1.
The two Darrins on Bewitched
An
expressive character actor already semi-famous thanks to his part in Inherit
The Wind
and guest spots on series like The Twilight Zone, Dick York became an icon
of '60s television as Darrin Stephens, a hapless ad exec married to witch
Elizabeth Montgomery on Bewitched. But viewers didn't see the pain York suffered from
a years-old back injury. That pain, and a dependence on prescription
medication, sidelined York before the fifth season could be completed,
necessitating a string of Darrin-free episodes. Dick Sargent took over the part
as the sixth season began, and though Bewitched lasted three more years,
the show never again saw the ratings it enjoyed during the York years. Whether
the blame rests with Sargent (who didn't look, sound, or act much like York),
the increasingly silly plots, or natural attrition remains a matter of debate.
Whichever the case, the high-profile switch demanding viewers accept a
different actor as the same pretend person within a given TV show or a
contiguous movie series is the source of a unique sort of entertainment-related
cognitive dissonance we're calling the Darrin Effect.
2.
The two Rachel Dawes in Christopher Nolan's Batman movies
One
of the few characters invented outright for Christopher Nolan's Batman reboot Batman
Begins,
Bruce Wayne's childhood friend Rachel Dawes helped humanize Batman by giving
him a love interest, albeit one kept off-limits by his preoccupation with
crime-fighting. Moviegoers and critics took to the movie while singling out
Katie Holmes' performance as a weak point, and it surely didn't help that the film
appeared in the midst of Holmes' overexposure as the love interest of a
couch-jumping Tom Cruise. When it came time to make a sequel, Holmes opted
instead for the quickly forgotten comedy Mad Money. Maggie Gyllenhaal took
over the part for the film's sequel, The Dark Knight. Fan uproar was minimal.
3.
The two Harvey Dents in the Burton/Schumacher Batman movies
Holmes
wasn't the first Batman actor to get swapped out for another someone else within a
series. The '60s TV show recast parts willy-nilly (see below) and the
four-movie film franchise initiated by 1989's Tim Burton-directed Batman went through three actors
in the lead role. Less conspicuous was the disappearance of Billy Dee Williams,
who makes fleeting appearances in the first Burton film as D.A. Harvey Dent,
setting up expectations for his future transformation into the disfigured,
duality-obsessed villain Two-Face. Dent is conspicuously absent from Batman
Returns, and when
he reappears in Joel Schumacher's Batman Forever, he has morphed into
Tommy Lee Jones, a great actor completely wrong for the camp performance
Schumacher coaxes from him. (Aaron Eckhart takes over the role in The Dark
Knight,
but that's to be expected from a series reboot.)
4.
The two Dumbledores in the Harry Potter films
After an early career of playing badasses (as a
rebellious seaman in Mutiny On The Bounty and an aggressive rugby player in This
Sporting Life)
and a later career of being in badass films (including Patriot Games, Unforgiven, and Gladiator), Richard Harris looked
like he was riding off into the sunset with the comparatively mild, yet
unquestionably high-profile role of Professor Albus Dumbledore in the Harry
Potter
film series. Unsurprisingly, the aging twice-Best-Actor-nominee played the
cheery/mysterious character to rave reviews in the first two films, before
succumbing to Hodgkin's Disease at the age of 72. Taking over the role was
Michael Gambon, who—in spite of critically acclaimed parts in The
Insider
and Open Range—didn't
quite have Harris' pedigree. Of course, Harry Potter fans will bicker just to
bicker, but conventional wisdom is that Harris, by playing to Dumbledore's
darker side, was more effective. Considering the tone we all know the remaining Harry Potter
installments will take, it's a shame Harris never got his chance to play the
character at its most compelling.
