If you count the theme song as part of the change, I'll go with Oliver and Lisa Douglas from Green Acres. In the theme song, Oliver wants to be a farmer. In the show, he can barely stand living in Hooterville. Similarly, Lisa goes from crying for the city to fitting right in. Of course, that's the whole point of the absurdist premise of the show.

I think Trapper John MD is officially a spinoff of the movie, and not of the MASH TV series.

Anyway, Homer Simpson started out as a gruff father and evolved to what he is today.

Nate Fisher, Six Feet Under - From non-conforming bohemian-esque nature dude to depressive married-widowed-married mid-life crisis man.

I absolutely loved the dramatic turn for this character.

I can think of a few characters who went through a fundamental change over the course of a show:

- Star Trek: TNG - Data - His quest to be more human was really a major point of the whole show, and I think even though the movies rapidly expedited the rest of the process, I think the character really grew from season to season.

- Quantum Leap: Sam/Al - Both of them changed quite a bit over the show. Sam was concerned with getting back home almost every leap until "The Leap Home Part I & II" then he sort of slowly accepted the fact he may not return home up through the finale. Al changed too, maybe more than Sam, I think the biggest indicator of this was the aforementioned Leap Home and the prior "MIA" episode (which I consider to be a trilogy). In MIA Al "breaks the rules" and tries to trick Sam into helping him, whereas when Sam is put in the same position in the Leap Home, it is Al who convinces him he shouldn't be doing it. I think it's one of the best examples of "Do as I say, not as I do" in TV, but on the bright side, we see a changed Al as the show progresses, who would do anything for Sam, and the favor is finally returned in the finale.

- The Office: Jim/Pam - I think these are pretty clear-cut, but they've grown a ton in the last 2 seasons especially.

- ER: John Carter - From preppy med student, to down-on-his-luck stabbing victim & drug addict to the WTF are they doing in Africa thing.

I was going to mention The Simpsons as well. Marge and Homer seemed to have swapped brains somewhere in the first season or so. Marge was the one that wanted to eat on the couch, Homer was the disciplinarian. That changed somewhere into what they are now.

Too young for MTM but I saw Lou Grant and Rhoda as a kid.

So did the Rhoda character also change from how she was in MTM?

Shane "Cletus Van Damme" Vendrell changed from loyal Mackey disciple to sworn enemy. That's more a dramatic shift in allegience than a dramatic shift in behavior, though.

I forgot all about the change of Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan too just Margaret Houlihan. Hawkeye & her became much nicer to each other in later seasons.

Also, "Radar" was a smoking, drinking, ladies man at first then becoming a non-smoking, Great Nehi drinking, virgin. I think M*A*S*H wins for "Characters that changed dramatically in a TV series".

John Carter did indeed change alot on ER. I still don't understand how the f**k he ended up in Africa. I really wish Dr. Greene (Anthony Edwards) would come back from the dead. At least that would make ER intresting again.

Andy Sipowicz played by the underrated Dennis Franz. Boy did he change alot in the first few episodes of the first season. He changed throughtout the 11 seasons of NYPD: Blue but I think he changed the most in the first couple of episodes in season 1.

Besides Darlene, Becky's character changed on Roseanne.

He just took after his idol, Michael Jackson.

And the ones who felt their characters weren't being given a chance to change left, and it's kind of ironic. If the characters that stayed changed but not for the better, did the other characters who left miss out on something?

Though I do think it was pretty lame of them to keep on changing the characters and allowing them to grow, but they kept Frank Burns pretty much the same. You only got to see glimpses of other dimensions to his character here and there, but mainly he was just a joke of a character.

The Doctor from doctor who.

Rick Hunter from robotech.

Spike from buffy/Angel

Janet from Three's Company

Screech on Saved By the Bell.

We saw him grow up from middle school to college, but after college he somehow reversed his puberty and had an annoying Urkel-like voice, that wouldn't go away.

Was just thinking about this one. Keep waiting for something, anything really, to happen this season.

Sticking with some Buffyverse characters, what about Cordelia? Snobby cheerleader who cared about no one but herself in the beginning, and then enduring all of the pain from the visions that nearly killed her and then letting herself become part-demon just to be able to help others. Really, all the characters on those two shows could apply, Tara, Willow, Anya, Xander, Fred, even Buffy.

Shane really hasn't changed. He's always been the gung-ho idiot that thinks he can be the next Vic Mackey, but always screws it up somehow. As a matter of fact, if there was one thing that I could find wrong with The Shield, it's that in 6 seasons there has really been next to no character development. You could watch the first episode of season one and the last episode of season 6, and see a few job changes but no major personality shifts.


I'd argue with most of that list. While many of them went through minor changes (Buffy, Tara, Xander, etc), the only major changes in the series were Cordelia, Spike and Wesley.

His role in the series changed as well. With all of those changes he still couldn't bring to the table what Mark Greene could.

Tim Bayliss-Homicide: Life on the Street. The changes were really pronounced in the end. He was such a perfect character than they made him a Zen master, bisexual and all around irritating.

Or Doug Ross.

Ross & Greene was the perfect duo.

I think without Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher) Bayliss wasn’t a complete character. Those two worked very well together & remain one of my all-time favorite detective parings.

I agree with this one from MASH but Radar's (2nd Gen) drink of choice is GRAPE Nehi. Although I'm sure it's "great".

How so? I thought she was pretty consistent throughout. She looked better the first season, but I don't think her character really changed that much, if at all.

good one

to contribute: Bull from Night Court - in the first 2 seasons he is just a big, foreboding bailiff, for the rest of the series he became a fun-loving goof.

Interesting thread.

Whenever I watch the Scrubs seasons I try to figure out when exactly it was that Elliot changed. She wasn't as neurotic in the early going as she became, and there's also the ep. where she gets her haircut, and that's supposed to be a dramatic change. I don't know if that's an intended change to show how damn crazy she is or just bad writing for her character.

Other than that, I think most everyone has covered other characters I'd notice.

I never thought Nate really changed, I just thought the presentation of him changed. Early on he was presented (and interpreted) as a bohemian, care-free womanizer without a lot of responsibility... one of those guys who really got into the college lifestyle and never moved past it.

By the end, he pretty much the same guy.... except instead of being sympathetic to his quirkiness, he came across as just a deadbeat asshole. It quit being quite so endearing and charming seeing him acting like a college sophomore at age 35.

"Logan" on Veronica Mars changed a lot after the first season, but that seems par for the course for a lot of shows where enemies eventually become friends of the main characters. For instance, you can probably take any soap opera or soap-opera-like shows (like the OC, One Tree Hill, etc.) and see characters change sides often.