MVTVP: Most Valuable Television Person?

[J-Sun]

By that, I mean who do you think was the most important to their show beyond the obvious (like if the show is named after a single lead character or whatever)? I'm also thinking specifically of people who have left the show in question and really hurt or drastically changed the show, though they certainly don't have to have left the show. I think people should mark spoilers for anything that's about to happen or just happened in the last few episodes but beware of unmarked spoilers for a month or more back or whatever. I'm going to bold the shows (rather than the characters) so (1) you can more easily avoid such spoilers if you're way behind and (b) skip the paragraphs if you don't know or care anything about the show in question.

I was thinking about how much Shaw being gone from Person of Interest has messed up that show. It's still good (barring last week's episode) but it's just very different and not in a good way. It's doubly ironic because (a) Carter was an original cast member and I liked her fine and certainly wouldn't have wanted her written off but I feel like the show got along fine without her and (2) I wasn't sure about adding Shaw at all at first, despite liking Sarah Shahi, but she fit in perfectly and really added something, both in herself and in the Bear and Reese and especially Groves interactions and now it's really missing. Worse, the writers seem to have compounded the problem by scaling back Groves' role rather than increasing it.

The other thing that popped into my mind was Deep Space Nine replacing Jadzia with Ezri which just poleaxed DS9 and it immediately lost 75% of its quality and screwed up all kinds of vibes and storylines.

 

[REBerg]

Stargate SG-1 -- Richard Dean Anderson replaced as team leader by Ben Browder in season 8.

I continued to watch and enjoy the series, but Anderson's occasional reappearances in later seasons always enhanced those episodes for me.

 

[markpud]

Worf - became increasingly central on TNG and then lifted DS9 when he joined their crew. Nimoy's Spock also lifted any incarnation of Star Trek by appearing. In terms of characters who left a hole when they left, I agree with Jadzia Daz. And Wesley Crusher. I kid, I kid!

 

[J-Sun]

Stargate SG-1 -- Richard Dean Anderson replaced as team leader by Ben Browder in season 8.

I continued to watch and enjoy the series, but Anderson's occasional reappearances in later seasons always enhanced those episodes for me.

I was never actually a big Anderson or SG1 fan - also didn't have cable so mostly missed it while it was a live happening thing - so I preferred the Ori(?) eps with Browder and Black but I don't doubt almost all long time fans agree with you.

Worf - became increasingly central on TNG and then lifted DS9 when he joined their crew. Nimoy's Spock also lifted any incarnation of Star Trek by appearing. In terms of characters who left a hole when they left, I agree with Jadzia Daz. And Wesley Crusher. I kid, I kid!

Urf. There's a great candidate for an LVTVP thread. But I agree with you, in turn, that Worf was a big boost for DS9.

 

[Heather Myst]

Without a doubt I would say Tatiana Maslany in Orphan Black. Do yourself a favor and check it out.