For some reason I want to use Family Ties as an example. I was very young when the show was original on and I'm now rediscovering it on Nick @ Nite (so I maybe a little bit off the mark so to speak). From my best understanding, the original point of Family Ties was to have liberal minded parents tackle with their more conversative minded kids over current social issues and such (sort of like an All In the Family for the 1980s). But the end product that I at the very least have received, is a relatively generic family oriented program (sort like other family centric sitcoms like The Cosby Show, Full House, Diff'rent Strokes, and Growing Pains for example) with the occasional run of the mill, moralistic "special episode" (e.g. Tom Hanks trying to prove that he's a "serious" actor even though Busom Buddies was still fresh in are minds as drunk Uncle Ned, an episode in which the Keaton's new neighbors suffer harrassment simply because they're black, and an episode that I saw tonight in which Michael J. Fox's character gets hooked on speed), with Fox's character as the only real establishment of the initial point of Family Ties.

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One sitcom that definitely did lose sight of it's original premise was Family Matters. Originally it about a family and the matters that they dealt with every week. Then they added Steve Urkel and by season 3 he had completely taken over as the star of the show. But that wasn't really that bad because the original show was so bland.

I completely agree about Family Ties. After the first season, the parents became a lot more moderate and the entire focus of the show shifted. Actually, it seems like from the beginning Jennifer was supposed to be liberal like the parents. This is apparent even in the first season episodes such as No Nukes is Good Nukes where she stands up for the parents protesting. In addition, I think the characters all became much more caricatured (except Elyse and Jennifer). That's why I liked the show a lot better during the first season.

A far more recent example is the short-lived NBC show Cursed starring Steven Weber. The show was originally advertised as an endless serial and or pseudo fantasy (a la Bewitched and I Dream of Jeanie), in which Weber's character struggled to live a normal day without stumbling into bad luck. But after like one episode, the whole hex storyline was dropped and the show retooled itself into I guess you can say generic vehicle simply called The Weber Show.

I wholeheartedly agree with the postings on Family Ties. I personally thought the first season and a half was great. But when it degenerated into the Michael J. Fox sitcom it should have been called Alex not Family Ties. In previous postings the show was supposed to be Meredith Baxter's vehicle only to have it taken along with the original premise of the show by Michael J. Fox by having nearly every episode focusing on Alex. I thought the series was about parents who were hippies during the 60s raising conservative children. The premise immediately went out the window.

That usually happens with the "family" sitcoms. The show is supposed to star the "parents" but since younger viewers watch the show, they gravitate to the kids, write more fan mail, create a buzz, and soon the producers are giving then what they want, more storylines about the kids than the parents.

Another example would be "Growing Pains."
While Alan Thicke and Joanna Kerns thought they were the stars, Kirk Cameron was the breakout star of that show, and his character got most of the attention.

Even though it's technically not a sitcom, I'll chip in with the 1972-81 CBS drama "The Waltons". It may have focused on the parents and gravitated towards the children later as was mentioned in this thread about other family sitcoms, but by the end of the show both the Walton parents had left the show, and a relative of the mother (Rose Burton, who IMHO should have been in less episodes than Sonny St. Jacques was during the California episodes of "Laverne & Shirley") had taken over parental duties for the last couple of seasons.

Happy Days is the best example that I can think of.

Originally posted by TJL
That usually happens with the "family" sitcoms. The show is supposed to star the "parents" but since younger viewers watch the show, they gravitate to the kids, write more fan mail, create a buzz, and soon the producers are giving then what they want, more storylines about the kids than the parents.

Another example would be "Growing Pains."
While Alan Thicke and Joanna Kerns thought they were the stars, Kirk Cameron was the breakout star of that show, and his character got most of the attention.

Actually, I read somewhere that unlike Growing Pains and Happy Days Michael J. Fox had more storylines later on because they discovered that he was a really good actor, while he had been relatively unknown before, not because of fann mail. But I don't think that it really became the Michael J. Fox Show until season five.

A good example would be "The John Larroquette Show" (1993-1996).
The show started out as a "black comedy" with some pretty dark but interesting subject matter (alcoholism, prostitiution, race relations) but in an attempt to bring the ratings up, they changed things around and dropped a lot of the elements that made the show good. The whole theme of John's alcoholism was dropped, Carly the prostitute "quit the business" to run the bar, they brought in a girlfriend for John... and they killed the show!

TMC was right about "Cursed." They totally dropped what was an interesting premise and made it into another "Single Guy."
And we know how friggin wonderful that show was.
Plus, they totally wasted the talents of Chris Elliot...
What a horrible mistake that show was.

