It’s not much of a surprise that audiences tend to get attached to the protagonists of their favorite shows. It’s also no longer as surprising to see these protagonists up and leave in the middle of these shows. The reasons vary: actors get tired, get fired, or decide they’d rather be anywhere else.
Ultimately, showrunners are left holding a bag of loose plot threads, sweating bullets, and trying to convince viewers that it was the plan all along to replace the protagonist. Sometimes, they pull it off. And sometimes, it all goes downhill. Here are five shows that rolled the dice on a new lead. Spoiler: it went about as well as anyone would expect.
1. The Walking Dead: From Rick Grimes to Daryl Dixon
Rick Grimes exited The Walking Dead in season 9. Not the original plan. It’s since been revealed that actor Andrew Lincoln wanted to be a dad more than he wanted to survive a zombie apocalypse for another decade. So, instead of just killing him, the writers blew up a bridge and shipped him off in a helicopter.
Daryl Dixon (Norman Reedus), meanwhile, had been stealing the hearts and minds of fans with that crossbow since season 1. So The Walking Dead writers had no problem transforming him from a character who didn’t even exist in the comics into the guy who carried the final seasons of the show. He was so good that he got his own spin-off, which is Hollywood code for “congratulations, you’re the new face of the franchise.”
2. Vikings: From Ragnar Lothbrok to Bjorn Ironside/Ivar the Boneless
History buffs are clear that the real-life Ragnar Lothbrok was outshone by his sons, and the creators of Vikings followed that historical script. When Ragnar’s (Travis Fimmel) journey ended in that snake pit in season 4, the show split the spotlight between two of his sons: Bjorn Ironside (Alexander Ludwig) and Ivar the Boneless (Alex Høgh Andersen). Bjorn became the steady one, a king who fought like his old man, and eventually ran Kattegat.
Ivar went full chaotic menace and became a ruthless strategist that many fans rooted for, even though they knew better. Neither brother ever truly filled Ragnar’s boots; they just kept sharing the spotlight. It worked for a while, though the show’s numbers never stopped sliding after Ragnar died. By the final season, Vikings had lost more than half the audience it had during Ragnar’s run.
3. Babylon 5: From Jeffrey Sinclair to John Sheridan
This show did the deep-mythology thing years before Lost made it look cool. The original captain, Jeffrey Sinclair, played by the late Michael O’Hare, was supposed to be the lead. Instead, he lasted exactly one season and then vanished. For years, the show’s creator, J. Michael Straczynski, led fans to believe that it was a creative decision. The real reason came out after O’Hare died in 2012.
He’d been suffering from schizophrenia and insisted that the show go on without him. While Sinclair came back for guest appearances that tied up his story properly, Bruce Boxleitner stepped in as Captain John Sheridan to lead the show. He’s a completely different character, not a recast, but he became the face everyone remembers.
4. Game of Thrones: From Ned Stark to Jon Snow/Daenerys Targaryen
Every single Game of Thrones fan remembers exactly where they were and what they were doing when Joffrey (Jack Gleeson) yelled: “Ser Ilyn, bring me his head.” Sean Bean’s Ned was the moral compass, the one everyone assumed would survive no matter what because he was too good to die. Then the sword swung, and no one could be certain what they were watching anymore.
The show didn’t rush to pick a new protagonist either. It scattered the story in different directions. The Stark kids struggled to survive in one direction, while Daenerys Targaryen (Emilia Clarke) built an army and a reputation on the other. Both sides eventually collided, with Jon Snow (Kit Harington) and Daenerys becoming the focal points the show ended on.
5. Two and a Half Men: From Charlie Harper to Walden Schmidt/Alan Harper
Real Life beat the writers to the punch on this one. Charlie Sheen’s meltdown in March 2011 (the whole “tiger’s blood” and “Adonis DNA” debacle) got him fired during the hiatus of season 8 of Two and a Half Men. Production for the rest of season 8 was cancelled, and the fix was to kill off Sheen’s Charlie Harper off-screen and replace him with Ashton Kutcher as Walden Schmidt, the heartbroken billionaire who buys Charlie’s Malibu Beach house.
The season 9 premiere pulled in nearly 28 million viewers, mainly because people were curious. Then ratings dropped by over 50% once that curiosity was satisfied. However, while everyone was tuning in to see what the new guy was up to, Jon Cryer’s Alan Harper, originally the uptight brother, became the actual center of the show. By the final seasons, most of the remaining viewers (about half of the premiere audience) weren’t tuning in to see Kutcher’s Walden. They were tuning in to see what disaster Alan would stumble into next.
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