TV series are by their very nature intended to be long-running, which means that creators often get to see audience reactions to their narratives while they’re still working on them. Reddit user TheDivineArchitect asked people to share the times fan feedback was so strong that it completely changed the course of the show, and there were some interesting examples…
1.
Nikki and Paulo were two characters introduced in Season 3 of Lost as a direct result of viewer feedback after people complained that there were supposed to be dozens of survivors of the initial plane crash, but only around 10-15 were ever focused on.
Unfortunately, viewers immediately hated Nikki and Paulo, with many feeling like they were shoe-horned in unnaturally. So almost as quickly as they were introduced, the writers killed the pair off. “Given the backlash against them, we had to clean up the mess,” showrunner Damon Lindelof told Entertainment Weekly.
2.
Dr. Beverly Crusher was written out of Star Trek: The Next Generation after the first season due to a personal conflict between actor Gates McFadden and executive producer Maurice Hurley. But the replacement for her character, Dr. Katherine Pulaski, was very unpopular with fans.
Gates McFadden, meanwhile, said she received “thousands of letters” from fans asking for the return of her character, and Patrick Stewart, who played Captain Picard, also lobbied for her return, which happened in Season 3, after Maurice Hurley departed the show himself at the end of Season 2.
3.
Season 7 of Married With Children introduced a new kid character named Seven. He’s meant to be the son of Peg’s cousins who is left with the Bundys. But audiences hated him, and after 12 episodes featuring his character, the writers moved on.
He wasn’t so much written out as forgotten about — there’s a reference from the D’Arcys that he showed up at their house and wouldn’t leave, and after that he’s never seen again (er, except as a missing kid on a milk carton in Season 8).
4.
In Season 4 of The Good Wife, Kalinda’s abusive ex-husband Nick shows up to cause trouble for her — but his presence caused even more trouble for the viewers, who overwhelmingly hated the subplot — so much so that the writers wrapped it up sooner than they intended.
“You don’t give James Bond a girlfriend,” showrunner Robert King told TV Guide. “Some characters you actually don’t want to see that much backstory. We’re adjusting. No matter where we went, this was not a place where the audience wanted to go.”
5.
Mike and Susan were one of the main ships in Desperate Housewives, but by Season 5, they had already been married and divorced, and Mike was with another woman, Katherine. Their plot was meant to culminate in them getting married, but fans just wanted Mike with Susan.
Showrunner Marc Cherry said he ended up rewriting the show so Mike married Susan (again) because fans were so insistent about it. “It occurred to me that it might be a more effective way to go as opposed to frustrating the fans for another year by keeping Mike and Susan apart,” he said. “The fans demanded it in a voice so loud I kind of was scared to go against them.”
6.
Dallas was known for its dramatic cliffhangers and plot twists, but after they killed off popular character Bobby Ewing at the end of Season 8, the show’s ratings declined and it went from the number one show to number seven.
The writers and producers decided to course correct quite literally — at the end of Season 9, Bobby Ewing returns, and it’s revealed that his death and everything that followed (i.e., every single thing that happened that season) were part of a dream. Unfortunately for them, the retcon proved just as divisive among audiences as the original death.
7.
The original Roseanne ended with lead character Roseanne revealing that the entire show had been a work of fiction by her and that some of the storylines — like Dan surviving his heart attack, or which Healy brother her daughters were with — were things she had made up. A lot of fans hated the ending, especially the fact Dan was killed off.
When the show was rebooted in 2018, actor John Goodman returned as Dan, and his death as well as other disliked aspects of the last season were explained away with a meta joke about Roseanne making it all up. Of course, Roseanne herself was later killed off for the new spin-off show The Connors after Roseanne Barr’s real-life controversies, but that’s a whole other story.
8.
A running gag from the beginning of South Park was that Kenny died every episode and returned in the next as if nothing had happened. By Season 5, show creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker were apparently sick of the character and the joke, so they killed off Kenny permanently — only fans got really, really mad about it.
Kenny was absent for most of Season 6, but his character was resurrected — with as little fanfare as all his previous returns from the dead — in the Christmas episode.
9.
