History TheArtifact / LiveActionTV

* ''Creator/{{CBS}}'' itself used to sound an electronic tone, or "bong" at the top of the hour, just before the start of a TV show. While the bong was originally used to synchronize broadcast equipment, they kept it long after technological improvements made said tone obsolete. CBS TV stopped sounding the bong in the 1980s, but CBS News Radio continues to use it into 2022.

** Toby, the Fifth son of the Duncans quickly became this. His existence was TheReveal of TheMovie and the first half of Season 3 was basically a long StoryArc leading up to his birth, but he ended up losing all relevance in the very moment he was born. The Duncans already had an adorable baby brother as a main character, giving Charlie was the [[CharacterTitle titular character]] and that she was a bit older that when the series started meaning there was more material they could give her, meant that most storylines involving small children would be given to her. This lead to Toby's storylines becoming more limited as there was very little to do with the character besides re-using [[RecycledScript old storylines involving baby Charlie but with Toby]] or having Charlie with InfantSiblingJealousy. By the time of the final season, the writers gave up and he was basically a LivingProp that would be lucky to appear more that once per episode. They didn't even bothered to have him in the room for the final scene where all the Duncans reunite for the final video diary.

* Harriet Winslow of ''Series/FamilyMatters'' would ultimately end up as this by the later seasons, after it became clear that Urkel was the undisputed main character. The irony about this is that the show started off as a spinoff of ''her'' character and her family. But after Urkel-mania became big, the show started to focus more on the members of the Winslow family who actually had dynamic and comedic relationships with Urkel (Carl, Laura, and Eddie). Harriet ended up being the last holdover who never got written out of the show. Even then, Harriet's actress realized this and left the show, and the character was recast with a new actress for the last few episodes of the series.

-->'''Elroy:''' This was a study group?\\

* Series/MiamiVice

* Stan Switek in ''Series/MiamiVice''. Switek was one-half of the show's comedy duo, along with fellow officer Larry Zito, and entire segments would be devoted to their antics as they drove around in a surveillance van and got into various shenanigans. However, after Creator/DickWolf replaced Creator/MichaelMann as showrunner prior to the third season, when Mann left to work on ''Series/CrimeStory'', the show became DarkerAndEdgier, as did the plots, and Zito was killed off in a dramatic two-parter midway through the season. With his partner gone, Switek had next-to-nothing to do, and spent most of the next two seasons being little more than a background character. The producers attempted to make him relevant again by giving him a gambling addiction and run-ins with the mob, but these were barely remembered in the course of Crockett's amnesia arc and the resulting fallout. The only reason he was kept on is because he was part of the small core cast and a sympathetic figure. Scenes in the series finale that would have clearly showed him becoming a turncoat and ratting out Crockett and Tubbs to a Colombian general were deleted because he wasn't deemed important enough.

* ''Series/DegrassiTheNextGeneration'' was originally a drama about teenagers and a parallel one about the now-adult former students of TheEighties' ''Series/DegrassiHigh''), in near-equal parts. The older cast was de-emphasized until most of them left at the end of season 5 leaving only Snake / Mr. Simpson, and even the parts of his personal life outside school were phased out.

** The center of the titular Wheel is green and has been since day one. This is because the closing credits used to use it for a ChromaKey shot that would insert the hosts into the middle of the Wheel as it spun. Although this stopped in TheEighties (and spinning the Wheel automatically in TheNineties), the design remains the same.

* The idea of responding in the form of a question on ''Series/{{Jeopardy}}''. It originated as an inversion of the typical question-and-answer quiz show formula (as a response to the quiz show scandals of TheFifties); contestants were given answers and had to respond with the questions. In the early days of the show the clues were indeed phrased as reasonable answers to the required questions; today, however, most of the clues are written much less straightforwardly, and there are many categories where the clues are simply quotes or titles that the "What is X?" response format makes no sense with. Some of the change actually came from the other direction: as seen in [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGeAosjw3S8 the unaired pilot]] the original intent was for contestants to give more specifically phrased questions.

