Edie on Desperate Housewives, though her role is supposed to get bigger now with Marcia Cross taking time off.

Everybody on Family Matters except for Urkel & Carl

Cmon, what about Waldo the Geraldo Faldo?

Sup dudes?

I think that's very likely. The probably signed him to a deal meaning to go in a certain direction and it just didn't work out that way. It happens. I think the best known case is The West Wing.

speaking of the ADA in Law and Order (spelled all the way out to see if search still sucks and won't find it) CI, they now don't even bother to pretend to be Law [b]and[b] Order and cut that role out completely. Now it's just Order (or is Law the police side of things, I can't remember how the open credits go)

The DA on Law and Order, every once in awhile Mccoy would like ask a question...and thats about it..or the DA would say..take the deal..

The little sister on Family Matters. She eventually never returned for a new season and nobody in the family noticed.

That got my vote too.
Most of the characters on Enterprise as well.

Pete is/was an easy target. He is a secondary character not a main character. Most useless main character on Smallville would have to go to Lana.

I've gotton up to end of Season Four on my complete Buffy dvd set and as much as like guy Xander pops into my mind. I guess I am suppose still be laughing at few one liners he still has. They actually made an episode about this once, turned him into superhero for the day but never really addressed this again.

Xander had almost no purpose in Season 4. But he matures quite a bit in Season 5 and has a bigger role(as does Giles). Too bad the writers forgot about him in the last 2 seasons though.

Ronnie on "The Shield." A complete waste. Guy has been on the show for a few seasons now, and I still feel like I know absolutely nothing about the guy.

She walked up the stairs never to return again... until her stint in porn as "Crave" for a while... since then she's quit and said she's turned a new leaf and has been on Oprah and stuff.

Rachel was gone for a while too, and IIRC came back for a Christmas episode, and was gone again for the remainder of the show.

Nice call. It is almost annoying how little involvement his character has. In all the episodes I have seen (which is many, but not every single one), I think I have only even seen him talk a couple times.

I'd also agree. He's been in the show since the beginning, but I found myself completely forgetting about him sometimes. Didn't he get his face burned off in one season and was then gone for a long time? I wonder if he'll get something to do now that there is no Lem around.

As for Pete, one has to wonder if that "uselessness" didn't inspire the actor to leave Smallville since he was written out mid-season 3.

She was eye-candy, but if Daisy Duke had disappeared from The Dukes of Hazzard, it wouldn't have affected the premise of the show all that much.

I have to disagree about Ronnie. He has been quite useful in more than one situation, and the fact that he doesn't say much and lingers around in the background makes that work all the better. I think he will get more to do now, though.

It would seem to me that Capt. Deakins has to go with his detectives' hunches and leads, so just giving his own two cents is really enough. After all, the Captain has many detectives reporting to him, not just Goren and Eames, and he is not investigating the case. His job is to lead them in the right direction with whatever insight he may possess, but that's about all he can do.

That said, I don't know why a major actor like Jamey Sheridan would take a small role like this. That character could have been filled with a newcomer who wanted to get their feet wet in the business, but maybe Sheridan felt his exposure on the show, however small, would help his career. Now that he's off the show, we shall see, we shall see.