characters going missing in episodes in years 7 and 8

[jamesanthony]

While I'll watch this show all the way through and find it enjoyable the thing I dislike about the last 2 seasons is that very few episodes have all the regulars in them or at least the core players. OK, so Denise is gone and Tempest Bledsoe is away at college in real life and Sondra only appeared part time anyway, but Theo and Rudy are absent far too often in the later shows. In the first 2 years is there any episode that doesn't feature all of the people who are in the picture above? I can't think of any. I think we've talked about Olivia and Pam ad infinitum so I won't even go there about them.

This type of thing is very common in shows especially family sitcoms; as the years go on the cast grows and they are so many people that they don't have eveyone on regularly.