Three shows stand out for me

1) Las Vegas losing James Caan
2) 8 Simple Rules losing John Ritter
3) Coupling UK losing Richard Coyle

Welcome Back Kotter after Travolta left
Soap after Benson was spun off
Chico And The Man after Freddy Prinze killed himself

(1) Northern Exposure.
Well, technically, Joel was in part of the final season episodes, but he was absent for most of the season & was replaced by a husband-and-wife team who never did quite gel with the rest of the cast...or click with the audience). Death knell for a great show, but perhaps it had run its course anyway.

(2) Bonanza...didn't it just last for one more season (14th) after Dan Blocker (Hoss) died?

(3) Alias Smith & Jones...after Pete Duell's suicide (and disastrous replacement by Roger Davis in the same role), it limped to a quick finish.



Regarding the original post, I didn't know that Las Vegas had been cancelled.

Profiler: Ally Walker quit the show after Season 3 and was replaced by Jamie Luner for Season 4. The show was canned after Season 4.

Just out of curiosity, why is the DVD for this show so God Damn expensive? Season 3 retails for 100 bucks and Season 4 retails for 80 bucks.

Newsradio... after losing the great Phil Hartman.

Well the first two that came to mind were Northern Exposure and Newsradio, so I'm all out.

Monty Python's Flying Circus went for only one more season after John Cleese left the show.

Does Laverne & Shirley count? Cindy Williams had planned to leave the show before S8 started and the wrote her out after the first three episodes. The show had a complete 8th season after that then ended.

Same could be said about That '70s Show which ended the season after Topher Grace left the show. (Of course Ashton Kutcher also left 5 episodes into the final season which didn't help matters.)

Homicide:Life on the Street. Andre Braugher left at the end of season 6 and the show was left with Zen Tim and ended. At least he returned for the movie conclusion.

Doug

8 Simple Rules was actually better post-Ritter.

I'd agree. The whole show took place at his house. Him not being there is kinda fucked up.

Surprised no one has mentioned Cheers yet.

"Petticoat Junction" limped along without Bea Benadaret for about a season and a half.

What? What character did they lose?

Yeah, they lost Coach and Diane and survived both by several seasons...

That doesn't really stand out for me. They did more episodes without him than they did with him.

Yep.

I agree with Red Dog above also that it was better post-Ritter. I think this is the only TV show where Spade wasn't so annoying it made me want to stop watching. The addition of Garner/Spade was pretty good IMO.

Quite the unlikely comedy duo.

Lunnatik is right - I believe that Ritter died right at the beginning of S2. They went off for a few months and retooled. So almost all of S2 and S3 was after Ritter's death.

Larry Wilcox - CHiPs.

You mean that Ponch couldn't carry the load on his own?

Herve Villechaize - Fantasy Island.

Sopranos losing Livia. Even thought they wrapped it up well, I still felt like there was lot more to that story that could have been told.

The Hoff - Baywatch

Dylan McDermott - The Practice (although he had a few guest appearances in the final season).

Jason Priestly & Tiffani Amber Theissen - 90210