5. The two Aunt Vivs on The Fresh Prince Of
Bel-Air
Played for the first three seasons by Janet
Hubert-Whitten, Vivian Banks was originally a strict, aggressive, outspoken,
highly educated career woman, as illustrated in the famous episode where she
teaches a black history class at Will's high school. According to rumor,
however, she didn't get along with Will Smith, and since his name was at the
top of the credits, she was gone by 1994. Replaced by Daphne Maxwell Reid, Aunt
Viv became a stay-at-home mom, quieter and more easygoing, indulgent of her
kids, and, not by coincidence, with far less screen time.
6. The two Martas on Arrested Development
Colombian soap-opera star Marta Estrella wasn't
the only character in Mitchell Hurwitz's brilliant sitcom to be played by two
different actresses; George Michael's girlfriend Ann was also played by a
different actress in season one than in season two. But with the bland,
unmemorable Ann, at least there was an internal logic to her replacement; with
Marta, the change from Leonor Varela to Patricia Velasquez is as arbitrary as
the casting changes in an actual Colombian soap opera. But it turns out to be
no big deal; as Marta's paramour, the ever-sensitive Gob Bluth, puts it when
she kicks him out, "If I can't find another horny immigrant, I don't deserve to
stay here."
7. The two Lauries on That '70s Show
That '70s Show was always willing to
take mild meta-humorous pokes at itself; when Topher Grace left the show, there
was some talk of replacing him with a different actor, and saying he'd come
back from Africa "a changed man." (There was also the case of Donna's
disappearing little sister Tina, a weird echo of Richie's evaporated older
brother Chuck Cunningham on Happy Days.) But Grace's onscreen sister Laurie, also
known as the writers' excuse for slut jokes, underwent some curious changes:
Played by the charismatic Lisa Robin Kelly, she vanished mysteriously after the
second season, amid rumors of personal problems. She returned in the fifth with
little explanation—and was then replaced in the sixth season by the bland
Christina Moore.
8. The two Kristines on Red Dwarf
Kristine Kochanski, the love interest in the
British cult science-fiction comedy Red Dwarf, underwent a curious arc,
with a downgrade in personnel attending an upgrade in character. Originally
portrayed by charming Scot Clare Grogan, Kochanski had been written as little
more than a lust object for Lister. A few years into the show, however, the
writers decided it was a tad unseemly for their hero to essentially engage in
holographically aided masturbation fantasies with a woman who'd been dead for
millennia, and decided to retcon Kochanski's character so that she'd once been
Lister's actual girlfriend. This led to a welcome expansion of her personality
and an improvement in her screen time (eventually, an alternate-universe
version of Kochanski joined the Red Dwarf's crew), but unfortunately, she was
replaced by Chloë Annett, an inferior actress whose supermodel looks didn't
mesh well with the Everyman-ish Lister.
9. The three Catwomen on Batman
As if there weren't enough things conspiring to
screw up the libidos of the young comic-book geek circa 1966, viewers of the
wildly popular Batman TV series were forced to contend with not two, but three
different actresses portraying Batso's femme fatale, Catwoman. The first to don
the catsuit was former Miss America Lee Meriwether, who played the role in the Batman movie,
which was released after the show's first season, but actually filmed first, as
the pilot. Next up was the gorgeous Julie Newmar, who played Selina Kyle for
the longest stretch, in more than a dozen episodes. Finally, as the show wound
to a close, Catwoman not only got a racial transformation, but a massive
infusion of camp, as Eartha Kitt stepped in to play the role. (To make things even
more confusing, Meriwether returned to the show several times, but not as
Catwoman.) Still, things could be worse; three actress changes is still about a
dozen less character reboots than Catwoman has had in the comics.
10.
The two Beckys on Roseanne
While most shows are content to sub in new actors
in old roles with little acknowledgement or fanfare, Roseanne swapped and re-swapped
one of its major roles, that of eldest daughter Becky, with gleeful meta-humor.