ER has gone from being a fast paced, hard-hitting medical drama to a boring, pathetic nighttime soap opera, IMHO. I really hate how the show has become. Yet, guess where I am every Thursday night at 10 PM? I'm pathetic :(

I thought Wings sorta broke from its origional premise when Joe and Helen got married. It seemed to go from an ensemble show about friends who work at an airport to a show about a couple who work at an airport and their friends are in the background. As much as I love the show, I have to admit that the last 2 seasons were pretty bad.

Another recent example is Two Guys & a Girl which started out with the far less generic title (as well as theme music) of Two Guys, a Girl, & a Pizza Place. But sometime either after or during the second season, the writers apparently got lazy and dropped the pizza place setting altogether as the show eventually became just another buddy/relationship show.

Originally posted by James
Rose Burton, who IMHO should have been in less episodes than Sonny St. Jacques was during the California episodes of "Laverne & Shirley

No offense to Sonny, of course! I thought he was appropriate for the "Laverne & Shirley" set, even though he only was in four episodes.

About Rose Burton, she probably could have been in a couple of episodes of "The Waltons". The show was not the same with her in lieu of Olivia Walton, who was in a sanitarium in Arizona for the last couple of seasons.

This comes from someone who didn't find anything wrong with Cousin Oliver on "The Brady Bunch"!

Family Matters for sure.

I have a feeling the upcoming "Less Than Perfect",A show about a character played by Sara Rue will most likely become "The Andy Dick Show" by mid-season!

Happy Days - They forget the show was set in the 50's and eventually the show became like any other show, it got a bit silly too.

Family Matters - It started out alright, then Urkel became the main focus, and that was alright to a point.. But then they got to where Urkel ruled all, and he created alter egos, a teleporter was even used in an episode, and the show just became a live action cartoon.

Roseanne - Do I need to say any more? We all know what happened in the last season. The show changed as many times as Roseanne got face lifts.

Home Improvement - After it stopped being a sitcom based around Tim Allens comedy act, the show got super goody goody, then it just stopped being funny and started having those very special episodes like Randy might die, Jill might cheat, Al might wear something other than flannel. I dunno. I used to like that show.

Full House - Novel concept, kind of like 3 Men and a Baby, but it was 3 Men and 2 girls and a 1 baby. Then all the sudden it turned into a show about how many people could live under one roof while focusing on the Olsen Twins. It got too goody goody, this was the 90's people, not the safe 80's Cosby era, you were allowed to get away with more!

Originally posted by alf8mycat
Roseanne - Do I need to say any more? We all know what happened in the last season. The show changed as many times as Roseanne got face lifts.

I was just about ready to mention this until you did, LOL. I do agree with you all the way, though. At first the show was about a middle class blue collar family making their way through life, and then it ended up being about a JerrySpringer-type family. Truly ridiculous.

Home Improvement - After it stopped being a sitcom based around Tim Allens comedy act, the show got super goody goody, then it just stopped being funny and started having those very special episodes like Randy might die, Jill might cheat, Al might wear something other than flannel. I dunno. I used to like that show.

Once again, I agree. It was a lot funnier when it revolved around Tim Allen's comedy act and the kids were also a lot funnier back when they were younger too.

Originally posted by DJM77
Happy Days is the best example that I can think of.




Happy Days is the first series that came to my mind!
Also Family Ties and Family Matters.

Facts of Life- a show that was built around Charlotte Rae being a Den mother to a house full of school girls. The number of girls dwindled and Mrs Garrett became the school nutritionist, then a business owner, then remarried and left the show completely.

A Different World- a show revolving around Denise Huxtable in a college full of diverse students. Denise left and the school suddenly changed into an all black school. They obviously forgot about Marisa Tomei.

Just Shoot Me- A sitcom with an ensemble cast about the daily activities of a magazine publisher. It soon became the David Spade show.

Drew Carrey- a show about a loveable, overweight misfit and his wacky friends living in Cleveland, slowly became a sequel to Whose Line is it Anyway?

Originally posted by Sitcomwriter
I have a feeling the upcoming "Less Than Perfect",A show about a character played by Sara Rue will most likely become "The Andy Dick Show" by mid-season!

I have to disagree with you Andy Dick was on Newsradio and at the time he wasn't as big as today but he played a klutzy spaz..and I think he'll play the same character on Less than Perfect so I don't think a spaz can carry a show.

~I also have to agree that the Facts Of Life lost sight of its original premise. Instead of Being About A Group of Girls at school it moved on to stores, though it was still about the girls.

Originally posted by TMC
Another recent example is Two Guys & a Girl which started out with the far less generic title (as well as theme music) of Two Guys, a Girl, & a Pizza Place. But sometime either after or during the second season, the writers apparently got lazy and dropped the pizza place setting altogether as the show eventually became just another buddy/relationship show.

