I’m so sorry…
After I’d burbled on recently about the notion of TV shows outstaying their welcome, I found that I had rather more to say about the subject, and so I find myself (rather ironically I might suggest) returning to the topic in what should probably really be called “The difficult second article”. Actually, it had rather more to do with actors, their careers and personal ambitions and how much of a part that has to play with regard to any ongoing series they might be in, but it does return to the whole problem of formats and how to extend them beyond their natural shelf-life. After all, if we as a viewing public are demanding more of the same from our much loved characters, how significant is it that the actor playing the much loved character wishes to leave and go and do something else with their life?
Interestingly enough the rather brilliant TV series of “M*A*S*H” managed to run on TV for eleven years, more than three times the length of the “police action” it was supposed to be set in, had more Christmas episodes than were physically possible during the “real world” timeline (one of which showed the events across an entire year portraying the entire - then current - cast) and was a show which successfully replaced a number of beloved major characters without any discernable lack of love from its audience. Nowadays you will find people who insist that “M*A*S*H” was never as good (or as funny) after Henry Blake’s rather melodramatic departure at the end of the third year, but, having had a M*A*S*H marathon a couple of years ago I would dispute this completely.
Late-era M*A*S*H is generally just as good as early M*A*S*H, and both ends of the run had the occasional episode that might be considered less than wonderful. Moreover, the final feature-length epic “So Long, Farewell and Amen” can still reduce this old cynic to a quivering blob of jelly even now, but then I can be a sentimental old fool. (Don’t trust the overtly sentimental, by the way, some of the most evil people in history have also been the most sentimental…). There is something about Harry Morgan’s rather fabulous acting when he’s being particularly nostalgic or moving that can still find a way to penetrate this steely old heart of mine. In fact, I would go as far as to say that in many ways I prefer all of the “replacement” characters (B.J. Hunnicutt, Colonel Potter and Charles Emerson Winchester III) to the originals that they replaced, but that’s probably because I was a viewer who came rather late to M*A*S*H and so they were ironically very probably my “originals”.
Still, M*A*S*H did successfully managed to stretch itself far beyond what would have been considered to be its natural shelf life, probably because everyone probably understood fully well it was really talking about the (then current) events occurring in Vietnam despite the show itself being set in an earlier, shorter conflict.
M*A*S*H is also a very good example of the kind of problem series often have to deal with if they are successful enough to have a long run. So often in series television, a lead actor has decided that they wished to leave the show that made them well-known, possibly for very good reasons, but sometimes you get the impression that they think that the audience love them as a person and not just the character they are playing, when all we really want them to do is play that same part forever…
The more sensible actors recognise very quickly that they are likely to only be remembered for one or two roles at best during their careers, and very quickly learn to come to terms with that. You are, after all, very lucky to get a part in even one “hit” show during a lifetime of working, so it does seem rather churlish to resent it so very much when someone shouts out the character’s name at you in the street, when they are probably a member of the very same adoring audience that made the show a hit in the first place. The wiser ones will sometimes start to make themselves a tidy little income in later life by coming to terms with this fact and occasionally capitalising upon it by doing cameo appearances and so forth, all of which let us all know that they know that this is the role that we think of whenever we see them. When you start to believe it’s you that they love and not just the character that you are portraying, you can very quickly find your career can spiral into a whole heap of obscurity and sometimes never recover.
Poor old McClean Stevenson (Colonel Blake), Wayne Rogers (Trapper John), and Larry Linville (Frank Burns) probably left M*A*S*H far too early, although they all had their reasons, but they could probably all have made much bigger fortunes for themselves if they’d stayed. However, I’m sure that they would all have said that it wasn’t the money that was at issue. It’s widely reported that McLean Stevenson didn’t want to be part of an ensemble, but wanted to be a lead in his own show, but sadly little of his work after M*A*S*H was ever regarded quite as fondly. Wayne Rogers felt that his character wasn’t being very well served by the programme and chose to leave, ironically at the same time as McLean Stevenson but without having a “leaving episode” written for him. Just as well, they might have both gone the same way. Larry Linville worked out his five year contract and just departed. Sometimes characters simply do just “disappear” due to contract negotiations falling down and are never seen again on a show. This happened to Martin Landau and Barbara Bain on “Mission: Impossible” in the 1960s and recently on “CSI:NY”, so things seldom change.
Then you have to think about the “Caruso Effect”. David Caruso became a (television) megastar almost overnight when the spectacularly successful first season of Steven Bochco’s “NYPD Blue” aired way back in 1993. At some point during that “difficult” first year, he decided that he wanted to leave, presumably to capitalise on his new found popularity, and have a career making movies instead. A decade of Caruso-free “NYPD Blue” followed, as did years of bitterness from the production team. Steven Bochco’s novel “Death by Hollywood” seems to contain a thinly veiled attack on his former star which is darkly hilarious if you know the background. Meanwhile, David Caruso’s film career wasn’t exactly spectacular and he returned to television with the series “Michael Hayes” before getting a part in the solid gold hit series “CSI: Miami”, at one time (quite unbelievably) the most watched TV show in the world.
David Caruso is (at the time of writing) 55 years old and has been playing that preposterous man Horatio Caine with his slo-mo sunglasses and his unnerving delivery for ten years now, or, if you think about it, for nearly 20% of his entire life so far. Sometimes it’s little wonder that actors get fed up with playing the same part when it becomes a highly paid form of factory work, although there’s William Roache and Adam Woodyatt at the other end of that scale who’ve both lived their entire adult lives as characters in soap operas.
Some actors seem to prefer variety over regular paycheques. Christopher Eccleston never seems to want to do more than one series of anything, if his sudden departures from both “Cracker” and “Doctor Who” are anything to go by. Some actors like Clint Eastwood and George Clooney have made rather spectacular film careers for themselves after starting out working in popular television. Sometimes, as in M*A*S*H, replacement characters can be hugely successful, and yet, on occasion, they are less so, and you only have to investigate the phenomenon of “Jumping the Shark” to understand the true horror of introducing new cute young characters to replace the previous ones who’ve committed the cardinal sin of the television youngster and grown up. Another recent trend I’ve noticed in a few dramas (and sometimes in comedies too) is to make previously “likeable” characters slightly less so. Presumably this comes from the actors themselves wanting to stretch their acting muscles with something more challenging than third sidekick, but it usually means that either they or the show itself is on its way out.
So, to sum up, as William Goldman always said, in about movie business (but it applies just as well to television) “Nobody knows anything”, but I guess we’ll keep on watching those old shows, year after year, because, like wearing a comfortable pair of old slippers, some of them become a hard habit to get out of.
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