consider season eight to be the ninth season because of a mini series that aired before the series started.) With Bobby back on the show, the series lasted for five more seasons.
Chevy Chase on Saturday Night Live
OK, now it's commonplace for cast members to come and go on SNL; it's part of what makes the show work. But when the show first premiered, it was nowhere near the institution that it is today. The success came from the original Not Ready for Prime Time Players, and not just the format. So, yes, it was shocking when the most notable of those players from SNL's first season, Chevy Chase, decided to quit and move to Los Angeles. The case has been made that the only reason that SNL still exists today is because Chase left, opening up the show to other cast members like Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi who were not getting the screen time they deserved. Chase was replaced with Bill Murray for the second season, and the show was never in any real jeopardy of cancellation until the rest of the remaining cast left, including Lorne Michaels, after the fifth season. Below is Chase, along with Richard Pryor, at his best and most controversial.