The Pizza Place setting was dropped by ABC's request, in an attempt to retool the show and bring the ratings up. The Pizza Setting kind of limited the type of stories they could do, dropping the pizza place setting drasticaly opened up the stories they could tell, even though they never did tell any different stories, the show was just horrible.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by briandamage
[B]Facts of Life- a show that was built around Charlotte Rae being a Den mother to a house full of school girls. The number of girls dwindled and Mrs Garrett became the school nutritionist, then a business owner, then remarried and left the show completely.- Actually think that FOL progressed quite well, The show had to be retooled after the first season because the stories were to unbalanced and it was to much. The second season was great. I think that the show aged the characters right on time. and i don't think that the show lost focus of its premies, they just changed it a little.

A Different World- a show revolving around Denise Huxtable in a college full of diverse students. Denise left and the school suddenly changed into an all black school. They obviously forgot about Marisa Tomei.- College of Diverse Students? Marrissa Tomei's character was the only white character on the show, and if you had watched The Cosby Show you would know that Hillman had been estahblished as an All-Black College , and Marrisa's character had no reason to be there other than to get white people to watch the show, or some such nonsense. anyway, Once Denise left the show improved ten-fold. Marrisa Tomie was incrediable bad and went on to bigger things and Lisa Bonet, well she went nuts.

Just Shoot Me- A sitcom with an ensemble cast about the daily activities of a magazine publisher. It soon became the David Spade show.- I Totally Agree.

TJL is gonna jump me on this one...but M*A*S*H!

Don't get me wrong...I still enjoy the show, but you gotta admit that some of the episodes DID take a particularly maudlin tone.

Mostly the eppys that got all serious on us!

I started watching for the well written humor...then every once in a while, they'd throw us for a loop with ones like that stupid one with the clock graphic showing how fast they needed to work to save a guys leg with an artery transplant! Please! :rolleyes:

pontoon :cool:

Anyone remember "Second Chance" with Matthew Perry.
It was about the adult version of himself sent back from the dead to help his younger self (Perry) make better decisions in his life.

It then changed completely, just keeping the characters and nixing the afterlife and guidance stuff and became "Boys Will Be Boys."

It lasted one season.

"Happy Days" definitely!

The last few seasons were almost nothing like the first 2 or 3 seasons. For instance, The Fonz went from organizing drag races to organizing a classroom! Went from wearing Levis, boots and a leather jacket to wearing a suit.

The 1974-1976 years were great, though.

Originally posted by pontoon
TJL is gonna jump me on this one...but M*A*S*H!
Don't get me wrong...I still enjoy the show, but you gotta admit that some of the episodes DID take a particularly maudlin tone.


Don't worry about a retalitory strike, I agree with you Pontoon...

M*A*S*H was on the air at least three seasons longer than it needed to be. They pretty much mined all of the comedy they could out of the premise and the characters, so they emphasized drama instead.
Not a great way to make an audience laugh...

Even though it is my absolute FAVORITE show, Happy Days changed the route they were going as soon as they went live and Fonzie became a mega-star. Its odd how the first 3 seasons of them LIVE are my favorite, yet Im disappointed they never did it the way they did seasons 1 & 2. Those first 2 were based on life of the 50's and the teenagers who have to live through it, but then it went live and just focused on Fonzie and the character's dilemas. True, it was handled in a 50's style manner, but they never did other episodes like the bomb shelter episode etc. again. Except with the exception of Fonzies New Friend, and when Fonzie was on the jury.

Originally posted by Fleet
"Happy Days" definitely!

The last few seasons were almost nothing like the first 2 or 3 seasons. For instance, The Fonz went from organizing drag races to organizing a classroom! Went from wearing Levis, boots and a leather jacket to wearing a suit.

The 1974-1976 years were great, though.

Yup yup.


77 and 78 were pretty awesome too! Anything after 1980-unwatchable. Strange how in a few seasons it went from my FAV. show to Eww.

Originally posted by Fleet
"Happy Days" definitely!

The last few seasons were almost nothing like the first 2 or 3 seasons. For instance, The Fonz went from organizing drag races to organizing a classroom! Went from wearing Levis, boots and a leather jacket to wearing a suit.

The 1974-1976 years were great, though.

Happy Days Is My Fave Show, I Like Every Single Season. :)

Working-It sort of became a "Stunt Show" after a while.It tried to be "Wackier and more different every episode" and while it was FUNNY it didn't work.

The Drew Carey Show-Sort of a reverse Working.It went from an outrageous "Stunt Show" to sort of a romantic dramadey.Come on Drew get over Kate already! I mean you two were married and now your divorced! Besides she's getting married next week.I still say you should kill Steve and Marry Mimi :p

Sabrina The Teenage Witch-Went from a "Bewitvhed"-esque family comedy to a Friends Clone to a Suddenly Susan clone to a Clarissa NOW clone to whatever the hell it is now.

