It’s not always a good thing when a character is written off of a TV show since it usually means that there’s an issue with the cast, the actor is moving on to another opportunity, or there’s just something that went wrong and no one is bound to say anything. Unfortunately, it’s hard to know unless someone says something and in some cases, there’s really been no solid explanation given. It’s pretty lame to think that a person can just be written off without an explanation and without a worthwhile exit strategy. If this kind of thing were to happen in a movie it’s usually because the character didn’t fit with the rest of the cast, or was only there for a brief time, to begin with. But in a TV show, many characters are considered constant, and simply giving them the boot is kind of hard for a lot of fans to deal with, especially when it happens to be one of the most noticeable characters in the series. But for one reason or several TV shows have felt the need to do this throughout the years.
Here are a few individuals that were written out of their shows in the lamest ways.
5. Yeoman Janice Rand in Star Trek wasn’t present for season 2.
She was Captain Kirk’s personal assistant for crying out loud, but by season two her job simply wasn’t required any longer apparently, since she was nowhere to be found. The character came back for the movie, but not as a Yeoman and definitely not in a way that would be recognized. There’s a lot of assumption that goes with this one since it was widely known that William Shatner was a bit problematic when it came to getting his way and when it came to being kind of a jerk on set. It might even have been that the woman playing the role no longer wanted to work with him and requested to be let go. Who knows?
4. Judy Winslow from Family Matters just kind of disappeared.
How in the world does a family just lose a kid? Family Matters is kind of a hard show to look at honestly when it’s considered that it had one kid that showed up and was then taken off without anyone being told just where she’d gone. Judy might not have won over the critics or the fans, but there had to be a way to write her out of the show, perhaps by sending her to a prep school or something. Of course, she was pretty young at the time, but there had to be a way to make it possible for her to receive a fitting sendoff that could have explained why the character would no longer be there.
3. Seven was written out of Married With Children, he simply disappeared.
Seven just wasn’t well-liked by the audience despite the cute and affable nature he was given for the duration of his stay. Maybe it was the fact that he was dropped off by his onscreen parents as an unwanted burden to the Bundys, or maybe it was just the fact that Bundy clan was considered to be complete with another addition, but Seven never really connected with the fans. But his subsequent removal from the show was even darker since he eventually showed up on a milk carton, which is kind of horrific when a person really thinks about it, especially since the Bundy’s never went out looking for him.
2. Rosalind Shays from L.A. Law fell down an elevator shaft.
Talk about brutal. At least she had a good reason for being written off as a character as a fall down an elevator shaft isn’t bound to be something that a person will walk away from that easy, especially in a realistic show that doesn’t deal in fantasy or SciFi. It’s still kind of a brutal end since the finality of it is something that a person can’t help but think is a bit of commentary by the writers and possibly the director now and again. Even if there aren’t any problems and the actor just needs to move on, there’s still a bit of darkness to something like this since it’s kind of a bad ending.
1. Eric Foreman from That 70’s Show left for Africa.
That was it, Eric was up and gone. One of the main stars of the show for so long was just gone, no explanation other than what was given and no way to say goodbye properly. It kind of felt like a serious slap in the face to the fans, but adding in another character at that time was almost like salt in the wound since the new character didn’t really connect with the audience, and the major implication was that it was time to move on.
Not every character exit is handled with that much care.
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