Characters that changed dramatically
 

What shows had characters that changed dramatically (or somewhat dramatically) during its run. I don't mean like puberty or a baby going from being a baby one year to a 4 yr old the next.

Darlene on Roseanne went from being a funny, smart ass kid to the depressed goth chick, to I'm not sure what because I quit watching.

Willow changed a lot. Wesley changed even more, IMO. His character arc was probably the most interesting of any of the Buffyverse characters.

David banner in "The Incredible Hulk".

Wesley from Buffy/Angel, hands down. Bumbling shy guy, to locking women in closets. Good stuff.

Banner. Hehe.

Damnit, two mentions for Wesley already!

Ellen ;)

Frasier Crane on Cheers changed more than any character I can think of, and then changed (back) again once he moved to Seattle.

Sipowicz (sp) on NYPD Blue - but the series was kinda about the redemption of Andy.

McNulty on the Wire.


Then the pussification of Tommy Gavin on Rescue Me this season whatever that is about.

That is why I never liked the sitcom Frasier, because the way they changed his character back into what he was like at the beginning. To me it did not make sense

This one goes back a while, but the Lou Grant character changed quite a bit when he moved from The Mary Tyler Moore Show to his own Lou Grant. In some ways, you could say that he was the same character in name only.

The Fonze - from a non-speaking, blue jacketed tough guy, to a leather jacketed song and dance man.

Peg and Al Bundy - they actually seemed to like each other in early episodes, but turned into cartoonish charicatures by the end of the series.

Bright Abbott, from womanizing jock to sensitive Ephraim clone.

I've noticed that as well as I watch the seasons again as the DVDs are released (F**k Sony is taking their time). The Season One episode, "Sixteen Years and What Do You Get" is the perfect example of this. By the end of the episode they ended up dancing together & showing their love for each other in the typical "sitcom sensitivity" way. Then as the episodes roll along you see less & less of their love for each other & more & more of their hate for each other. If someone watched the first season & then jumped to the fourth or fifth, they wouldn't be watching the same Al & Peg. Now I'm not saying it was a bad thing that they didn't show the whole "I love you" thing to each other but by the final season (11) they were just (like you said) cartoon characters.

Also, Peg's make-up (look) style changed. Al always looked about the same though.

Alan Alda's Hawkeye changed dramatically (literally), but for the better on M*A*S*H.

The cast of Seinfeld weren't complete a**holes in the first 2 or 3 seasons. Julia LD. wasn't as grating as she would be in later seasons.

Elliot Reid (played by the one & only Sarah Chalke :drool: ) on Scrubs went from the "natural" look to the "sluttier" look.

One of the bigger changes in a TV character (also from MASH) was Margaret "Hot Lips" Houlihan. She was having an affair with a married man, was very pro-war and was always on a power trip. Her nurses hated her and so did everyone else in the 4077th. Simply put, she was a bitch.

Then one episode she comes back from Tokyo engaged to Penobscott and right away you start to see that she's opened up a bit more and is a bit more fun loving even if she was still pro-war. After Burns left the show and she got divorced she was suddenly "one of the guys", playing along in some of their schemes and her nurses liked her (especially after an episode where she confronted them about not being one of the girls). She actually cared about other people, stopped the power-tripping and it was hard to get a grasp on her stance on the war (she seemed to still be of the military mindset, but she definitely wasn't as gung-ho about the war as she used to be).

It almost felt like they killed off the Hotlips character (did anyone even call her "Hotlips" the last few seasons?) and replaced her.

Kramer changed alot.

Does Trapper John from MASH count from the MASH series to Trapper John MD?

Waylan Smithers appeared to be black in the early episodes of the Simpsons.

Kelly from The Office.

Mr. Garrison got a sex change on South Park.

Michael on Melrose Place. From a good doctor and husband to a lying and cheating a-hole.

Another for M*A*S*H:

Klinger. From cross-dressing Section 8-seeker to clean-cut corporal.

Archie Bunker changed big time.

Scully went from being the skeptic to the one with the zany theories in the last few seasons of X-Files.

Gabrielle from Xena Warrior Princess

Londo Mollari
G'Kar

Yeah, I can't believe I forgot abot Hotlips. But I think most of the characters on that show changed a good bit, assuming they didn't leave. And generally, those changes were not for the betterment of the show.

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.

Off topic
 

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.