Originally posted by Sitcomwriter
Sabrina The Teenage Witch-Went from a "Bewitvhed"-esque family comedy to a Friends Clone to a Suddenly Susan clone to a Clarissa NOW tone to whatever the hell it is now.
It HAS changed, but its still my Friday night staple.:)

FAMILY MATTERS took the most bizarre turn of all the sitcoms mentioned on this thread. Usually, it's the parents (or adult characters) who suffer when the focus of a show changes. But with FAMILY MATTERS the shift focused to Urkel and Carl. Reginald Vel Johnson, who played father Carl Winslow, got lucky. Fans of the show may recall that Jo Marie Payton-Noble, who played his wife Harriette, actually quit the show during it's final year because her part had diminished so badly, and another actress filled for the final nine episodes. Then there is also the case of the Winslow's "other" daughter, Judy Winslow (played by Jaimee Foxworth), whose character did a Chuck Cunningham-like vanishing act after FOUR seasons, and was never mentioned again.

Saved by the Bell was one that almost completely went away from the original premise. The first season was much different than the second. It was called "Good Morning, Miss Bliss" and was mostly centered around Hayley Mills' character. Also, it was set in Indiana. Next thing you know, the school's changed but still similar to the "junior high" and somehow moved to Los Angeles with Zack, Lisa, Screech, and Mr. Belding and without Miss Bliss. ALl that's pretty common knowledge for SBTB fans, though.

Sabrina The Teenage Witch-Went from a "Bewitvhed"-esque family comedy to a Friends Clone to a Suddenly Susan clone to a Clarissa NOW tone to whatever the hell it is now.

I disagree i think that Sabrina's changes were very natural and needed in order for the show to survive, i mean really could she have stayed in High School forever? The tone of the show changed as the series needed to evlove and change...

Family Ties definitely changed its premise after the first few seasons. 1 & 2 were all about the parents, 3 was the birth of Andrew and the turning point, and by season 4 the show was all about Alex. Personally, I liked it better when it was about the parents, because I just found it more interesting. Still, the character of Alex was very funny and Michael J. Fox played him so well that its easy to see why the show gravitated towards him. It was unfair to the actors who were supposed to be the stars though, especially Meredith Baxter as her role was diminished more than anyone else. They could have still made Alex a key player while keeping the balance between the other characters, unfortunately they didn't. Despite it all, FT remains my favorite show.:)
This sort of thing seems to be the most common type of change from the original premise: a show thats supposed to be about the parents ends up being about the kids. I've noticed that it only happens when the kids are of a certain age. When the children are very young the show stays about the parents (for example Everybody Loves Raymond). However, with older kids, there seems to be this need to make the show more about them, because as children grow, their position in the family hierarchy gains importance(Home Improvement, as the kids got older, their roles grew). When a show has older kids from the start, it is very difficult to limit their positions and interaction. And if the show is to be about a family, the kids have to be featured more, because just as in real life, as kids grow older, their role in the family grows as well. However, when this occurs, the kids often steal the show. (Family Ties) It would be nice to see a successful family sitcom that stays about the parents for its entire run, without slighting the roles of the kids, but also without making them the stars.

10. Friends (http://whatculture.com/tv/10-tv-shows-which-completely-changed-their-premise?page=2)

9. Doctor Who (http://whatculture.com/tv/10-tv-shows-which-completely-changed-their-premise?page=3)

8. Sabrina The Teenage Witch (http://whatculture.com/tv/10-tv-shows-which-completely-changed-their-premise?page=4)

7. Borgen (http://whatculture.com/tv/10-tv-shows-which-completely-changed-their-premise?page=5)

6. Angel (http://whatculture.com/tv/10-tv-shows-which-completely-changed-their-premise?page=6)

5. Happy Days (http://whatculture.com/tv/10-tv-shows-which-completely-changed-their-premise?page=7)

4. Dollhouse (http://whatculture.com/tv/10-tv-shows-which-completely-changed-their-premise?page=8)

3. Being Human (U.K.) (http://whatculture.com/tv/10-tv-shows-which-completely-changed-their-premise?page=9)

2. Smallville (http://whatculture.com/tv/10-tv-shows-which-completely-changed-their-premise?page=10)

1. Fringe (http://whatculture.com/tv/10-tv-shows-which-completely-changed-their-premise?page=11)

Cheers was originally a romantic comedy about an intellectual who spars with the street smart owner of a bar. Original premise gone after season 5.

Dallas was originally built around the premise of “What if Romeo and Juliet had lived?” Original premise gone after the tenth season.

What about Night Court?