* Marco's death in ''Series/BetterCallSaul'' was originally a character-turning moment for Jimmy and the thing that would make him go full Saul Goodman, before the writers decided to go against it feeling there was a lot to explore with Jimmy before that happens. Because of this, the event ended up becoming rather irrelevant in the larger scheme of things. Marco's death never serves to motivation to Jimmy, he rarely grieves or even think about him and most of the drama in later seasons comes from his relationship to Chuck and Kim. It almost feels like they decided to write a {{Filler}} episode for a SeasonFinale for not particular reason.

** Pierce Hawthorne in Season 4. Because of ''Creator/ChevyChase'' becoming [[HostilityOnTheSet infamously hard to work with]], the writers reduced significatly his role to the point he's just kind of there, usually dissapearing of the story with some filmsy excuse or sometimes not being there at all, despite the fact that he's still technically one of the main characters. They quickly realized there was no reason to keep him around considering how little they could do with him and he suffered a BusCrash in the following season.

** Pierce Hawthorne in Season 4. Because of ''Creator/ChevyChase'' becoming [[HostilityOnSet infamously hard to work with]], the writers reduced significatly his role to the point he's just kind of there, usually dissapearing of the story with some filmsy excuse or sometimes not being there at all, despite the fact that he's still technically one of the main characters. They quickly realized there was no reason to keep him around and he suffered a BusCrash in the following season.

* The final two seasons of ''Series/{{Community}}'' bend over backwards to keep Ben Chang in the main cast, even though his continued presence in the show raises multiple questions. Sometime during the TimeSkip between Seasons 4 and 5, he manages to get let out of prison on a work release (despite nearly committing a deadly act of terrorism), he manages to get a job as a math professor at Greendale (despite previously trying to blow up the school), and he manages to get invited to join the "Save Greendale" committee (even though none of the other committee members particularly like him, and they all know that he's seriously mentally disturbed). It didn't make a lot of sense, but he was a popular character who'd been around since Season 1, so he was allowed to stick around for old time's sake. He even lampshades it in "Basic Email Security":

** Vanna White, the LovelyAssistant who reveals the letters in the puzzle, is an example. In 1997, the show traded out its mechanical puzzle board for a set of video monitors, thus making Vanna's job redundant (she touches the letters now instead of turning them, but the board is run remotely for filling in the answer instantly when a puzzle is solved and, since 2000, revealing letters randomly in Toss-Ups). However, she's become such a pop culture icon that removing her would cause an outcry.

* ''Series/MrBean'' has not aired on Creator/{{CBC}} in over a decade. However, the network still proudly airs the popular ''Merry Christmas, Mr. Bean'' episode every year as a part of their holiday programming.

* Series/PowerRangersRPM is set in a post-apocalyptic world where a computer virus has taken over the entire planet, exploiting the fact that EverythingIsOnline. And yet, the monsters of the week are not cyberpunk-themed [[DigitalAbomination digital lifeforms]], instead being mostly silly designs inspired by common appliances, steampunk machinery and random junk, including a vacuum cleaner, a manhole, a dumbbell and ''balloons''. The reason for this is that the Sentai series RPM takes footage from is a light-hearted show about environmentalism and pollution, and does not have a cyberpunk theme.

** Pretty much everything about its portrayal of a pre-Superman Clark Kent became this after a while. More and more of his allies and rogues gallery were showing up, and by the end, it may as well have been a Superman series. He'd worked with the [[ComicBook/JusticeLeagueOfAmerica JLA]], the [[ComicBook/JusticeSocietyOfAmerica JSA]], and the ComicBook/LegionOfSuperHeroes, seen the arrival of ComicBook/{{Supergirl}} and the creation of ComicBook/{{Superboy}}, was working at the Daily Planet alongside ComicBook/LoisLane, with whom he's had a full RelationshipUpgrade and who knows he's Superman (excuse us, ''[[{{Narm}} the red-blue blur]]''), and had faced ComicBook/LexLuthor, ComicBook/{{Brainiac}}, General Zod, Doomsday, and the minions of ComicBook/{{Darkseid}}. ''Everything'' you think of when you think of Superman was in place, but the creators were still hanging onto it being a prequel, so he doesn't have his costume, doesn't have the name, and hasn't learned to fly yet, long past the point where it had stopped making sense and become a source of derision.