Barb was little more than a plot device on Stranger Things Season 1 — killed off early in order to motivate Nancy to investigate the strange happenings in Hawkins. Viewers surprised show creators The Duffer Brothers when they latched onto Barb and demanded “justice” for her.
The Duffers attempted to provide that justice in Season 2, admitting they had “neglected” Barb previously and creating a whole plot about the aftermath of her death, including the grief of her parents and Nancy.
10.
At the end of Season 7 of Magnum P.I., titular character Thomas Magnum dies in what was meant to be the final episode of the show.
Fans were so angry — and the network so keen to continue with a top-rated show — that an eighth season was created, bringing Magnum back from the dead in another “it was a dream” retcon.
11.
Monica and Chandler were originally meant to have only a one-night stand on Friends, with the show’s creators intending for Monica and Joey to eventually get together.
But fan reaction to Monica and Chandler was so strong that the writers and producers decided to keep them together and make them endgame. “The more we explored it, the more stories it provided and it really reinvigorated the show,” said producer David Crane.
12.
Cally on Battlestar Galactica was originally meant to be a bit part, and she was going to be killed off in Season 1. But fans loved her so much that she ended up surviving and becoming a bigger character right through until the final season.
Nikki Clyne, the actor who played Cally, said, “I can’t know for certain what conversations happened in the writers’ room, but I genuinely think I have the fans to thank for Cally’s resilience and kickass character arc. … Despite only having a handful of lines in the miniseries, and the biggest scene ending up on the cutting room floor, Cally ended up developing a nice little fanbase that I think influenced the writers to rethink her untimely demise from a gunshot wound in Episode 3.”
13.
Jesse Plemons’s character Landry on Friday Night Lights got more screentime thanks to fan enthusiasm, but then the writers gave him a plot in Season 2 that was pretty universally hated, in which he murders a man who attacks Tyra.
The out-of-place plot received so much backlash that it became less of a focus as the season progressed, and by Season 3, it was dropped entirely after a pretty unsatisfying conclusion, and subsequently treated as if it never really happened.
14.
Season 1 of Parks and Recreation is commonly viewed as its worst, and the tone and characters shift pretty dramatically in the following seasons — especially Amy Poehler’s character Leslie Knope. This was in large part due to the poor reception Leslie and the show in general got during Season 1.
Subsequent seasons saw Leslie become much more layered and human, and gave more space to the ensemble cast and the relationships between the characters, while the show’s overall vibe became much warmer.
15.
Aaron Rose is a pretty major character in the Gossip Girl books, and he was intended to be a significant part of the show, too — but basically everyone hated him, and not in a fun way.
Despite the fact his father, Cyrus Rose, continues to be a character in the show right through to the final season, Aaron was written out after just a few episodes in Season 2 — much earlier than planned — and is basically never mentioned again.
16.
Cougar Town started out as a show about Courtney Cox’s character Jules dating much younger men, but both the title and plot were poorly received during Season 1.
Show creator Bill Lawrence considered changing the name, and although he didn’t, he did shift the show’s premise, turning it into an ensemble comedy about a friend group.
17.
A show that did change its name after audience feedback was Scrotal Recall, which became known as Lovesick. Creator Tom Edge said, “We ended up asking Netflix if they could figure out whether the audience for the show found the title off-putting, and they did a little survey of people who had watched the first season, and rated it well, and they found that the majority of people wouldn’t recommend it to friends and family because it would involve saying the word ‘scrotal’ out loud. … We figured that it might be a wise decision to change it.”
Of the original title, Tom Edge told Entertainment Weekly, “It misrepresented the tone of the show quite profoundly; people either avoided Scrotal Recall out of a lack of desire to recall scrotums, or else they showed up thinking this is going to be a great, sweaty, frat boy comedy, and then were like, ‘What the hell, everyone seems melancholic and confused with questions of friendship.’ We readily disappointed two whole constituents of people and hopefully we righted that.”
Can you think of any other TV storylines that were so hated, the writers actually said, “ummm, never mind?” Share them in the comments or the anonymous form! Your response could be featured in an upcoming BuzzFeed post.