When original Becky Lecy Goranson left the series in its fifth season to attend
college, she was initially written out of the show, with her character eloping
and moving away. Becky returned in the show's sixth season bearing the face of
Sarah Chalke, but Goranson occasionally returned to the role as her schedule
allowed. The alternation between the two Beckys became one of the show's
running gags: When Goranson returns in the eighth season after a long stretch
of Chalke-as-Becky, the rest of the cast keeps asking her "Where the hell have
you been?"; A Patty Duke Show parody features Chalke and Goranson dancing as
each other's reflections; and the show's eighth-season credits morph back and
forth between the two actresses' faces.
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11. Rotating Marcias, Jans, and Cindys on The Brady Bunch
The Bradys were such a loving, accepting blended
family that they were willing to embrace any Marcia, Jan, or Cindy who wandered
through their door. After The Brady Bunch went off the air in 1974, ABC brought the
cast back for the disastrous variety series The Brady Bunch Hour, but Eve Plumb chose not
to return as middle-daughter Jan, and was replaced by Geri Reischl. Plumb
returned for the 1981 NBC TV movie The Brady Girls Get Married and the short-lived
midseason sitcom The Brady Brides, but when CBS got into the Brady business in 1988
with the TV movie A Very Brady Christmas, Susan Olsen no longer wanted to play
Cindy, so Jennifer Runyon took over. And when CBS launched the 1990 drama The
Bradys
(another quick failure), Maureen McCormick was pregnant and bowed out, giving
Leah Ayers a shot at playing oldest daughter Marcia. That's they way they all
became The Brady Bunch. And then some.
12. The three Cagneys on Cagney & Lacey
Most people rightfully remember Sharon Gless as
Christine Cagney on the hit TV cop show Cagney & Lacey, but she was actually the
third actress to appear in the role. In the original TV movie, Loretta Swit (of M*A*S*H
fame) was Cagney, and for its first six episodes, the TV show featured Meg
Foster. Foster was ousted for an amazingly awful reason: An "unnamed CBS suit"
told TV Guide,
"These women on Cagney & Lacey seemed more intent on fighting the system than
doing police work. We perceived them as dykes." So the people behind the show
replaced the "too tough" Foster with the "softer" Gless. Which still didn't
stop people from assuming that Cagney and Lacey were not just partners, but partners.
13.
The many Marilyns on The Munsters
The
"ugly" member of the Munster family has gone through several actors over the
years. Beverly Owen first played the role but didn't want it, and she left
after 13 episodes. Pat Priest did want the role and played it for the rest of the
series' two seasons. But when it came time to make the movie Munster, Go
Home! she
was replaced by starlet Debbie Watson. The movie flopped, but when the cast
reunited again for the 1981 TV movie The Munsters' Revenge, both Marilyn and Eddie
Munster were played by different actors.
14.
The two Miss Ellies on Dallas
Daytime
soaps famously recast parts without much thought, sometimes dropping in actors
who look nothing like their predecessors. (Accidents necessitating plastic
surgery are always a good excuse.) A soap writ large, the prime-time sensation Dallas saw its share of cast
changes as well, none more visible than those related to resident matriarch
Miss Ellie. Originally played by Barbara Bel Geddes, Miss Ellie went missing
from storylines when Bel Geddes developed heart problems in 1984. The following
season found Donna Reed sitting in for Bel Geddes, who was well enough to later
return and stay with the show through 1990.
15.
The two Captain Marvels on Shazam!
A
low-budget attempt to bring the comic-book hero Captain Marvel to kiddie
television, Shazam! ran for 28 episodes between 1974 and 1976. The first 17
featured Jackson Bostwick, who was abruptly fired for failing to show up one
day. Turns out he was getting an injury sustained on set looked at, and was
able to successfully sue for the remainder of his salary. Whoops. But the
show's problems didn't stop there. Rather than replacing the athletic Bostwick
with an actor of a similarly superheroic build, they threw in journeyman actor
John Davey, whose '70s physique could politely be described as "burly," giving
the distinct impression that young Billy Batson's alter ego had suddenly
developed a serious problem with carbohydrate intake.
