Friday 18 January 2013

TV Life after Tragedy

Well, a well slightly delayed happy new year year to you all... And the world is still here! However, one of the main characters in a favourite television drama is not. Spoiler alert for those Australians who still haven't seen Downton Abbey! The death of Matthew Crawley thanks to Dan Stevens' desire to leave for pastures new in the US was agonising. And it got me to thinking about the characters a show can lose before we begin to worry about shark-jumping. Game of Thrones recently provided us with a brilliant exemplum for killing a show's much-loved hero while the ratings simply keep climbing; however, some of you might remember the nose-dive Primeval took a long while ago when its hero Nick Cutter left the series. Or again contrast how happy we were when in season two of Babylon Five--yes, I am nerdy enough to remember that far--Sinclair was replaced by Sheridan with the way none of the Doctor's companions since Rose Tyler has quite been the same...

Though of course the case Matthew's death most reminded me of was the final season of Deep Space Nine which was conducted without Jadzia Dax because her portrayer, Terry Farrel wanted to pursue other opportunities. It still annoys me whenever I think about it that Worf and Jadzia were denied their happy ending because of a miniseries I have never seen...

Then again we thought Seachange couldn't go on without Diver Dan... So we'll see.

Portia

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