** The design of the Enterprise-D and other Galaxy-class starships on ''Series/StarTrekTheNextGeneration''. It was designed the way it because it was thought that its saucer separation abilities would arise frequently, but it took too long, and it was used only three times on the show: the pilot episode "Encounter at Farpoint", "The Arsenal of Freedom" (also from season 1), and "The Best of Both Worlds: Part II" from season 4, before being used for the last time in ''Film/StarTrekGenerations''. It didn't help that except for the last time, when the battle section was ''destroyed'', there really wasn't a reason to use this capability. The first time, the ship was in danger and Picard wanted to get the civilians out of the way, only the ship is very frequently in danger and always has civilians on board, so either you do the saucer separation every time things get hairy, or you just live with the risk. And in the battle with the Borg...it was hard to see an actual point. They could attack from two directions, but that didn't do the fleet much good, and the uniform design of the Borg cube meant that an attack from one direction was like an attack from any other. (There was also an aesthetic reason not to use the separation ability: while the separated saucer section looked reasonably cool in a flying saucer sort of way, the separated battle section looked like a headless chicken.)

* Stan Switek in ''Series/MiamiVice''. Switek was one-half of the show's comedy duo, along with fellow officer Larry Zito, and entire segments would be devoted to their antics as they drove around in a surveillance van and got into various shenanigans. However, after Creator/DickWolf replaced Creator/MichaelMann as show runner prior to the third season, when Mann left to work on ''Series/CrimeStory'', the show became DarkerAndEdgier, as did the plots, and Zito was killed off in a dramatic two-parter midway through the season. With his partner gone, Switek had next-to-nothing to do, and spent most of the next two seasons being little more than a background character. The producers attempted to make him relevant again by giving him a gambling addiction and run-ins with the mob, but these were barely remembered in the course of Crockett's amnesia arc and the resulting fallout. The only reason he was kept on is because he was part of the small core cast and a sympathetic figure. Scenes in the series finale that would have clearly showed him becoming a turncoat and ratting out Crockett and Tubbs to a Colombian general were deleted because he wasn't deemed important enough.

* ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' ran headlong into this as a result of being adapted from three different ''Franchise/SuperSentai'' shows. The first season was based solely on ''Series/KyoryuSentaiZyuranger'', so things worked just fine. But for the second season, rather than adopting Super Sentai's tradition of making a completely new show and storyline every year, Saban chose to take the [[MonstersOfTheWeek monsters]] and [[HumongousMecha robots]] from ''Series/GoseiSentaiDairanger'' while retaining the Zyuranger suits for the heroes and keeping the same main villains. The same thing was done for the third season with ''Series/NinjaSentaiKakuranger'', though in this instance the Kakuranger suits were used for a another team of Rangers. Overall this results in quite a few oddities, since the motifs of the three Sentai teams did not match: while the animal robots and suits in Zyuranger were based on prehistoric beasts, the ones in Dairanger were based on Chinese mythology and the ones in Kakuranger were based on Japanese mythology. The ranger roster and colors also did not match: while all three teams had their respective red, blue and yellow rangers, Dairanger had a "regular" green ranger instead of black and a white sixth (which resulted in the Black Ranger piloting a green-colored lion robot and Tommy being forced to switch suits and powers in the middle of Season 2), while Kakuranger had a female white ranger instead of pink and no sixth (forcing the White and Pink Rangers to share the same Shogunzord). This also holds true for the villains, as the character of Rita Repulsa and her minions stayed on the show for a total of six seasons despite the fact that their Sentai counterparts (Bandora the Witch and her gang) were sealed away at the end of ''Zyuranger''. The most stand-out case is Finster, who was the villains' monster-maker and MadScientist, but had his role greatly reduced in the second and third seasons when [[AlwaysABiggerFish new]] {{Big Bad}}s with the power to make their own monsters were introduced.

** Archie was part of the main cast in Season 1 but only appeared in ten episodes. He fit with the original intent of the show -- which was to have more procedural storylines in the Storybrooke portions. As the fantasy elements were emphasized, Archie as the therapist became pretty redundant and he was left a recurring character in subsequent seasons.

