Hey guys. I just finished rewatching another episode of Wings, Duet for Plane and Chello. It's one of my personal favorites. Before this episode Joe and Helen were dating and everything was fine until Helen got the job to go to Maine.

Joe really didn't want her to go but didn't want to stand in her way. Of course you guys know that the fighting scene with the grease gun and fire exstinguisher was a legendary Joe and Helen fight. But it's the ending scene that gets to me. He finally asks her to stay and tells her he loves her and she still leaves. And he's standing with the gate closed and just stares at her as she walks out of his life, so it got me to thinking would Wings still be the same beloved show if Helen left and never come back. What if the writers had decided to write her out of the show and eventually Joe fell for someone else?

The show would have lost something if Helen left. However, if she left that early in the show, they could have had time to bounce back if they replaced her successfully. And that's something those people have done in the past with the cast changes on "Cheers."

I watched the show more for the Joe/Brian brother relationship. I liked Joe and Helen as a couple, but they weren't the focus for me. I admit Helen was funny. She wasn't just the love interest for Joe. She was her own character.

Of course my all-time favorite character of the show *did* leave it... Lowell Mather. :(

I guess you're right. Since it was so early in the show, there is a chance that it could be done sucessfully. But then again the more I think about it, the show would have probably not been the same. Part of the allure of the Joe and Helen love story is the fact that they have known each other since they were kids. As Joe states in that elevator scene, they've know each other for a lifetime already.

If Joe's love interest was replaced I would have probably accepted it but it has more meaning with the Joe and Helen equation b/c there's something special when you fall in love with someone that you grew up with and cared about for so long. The fact that as a kid even before she knew what love was or thought of him like that, she had always wanted to marry him. I guess Joe has always been an upstanding person even as a kid b/c Helen was this insecure chubby girl that he befriended because he was just a plain good person. And as time went by they grew to deeply care for one another.

Joe and Helen's relationship is more special than if he would have fallen in love with someone else. I guess that's why no one liked the whole idea of Helen being with Lynch. Imagine if they actually got married, lol. That relationship was wrong from the get-go.

I think that would have upset tons of faithful viewers. Here's another thought...isn't funny how things happen. What if Joe married his first fiance Carol. He would have missed being with the love of his life, so Brian in a way did him a favor b/c Carol was an awful person.

Joe and Helen are one of my favorite TV couples. They had so much chemistry. I'd have been so PO'd if they didn't end up together.

I just wish the writers had paired up Casey and Antonio. Yeah, yeah, I'm beating a dead horse :horse:

I think that would have upset tons of faithful viewers. Here's another thought...isn't funny how things happen. What if Joe married his first fiance Carol. He would have missed being with the love of his life, so Brian in a way did him a favor b/c Carol was an awful person.

Going even deeper. Originally, Joe said that (unless I remembered it wrong) he was going to open his own airline. He would be the pilot and Carol would be the ticket agent. So if that happened, I don't think he would have ended up on that plane, miserable, where he met Fay. So she would be out of the picture. Brian would probably still hang around Nantucket. Maybe he would have gotten a job with Joe and Carol, or maybe he would do a lot of wild traveling. Because of Carol's nature, even if she didn't get with Brian, she probably would have either cheated on Joe or left him. Who knows what he would have done then. This is a very dark version of "Wings", lol.

So yeah, Brian running off with Carol was the best for everyone.

You really know your Wings Adamatium. Carol was such a manipulative woman. I'm glad Helen threw that pie in her face. I was like you go Helen.

Ha! "...dark version of Wings".

I cannot imagine them being able to replace that character. She was really important when it came to the dynamic between the brothers, given that she'd known them since childhood and was seen differently by them before and after the sparks stopped flying off her silverware (one of my all-time fave lines). I doubt Brian could've ever been so comfortable with a woman marrying his brother and possibly being involved in the business -- think about how brotherly he acted toward her when he was calling her Yoko Ono in that scene where they were talking about hiring the astronaut to represent Sandpiper.

I don't watch the show for the brothers, or for Joe and Helen the couple (agreed, amazing chemistry between them, true Hollywood kisses), but rather for the relationship between the three of them, from childhood up.

And think about how weird it was to see Joe with Gail when Season 3 started. I didn't like that at all!