e399. The Show Must Go On! Navigating Main Character Exits and Recasts

There’s this funny thing that happens with TV shows. Because of the nature of human actors, TV shows are the one type of serialized media where a natural change to the series might be FORCED to occur because forces outside of the narrative require the change of the narrative. That is to say that in a comic book, the Spider-man can go on from issue to issue as long as Marvel wants him to be. If the writers decide to replace Peter Parker with Ben Reilly or Miles Morales that is for storyline reasons and they can change it back whenever they want. But on TV, actors die or move on to other roles. There are contract disputes. People age out of roles. There are budgetary considerations. There are any number of reasons that the show might have to adapt to a character leaving because the show no longer has access to the physical actor. So how does that work narratively? On this episode, Mav and Monica are joined by returning guest Nicole Freim to talk about the curious case of navigating main character exits on TV (and other media). Listen and let us know your thoughts in the comments below.

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