Early Installment Character-Design Difference in Live-Action TV.
- Babylon 5: The pilot movie "The Gathering", had more extreme prosthetic make-up for the major alien ambassadors, Delenn and G'Kar, than what was used in the ongoing series, which toned it down partly to make repeated applications more practical and partly because executives had expressed concerns that the pilot designs were too alien. In Delenn's case, there was an additional consideration; Delenn, portrayed by a female actor, was intended originally to be a male (or at least ambiguous) alien, but the attempt to convey this effectively in the pilot resulted in too many problems, so the idea was dropped and in the ongoing series she's unambiguously female, with her facial features mostly being the actor's own.
- In the pilot episode of The Big Bang Theory, Rajesh Koothrappali wore a red baseball cap. And in the original unaired pilot (which was drastically different than the televised pilot) Leonard and Sheldon were dressed in even more unflattering clothes that made them look more like middle-aged men.
- This happened on Bonanza as the clothing choices of the Cartwrights got changed to Limited Wardrobe so more Stock Footage could be used.
- The Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode "Phases" featured a werewolf with a fully lupine head, as opposed to the Wolf Man appearance that all later appearances of werewolves in the show and its Spin-Off Angel would adopt.
- Frasier Crane's long hair in the first two seasons of Frasier (which he'd had throughout most of his time on Cheers) came off as this for people who watched Frasier first.
- Speaking of Cheers, Dr. Lilith Sternin was known for just how pale she is, when in her first ever appearance she had a much healthier looking complexion.
- Crash Zone: Virgil Reality, the quirky artificial intelligence, had his virtual form redesigned in the second season—in the first one he looks like a blurry splotch with a face, in the second one he's a complete floating head.
- Dinosaurs had a different look for Fran's head crest in the first couple of episodes.
- Doctor Who:
- In the Cybermen's first appearance, "The Tenth Planet", they had a mixed human/robot appearance with tinges of Body Horror, compared to their much more purely robotic external appearance in all later stories. Even when this variant was reintroduced in "World Enough and Time"/"The Doctor Falls", they had much smaller headlamps/weapons, handlebars, and chest units, as well as skin-colored surgical gloves as opposed to bare hands.
- The Daleks took three stories to achieve their classic appearance. The Dalek props in the first story, "The Daleks", lack the vertical panels attached to the "shoulder" section of their casings. In "The Dalek Invasion of Earth", they have clunky looking satellite-style disc aerials on the backs of their casings, conceived by the designers as a wireless power supply (the original Daleks had been unable to leave their city as they drew electrical life-support power from the floors). "The Chase" added the final vertical panels, conceived as solar panels for power collection. The later Origins Episode "Genesis of the Daleks" indulged in some Cosmetically-Advanced Prequel by depicting the in-universe earliest Daleks with the later established prop design.
- Farscape:
- The series had some initial trouble getting the elaborate prosthetics and make up to look right under studio lighting. Zhaan often looked washed out and grey instead of the vibrant blue they were aiming for while D'Argo ended up looking oddly pale and fleshy. Over time they were able to adjust the make up to look closer to the intended designs. In D'Argo's case this required a pretty massive overhaul to the prosthetics at the beginning of the second season that made his skintone much warmer and darker.
- In the first season Scorpius' make-up is more opaque and lacks the shading that was added started with the second season. His leather mask was originally matte leather which was replaced with a shinier, grittier texture around the time his make-up changed.
- Hogan's Heroes. In the first two color episodes, LeBeau wears a navy blue sweater over his fatigues, rather than his usual red one. He may or may not have also worn it in the black-and-white pilot episode, as it is hard to determine, though it does appear to be a rather dark sweater.
- Mystery Science Theater 3000
- KTMA Tom Servo began as a small silver robot named Beeper, who couldn't talk, but beeped and whistled instead. He would quickly be replaced by Servo, who was much more like Tom, but still silver. By season 2, he had become the Tom Servo we know and love.
- KTMA Crow, Tom Servo, and Gypsy are borderline Nightmare Fuel.
- Joel's KTMA-era jumpsuit was bulkier, gray-ish, and covered in patches, and his hair was longer. The early Comedy Central seasons would also occasionally put him in a bright blue jumpsuit before quickly settling on his signature red one for the rest of his run.
- In Raumschiff Game Star, the eponymous starship crew's iconic "garbageman" uniforms didn't make an appearance until the second season. Ditto the bad guys' black hooded cloaks.
- The first two seasons of Red Dwarf have Rimmer in a khaki Space Corps uniform and Lister in a stained, shabby version of the same uniform, as opposed to Lister's leathers and Rimmer's shiny outfits in later seasons. The Space Corps uniform itself is changed retroactively in flashbacks, though the original uniforms appear as Mythology Gags in Series XII.
- Sesame Street:
- Throughout the first season there was a noticeable variation in Ernie's sweater. Rather than being strictly red and blue striped, it also had orange, yellow, and pink stripes in it as well.
- Many Muppets had different designs early on and even throughout the years their designs have evolved. The Muppet Wiki
has several pages dedicated to explaining the various designs. For example, Kermit originally wasn't a frog, he was a Cartoon Creature until 1969, when Sesame Street first aired. Big Bird originally had fewer feathers on his head, and the character that would become Cookie Monster had teeth prior to appearing on Sesame Street. Rosita was originally a fruit bat but became a generic "monster" later. Zoot's skin kept switching from blue to green and back until the creators ultimately settled on blue.
- The uniforms in both pilot episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series were different, both from each other, and from those in the regular episodes. The original version cropped up in a couple of instances in the first season, notably in "Charlie X" and "The Menagerie" (though the latter was due to incorporating nearly the entirety of the first pilot, "The Cage", through visual records).
