Some characters throw off the balance of our favorite TV shows, sometimes nearly ruining
the series' legacy.
These are just a few characters that made viewers want to kick in their television sets.
Dustin Diamond peaked in life when he portrayed Screech for NBC's Saturday morning opus Saved
By The Bell.
Designed to be the nerdy genius sidekick to Zack Morris, Screech pined over Lisa Turtle,
created a famous dance move, and was a proud member of Bayside High.
Screech was light comedy relief that worked.
In 1993, the cast graduated and made the jump to prime-time, pursuing greater education
in Saved By The Bell: The College Years.
With the move, most of the characters grew in some fashion.
Screech, however, was a different story.
Formerly goofy in a cute way, Screech's intelligence in college dissipated to the point where he
couldn't tell the difference between frozen and cooked turkeys.
His voice grew more grating, his vocabulary more simplistic.
He quickly went from being the comedy sidekick that allowed others to play straight man,
to someone you wanted to see shoved out a window.
Even Screech's own best friends verbally knocked him to his face.
"You're ruining everything as usual.
People aren't paying to see you be an idiot."
"Gee Slater, why are you always on my back?"
"Because you're a screw up."
Screech would live on through additional Saved by the Bell incarnations, but the damage had
been permanently done.
Screech was scorched Earth.
Diamond's real-life issues only helped to reinforce Screech's bad rep.
Despite twelve years playing the character, Diamond was the only cast member not asked
to take part in a reunion sketch for Jimmy Fallon.
At least the audience was saved from having to endure one last Screech.
When Steve Carell's Michael Scott exited The Office during its seventh season, a massive
void was left to be filled in the faux-reality world of Scranton's Dunder Mifflin Paper Company.
Brit Eleanour Donna "Nellie" Bertram soon debuted as a potential suitor to Michael's
throne, despite her having no actual qualifications for any of the positions she was trying to
get hired for.
"I don't work especially hard, and most of my ideas are either unoriginal or total crap."
What's more, she had horrible social skills, was extremely lonely, depressed, and obsessed
with adopting a child.
The series also failed to give viewers any reason to care about why she was suddenly
dominating the show.
Played far too well as having no redeeming qualities whatsoever by Catherine Tate, Nellie
was decried for a downturn in the series' quality.
After all, how does one find sympathy for a shopaholic with massive credit card debt,
who possesses a complete lack of intelligence, and who's been crowbarred onto the show?
She also pretty much kidnaps a baby in the series finale, taking off for Europe with
it.
Nellie is every crazy ex you've ever had, all rolled into one.
Like your ex, no one misses her.
David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson became huge stars playing Fox Mulder and Dana Scully,
FBI investigators who looked into alien abductions, paranormal encounters, and other really weird
stuff that hinted at a massive government conspiracy on Fox's The X-Files.
But Duchovny wasn't happy.
Right before the series' seventh season in 1999, he sued Fox, claiming that it had sold
the rights to reruns of the show at a discount to its affiliates, thereby cheating him and
the other actors out of profits they may have earned.
The suit was eventually settled, but Duchovny filed it right when he negotiated his contract
to keep playing Mulder on The X-Files, and understandably, neither actor nor network
were particularly enthusiastic to maintain their working relationship.
They came to an agreement: Mulder would mysteriously disappear in season seven and appear sporadically
in season eight, necessitating a new FBI agent named John Doggett, played by Robert Patrick,
to team up with Scully.
The show also hired Annabeth Gish to play another new agent, Monica Reyes, in the event
that Anderson decided to bolt, too.
However, without Duchovny, or maybe the irresistible chemistry between Mulder and Scully, viewers
left in droves.
From a series ranking high of a 11 in the Nielsen ratings in 1997 and 1998, ratings
slipped down to 67th and about half as many viewers by 2001 and 2002, at which point The
X-Files was canceled.
"What do you think happened?"
"Isn't that what you're here to tell us?"
Portraying goofy teen Eric Foreman on That '70s Show made Topher Grace a star, and after
seven seasons, he decided to bow out to pursue his burgeoning film career.
Portraying dumb teen Michael Kelso made Ashton Kutcher a movie star, too, and he decided
to leave as well, early in season eight.
To replace Africa-bound Eric and Chicago-bound Kelso, producers brought in one new character:
Randy Pearson, an employee at Hyde's record store.
Like Eric, he dates Donna and cracks wise.
Like Kelso, he's a bit of a male bimbo.
"Let me clear a couple of things up.
Donna and I are just friends, and I blowdry this hair upside down."
Ironically, the new and sudden cast change felt in line with That '70s Show's long-form
homage to '70s sitcoms, bringing in some new guy is exactly what Happy Days did decades
earlier.
And it was all likely a fool's errand for actor Josh Meyers, a capable comic actor who
honed his chops on MADtv, because it's not easy replacing the two biggest stars on a
long-running show.
He didn't get much time to build up chemistry with the cast before Fox pulled the plug at
the end of season eight after the ratings dropped.
The supernatural drama Charmed smoothly survived a major upheaval when original cast member
Shannen Doherty bolted from the show about the three magical Halliwell sisters.
Taking her place: Rose McGowan, playing a long-lost sister who happened to possess the
magical skills necessary for the "power of three" to continue on.
In 2005, though, the aging show was heading into its eighth season when The CW issued
an ultimatum: Bring in new characters to populate future seasons or set up a spinoff.
And so, writers introduced Billie Jenkins, a college-age witch who approached the show's
witchy main characters for magical training.
"What's the catch?"
"Well.
Show me the ropes.
Teach me everything you know about witchcraft.
Everything."
Portrayed by future The Big Bang Theory star Kaley Cuoco, Billie spent a lot of her time
in the sisters' attic, studying magic books and trying to locate her demon-affiliated
missing sister, who subsequently tricks Billie into turning on the Halliwells.
That was a lot of setup for a character that ultimately didn't get a spinoff, and which
would soon disappear from television, because Charmed didn't get a ninth season.
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