** Cookie Monster's ExtremeOmnivore tendencies is mostly due to not originally being established as Cookie Monster when he first appeared on the show. Instead he was a nameless, voracious monster whose main trait was to devour nearly everything in sight. Even long after he's been established as a "Cookie Monster" the extreme omnivorous aspect still stands, and he'll eat pretty much anything if he gets uncontrollably hungry enough. Cookies, however, remain his favourite food by far.

** In Spanish, the stock phrase is that a cat has seven lives, not nine as in English. The main character's "resurrection" was compared to what you would expect of a cat. Following on this, the title logo included the shape of a black cat... and continued to do so for the whole 10 seasons, despite 8 of them airing without the original main character. Same for the ExpositoryThemeTune, which was all about the main character waking up and reuniting with his pre-accident girlfriend (''"Who could imagine that I would come back from this trip? Maybe I missed talking to you after such long time. If you give me what I lost, I will give you anything you want. Because I'm the key to your door, and I got seven lives..."'').

* ''Series/Runaways2017'': Alex's parents Geoffrey and Catherine Wilder were the only members of PRIDE with no scientific background and were in the group for practical matters: Cat was an AmoralAttorney who handled PRIDE's legal affairs, and Geoffrey was a contractor with gang ties who owned the land where the energy-based aliens the Gibborim were buried. As the story progressed and more FantasyKitchenSink elements were introduced, the Wilders had less and less to do, and their subplot in the second season was an entirely-human conflict involving Geoffrey's former friend from the 'hood Darius and his wife Tamar. In the third season, Cat is murdered and Geoffrey begins working for the new BigBad, sorceress Morgan le Fay, bringing him back in line with the rest of the show.

* ''Series/Runaways2017'': Alex's parents Geoffrey and Catherine Wilder were the only members of PRIDE with no scientific background and were in the group for practical matters: Cat was an AmoralAttorney who handled PRIDE's legal affairs, and Geoffrey was a contractor with gang ties who owned the land where the energy-based aliens the Gibborim were buried. As the story progressed and more FantasyKitchenSink elements gained prominence, the Wilders had less and less to do, and their subplot in the second season was an entirely-human conflict involving Geoffrey's former friend from the 'hood Darius and his wife Tamar. In the third season, Cat is murdered and Geoffrey begins working for the new BigBad, sorceress Morgan le Fay, bringing him back in line with the rest of the show.

* ''Series/Runaways2017'': Geoffrey and Catherine Wilder were the only members of PRIDE with no scientific background and were in the group to cover practical matters: Cat was an AmoralAttorney and Geoffrey a contractor who owned the land where the energy-based aliens the Gibborim were buried. In Season 2, the plot moved from "The kids find out their parents are supervillains working for the evil Jonas" to "The kids '''and''' their parents work together to try to stop Jonas," but the Wilders were left with nothing to do and their subplot was an entirely-human conflict involving Geoffrey's former friend from the 'hood Darius and his wife Tamar. In the third season, after Cat is murdered, Geoffrey begins working for the new BigBad, sorceress Morgan [=LaFey=], finally bringing him back in line with the rest of the series.

** That's because the show was originally designed as a "youth" vehicle, and Creator/TrevorBannister and Creator/WendyRichard were to play the main characters. The producers' mistake was in assembling a stellar and highly professional cast in the shape of Creator/FrankThornton, Creator/MollieSugden, Creator/JohnInman and Arthur Brough, who outshone the "stars" of the piece. Eventually Trevor Bannister left - not because he had been promised a starring role and he kept getting upstaged, but rather because he felt that the scripts were getting too repetitive.

** That's because the show was originally designed as a "youth" vehicle, and Trevor Bannister and Creator/WendyRichard were to play the main characters. The producers' mistake was in assembling a stellar and highly professional cast in the shape of Creator/FrankThornton, Creator/MollieSugden, Creator/JohnInman and Arthur Brough, who outshone the "stars" of the piece. Eventually Trevor Bannister left - not because he had been promised a starring role and he kept getting upstaged, but rather because he felt that the scripts were getting too repetitive.