- Star Trek: The Next Generation:
- For their first appearance on TNG, the Trill had noticeably more forehead prosthetics and lacked facial spots. After Terry Farrell was cast on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, the producers decided they didn't want her under heavy makeup, and altered the makeup to spots down her forehead.
- TNG also had several major changes across seasons 1 and 2, a lot of it coming about during the filming of the pilot as the production staff decided to refine their visions of the cast upon seeing some concepts translate poorly from paper to actor. Most famously, Picard was supposed to have a hairpiece, since Patrick Stewart was naturally bald and the vision for his character was one with blonde hair. One use of the hairpiece proved it was a completely ridiculous-looking implement and Picard looked far more epic as a chrome dome.
- The one-piece spandex outfits the Enterprise crew wore in the first two seasons were replaced because the actors complained they were uncomfortable and a chiropractor warned that the cast members risked permanent skeletal injury because they were that tight-fitting. The cast switched to a two-piece wool uniform redesign used for the remainder of the series, save "All Good Things...", which reverted back to the spandex outfits for continuity preservation when it featured scenes set in the time period of the pilot episode. The original design also appeared in a few other episodes when continuity called for its usenote .
- The first season also attempted to update the female miniskirt uniform of the Original Series by having a short-sleeved unisex "skant" variant of the uniform. (Both the Original Series and season 1 TNG costumes were designed by William Ware Theiss.) None of the main cast ever wore the skant after the pilot, and none of the male main cast ever wore it at all, so it was gradually phased out at the end of season 1 (only appearing again in season 2 via Stock Footage).
- Riker originally went clean-shaven, until concerns were raised that he came off as a flat clone of Kirk by being a dashing young-looking action-oriented guy. He grew a beard the following season, and his character became more divergent and subdued. (Jonathan Frakes had previously sported a beard in the first two North and South miniseries.)
- Geordi was going to have a mullet, but the consensus was it looked really goofy and perhaps a little flamboyant paired with his visor (think Prince meets Cyclops) , so he got a snazzy flat-top haircut.
- When Worf took over Tasha's duties as security chief, his uniform changed from red to yellow, and the non-standard Klingon sash he wore with his uniform was changed from gold to silver to keep it from blending in with the new color scheme.
- Leonard McCoy's cameo in the pilot was going to feature him in an active role, a little older than his appearances in the original series, before the setting was changed to feature the new Enterprise crew far into the future since his time and he appeared as a crusty centenarian with his identity left ambiguous to the new crew.
- Troi wore a severe-looking, civilian jumpsuit made of grey denim and had an intricate, complicated updo involving numerous braids and hair jewels to obliquely emphasize her alien qualities as a half-Betazoid and to emphasize her psychological role as counselor. She also had a European accent that apparently is among one of the burrs of the Betazed homeworld. Starting in Season 2 Troi changed into a much more flattering and gentle looking maroon jumpsuit with a dark collar note and let her hair down in a mass of curls with jeweled hairbands emphasizing her role as The Empath, and cementing her as the show's resident Ms. Fanservice. The look was revised again in the last couple of seasons and the movies where she changed into the standard uniform, ditched the hair ornaments and opted for simpler, more natural, free-flowing hair that was also lighter in colour. She also lost all touches of the accent, indicating how she had become more human-like rather than alien and fully integrated with the crew, as well as her taking her role as Starfleet Officer more seriously. These changes, along with the huge changes in her makeup (from very pale skin and deep red lips early on to a softer, more neutral palette later on) are big enough that it almost makes early Troi and Troi from the movies look like two completely different characters.
- In the Pilot Movie "Encounter at Farpoint", Troi wore the first-season skant and had her hair down in a very Eighties perm. Many, including Marina Sirtis herself, felt that Troi looked like a "space cheerleader", which led to her first-season "severe" look. The original look returned in "All Good Things..." for the past scenes for continuity purposes. Sirtis also came to prefer the standard duty uniform after Troi was made to wear it by Captain Jellico in the season 6 two-parter "Chain of Command", and her casual outfits were relegated to informal off-duty use for the remainder of the series.
- Early Super Sentai costumes weren't nearly as form-fitting and often had capes or scarves.
- In Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, at the end of the second season's second episode, "Automatic for the People", Weaver, who has been impersonating a different corporate executive, gets into a car and shifts back to her usual Catherine Weaver appearance. However, she's in a very Cyberpunk and somewhat fetishistic brown leather and shades ensemble, when for the rest of the show she'll always "dress" in a more business-appropriate manner, even when alone.
- The Toy Castle originated as a 1992 special based on The Steadfast Tin Soldier, which had some design differences between it and the 2000 series:
- In the special, the Soldier has a false leg, as he was built without one of his tin legs (like in the original fairy tale). In the series, both of his legs are intact.
- In the special, the Goblin had swirly black markings on his face, a large nose, and sunken, Creepy Blue Eyes. In the series, his facial markings are gone, safe for a mole on his cheek, a smaller nose, smaller, darker eyesnote , and grew out some shaggy white hair.
- Victorious:
- Rex looked different in the pilot episode than he did later in the series. Notably, his neck and head were thicker, his complexion was darker, and his mouth and eyes were larger.
- In the first season, Jade had pale skin and light brown hair. From season two onward, she got a tan and dyed her hair black.
- Other characters looked different in the pilot as well. Tori's hair was straight instead of wavy, Trina's hair is shorter, Cat's hair is curly and Robbie's afro is slightly longer.
- Young Sheldon: In the pilot, George Sr. parted his hair on the left and combed it to the right. All subsequent episodes have him parting it on the right and combing it to the left.