16.
The many Griswold children in various Vacation movies
When National Lampoon's Vacation proved to be a substantial hit in 1981, sequels
were inevitable. But it's hard to keep the
wacky-dad-annoys-the-shit-out-of-his-kids gags coming once the kids stop being,
well, kids anymore. So with National Lampoon's European Vacation in 1985, out went Dana
Barron and Anthony Michael Hall (who had already moved on to high-school
comedies) and in came Dana Hill and Jason Lively. For 1989's Christmas
Vacation,
Juliette Lewis and Johnny Galecki filled the slots. And in 1997, the
little-loved Vegas Vacation saw Marisol Nichols and Ethan Embry taking over
the parts. But here's where it gets tricky: In the 2003 TV movie Christmas
Vacation 2: Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure, a grown-up Audrey Griswold was played by
none other than the original Audrey, Dana Barron. Barron wins!
17. The two Lionel Jeffersons on All In The
Family and The Jeffersons
Michael Evans originated the role of George and
Weezy Jefferson's son Lionel on All In The Family, then left the part to
work on Good Times,
which he co-created. He returned to the role after Good Times; in the mean time, Damon
"No Relation" Evans took over for him.
18. The three Kitty Prydes in the X-Men movies
From the start, the
writers, directors, and producers of the X-Men movies have thrown in
nods to comics fans by inserting some of the series' best-known characters in
the backgrounds of shots, or giving them a line or two. In 2006's X-Men: The
Last Stand,
a pre-Juno Ellen Page plays mutant superheroine Kitty Pryde, who can "phase"
through solid walls. But Kitty actually appears in the first two X-Men movies too, in cameos.
In 2000's X-Men, Sumela Kay plays her as a flustered student of Professor
Xavier's School For Gifted Youngsters, zipping through a wall when she realizes
she's late for class. In 2003's X2: X-Men United, Katie Stuart plays her
as a girl under siege, dropping through floors to escape William Stryker's
mutant-gathering commandoes. And then in The Last Stand, Page takes over with a
sensitive-but-sassy take on the character. (Typical Page, in other words.)
Xavier better double-check the settings on Cerebro; apparently Pryde doesn't
just phase, she shape-shifts.
19. The two Facemen on The A-Team
Studly Dirk Benedict had a couple of years after
the original Battlestar Galactica TV series to hone his con-man and lady-wooing
skills, which made him the perfect choice to play Templeton "Face" Peck (a.k.a.
"Faceman") on the wildly popular A-Team. But dig up the original two-part pilot,
"Mexican Slayride," and Benedict is nowhere to be found. Instead, the role is
played by Tim Dunigan, who seems to have found work in bit parts (from Cheers to J.A.G.) since.
20. The two Clarice Starlings in The Silence
Of The Lambs and Hannibal
Five years before The Silence Of The Lambs, Brian Cox sunk his teeth
into the role of Hannibal Lecter in 1986's Manhunter, based on Red Dragon, the first of Thomas
Harris' Lecter-related novels. But Anthony Hopkins' Oscar-winning performance
as Lecter in Silence was so indelible that it prompted the producers to gloss over Manhunter and launch a new,
Hopkins-centric franchise. Harris wrote a Silence sequel, Hannibal, and when it was adapted
to film, some personnel carried over from the first film—but not its
director, screenwriter, or co-star, Jodie Foster. Accounts varied as to why
Foster in particular refused to return as FBI agent Clarice Starling in Hannibal; early on, she said the
story was too grisly and betrayed the original character, while later, producer
Dino De Laurentiis claimed he booted her
because she wanted $20 million and 15 percent of the gross. Her official word
was that she was busy producing and directing her own film, Flora Plum. (That
project was never realized.) Either way, Julianne Moore stepped into Hannibal as a pale shadow of
Foster's steely, pained Starling, not that the film's plot gave her much
meaningful material to work with.