Addition Through Subtraction - Entertainment Edition

Doug: Almost two years ago we had a conversation on comic book series that "jumped the shark", a reference to the Happy Days episode when Fonzie, well... jumped a shark. For many, that was the death knell for that series. While a few mentioned television series, the main focus was on comics. But today we're going to flip that topic over and discuss changes that were for the better moving forward. Since we looked at comics a week ago, today we're going to focus on television series, film series, and musical acts. As we did last week, we'll open this up to all time -- no need to stay stuck in any Bronze Age parameters for this discussion.

Doug: I'll make no claim to the acting talents of either of these men, but I'll just say that I enjoyed Bewitched more after Dick Sargent replaced Dick York as Darrin. Perhaps it's because the program was then in color, as opposed to the early years when it was still in B&W (or was that only because all we had was a B&W television?). To my sensibilities, Dick York seemed to whine a bit too much, and his constant befuddlement (often heading towards anger) bothered me even as a child. But I want everyone to at some point today make this jump to a site with some information about Dick York's last years -- pretty touching stuff.

Doug: To say that Ringo Starr's replacement of Pete Best was an upgrade for the Beatles might be the overstatement of the century. But are there other musical replacements that come to mind?

Karen: My partner asked me to contribute to this post, and one of the first cases that came to mind was the disappearance of Yeoman Rand from the Enterprise by the second season of the original Star Trek. Having a love interest for Captain Kirk on the ship was far too limiting -by removing the character, it opened up more possibilities for Kirk with guest stars, and besides, could anyone see the Captain settling down with one woman?

Doug: So there are a few examples from us. How about our readers' thoughts on the matter?